Homes Come With Solar Installed; Asking Between $869,000 and $895,000
By Jondi Gumz
The new European-style home development in Scotts Valley with built-in solar power may be the wave of the future.
The Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon cutting for The Terrace at Scotts Valley, a new home development, Feb. 8. • Photo credit Paul Burrowes
The Terrace at Scotts Valley, 10 single-family attached homes, is tucked into a 2.6-acre lot off Scotts Valley Drive, with nine more to be built.
One unit has already been sold and five are in escrow, leaving four homes currently on the open market.
The three-story design looks like rowhouses, where homes share a wall, but Paul Burrowes of David Lyng Real Estate, the listing agent, explained at an open house last month that is not the case.
Each home has its own wall, and there is a one-inch air space in between.
Burrowes said this is to reduce sound and provