On the Ranch

Be sure to tune in to The Buzz, 1270 AM radio Saturday, November 3rd at 9:00 am to hear Megan Kiley discuss the “Things About Kiley Ranch You Never Knew”. For instance, “What do Stead and Kiley Ranch have in common?”; and, “How does Kiley Ranch benefit non-profit organizations?”. 

 The Bad Money Good Money Show is hosted every Saturday by mortgage expert Peter Padilla of Summit Funding Inc. For more info, click here.

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In the September issue of Urban Land Magazine, an article entitled “The Biggest Little City in the World” highlights the way Reno is taking on many attributes of a big city and becoming a highly desireable place to live in the process.  Here is what author Sam Newberg had to say about Kiley Ranch and its contributions to the overall scheme of things:

“Kiley Ranch is a master planned community in Sparks that will comprise 4,000 housing units and 5 million square feet of commercial space when completed sometime in the next decade. Planned around an iriigation canal that is being preserved as active and passive open space, Kiley Ranch is among the first examples of greenfield development in the Reno area that is mixed use and not simply a response to housing demand. ‘Kiley Ranch is one of the shining stars, and is a good example of the shift away from Euclidian zoning,’ says [Rosanna] Coombes [interim director of regional planning at the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency].

“The Planning Center, based in Costa Mesa, California is working with the developer to create at Kiley Ranch a community with a wide variety of housing and a dense land use plan that includes trails, bike lanes, and roundabouts. The master plan accommodates double the number of units originally planned for the site, a signal that developers and government officials are beginning to understand that the amount of buildable land is somewhat limited int eh area and that greater densities are required to accommodate growth.

“Ground was broken on the housing a couple of years ago,  the information and visitors center opened this summer, and a major retail power center will open in 2009. Following that will be a mixed-use town center that will form the core of Kiley Ranch. Moreover, the community stresses sustainability and green design, using a higher-density, mixed-use plan that encourages walking and use of alternative transportation, thereby reducing automobile emissions. The master plan also preserves wetlands and open space, and the developer encourages green construction practices. ‘Kiley Ranch is a resource-conservative, environmentally sensitive, live/work/shop/play, connected community that will promote a healthy and balanced lifestyle for its residents and businesses,’ says Paul Curtis, chief executive officer of Kiley Ranch Communities.”

To read the entire article, please click here.

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If you have driven past Kiley Ranch in Spanish Springs recently, you have probably noticed a lot of grading taking place just East of Pyramid Highway. What you are seeing is grading for our retail center, and rest assured that we will be making an announcement regarding the identities of some of our tenants before the end of the year!  In the meantime, if you are anxious to see what we have in mind for the future of Kiley Ranch, please click here to check out the virtual tour videos created by Focus 360.

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Saturday, October 13th was an absolutley beautiful day for our first-ever Fall Harvest Festival.  Thank you to everyone who came out to partake in the festivities.  Because of the generous donations from our guests and Farmers’ Market vendors, the Food Bank of Northern Nevada was able to collect 393 pounds of food and enough monetary donations for 2,072 meals! Please enjoy the pictures from our event.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

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In honor of the Kiley Ranch Fall Harvest Festival, this Green Byte segments focuses on organic foods.  Organic and locally grown foods have many benefits to you and your community.

1.  CHEMICAL-FREE - Organic Foods are free of toxic pesticides and unnatural growing techniques.  Research shows that certifies organic foods have higher levels of antioxidants and flavonoids, which both help to reduce of cancer and other diseases.

2.  HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT - Organic Foods help to reduce pollution and protect our water and soil.  With crop diversity and rotation, along with the avoidance of chemicals into our water system, organic foods help to maintain diverse and healthy natural systems.

3.  SUPPORT LOCAL ECONOMY - Buying from local growers helps your community economy by providing vital jobs in the area and promoting our areas natural abundance.

4.  REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT - Buying local and fresh produce reduces carbon emissions due to reduction in transport and need to chill or freeze the items.

5.  ENJOY SEASONAL DIETS - Eating that works in harmony with the in-season food can help the local economy and add interest to your diet.

More resources can be found at the NevadaGrown website, a cooperative effort of the NevadaGrown Marketing Program, Nevada Certified Farmers’ Market Association, and the Nevada Certified Organic Program.

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On Friday, October 5th, Truckee Meadows Tomorrow held its 10th biennial ”Accentuate the Positive” celebration, recognizing individuals and organizations in our community who have made an extraordinary commitment to quality of life.  Thirty-four Silver Star winners were chosen based on their commitment to ten categories including Arts & Cultural Vitality, Civic Engagement, Economic Wellbeing, Education & Lifelong Learning, Enrichment, Health & Wellness, Innovation, Land use & Infrastructure, Natural Environment, and Public Wellbeing.

Kiley Ranch was honored with a Silver Star in the field of Innovation due to our partnership with AT&T to bring fiber to the premises of every home and business within Kiley Ranch.  Kiley Ranch is one of the first developments in the area to offer this new technology to its residents.  This technology provides residents with “advanced entertainment options, high speed internet access, and technologically advanced communications.”  Learn more about the advanced technology  offered at Kiley Ranch here.

 Other Silver Star recipients included The Solace Tree, The Holland Project, The Reno Bike Project, Washoe County Leadership Academy and many others.  To learn more about how you can help improve the quality of life here in the Truckee Meadows, visit http://www.quality-of-life.org/.

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Recommended Reading 1:

See what sort of advice people like Robert Redford, Ellen DeGeneres and Justin Timberlake have on ways to reduce your impact on the environment.  There are hundreds of solutions for every area of your life that are easy to implement and to understand - and the authors deliver it in a way that is fun and inspiring.  Read The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen.

For example:

• Did you know that 10% of the electricity used in your home is burnes by electronic devices and appliances when they are turned off?  Unplug your electronics when they are not in use…
• Luggage: Every additional ten punds per traveler requires an additional 350 million gallons of jet fuel per year!  That is enough to keep a 747 flying continuously for ten years.
• Eliminate plastic bags, plastic utensils and other disposable containers from your children’s lunch.  Use a reusable lunch box with reusable containers and cloth napkins.  You could save $250 a year and reduce the landfill!

For more information visit www.readthegreenbook.com

 Recommended Reading 2:

For the more serious reader, amny leading environmentalists recommend Paul Hawken’s new book - Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming.

“Paul Hawken has spent over a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice.  From billion - dollar nonprofits to single - person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location, and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media….Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and hidden history, which date back many centuries…Fundamentally, it is a description of humanity’s collective genius, and the unstoppable movement to reimagine our relationship to the environment and one another.” - Viking Press 

See www.paulhawken.com to learn more about Paul.

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Friday, September 28th, Kiley Ranch participated in the Inaugural Reno Tahoe YPN Summit.  The keynote speaker, Rebecca Ryan, who is an expert on young professionals and what makes them tick, has helped several cities across the nation form their own YPN organizations (including this one) in order to attract young talent to their regions and make their cities “cooler” places to live. Learn more about what the next generation is looking for at nextgenerationconsulting.com.

 The Summit held Reno’s first “20 Under 40″ awards in order to recognize several of the outstanding young professionals in Greater Reno-Tahoe, and one of the nominees to receive an award was our very own Stacey Crowley, Director of Environmental Initiatives here at Kiley Ranch!

 If you’re interested in joining the Reno-Tahoe YPN, go to renotahoeypn.com to learn more.

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This week, we offer KRC’s first GREEN BYTE – a weekly blog entry that focuses on environmental issues and education.  Today we look at our ecological footprint on the earth.   

In 2002, the European Environment Agency reported that humanity was exceeding its ecological footprint by 23%.  This means that the “human economy is in ecological overshoot: the planet’s ecological stocks are being depleted faster than nature can regenerate them.1”  Wikipedia describes ecological footprint as an analysis that “measures human demand on nature. It compares human consumption of natural resources with planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate them”2.   

American Public Media recently came out with an online game called Consumer Consequences3.  It allows you to plug in attributes on how you live, and then shows how the world would be if everyone lived like you.  It asks questions about your home, your energy use, your recycling habits, how you get around, what you eat and how you shop.  It tallies up your effects on the earth – and the results can be somewhat staggering.  Your impacts are based on an ‘ecological footprint’ model created by APM’s research partner, Redefining Progress.  The most promising part of this is that you are given the opportunity to revise your answers and see how you can reduce your footprint on the earth.  Give it a try and let us know what your footprint is!  Go to http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/ and press “PLAY”. 

Resources:  1.  Europe 2005: The Ecological Footprint by Jon Lebkowsky - http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003807.html2.  Wikipedia,  the free encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint3.  American Public Media - http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/
 

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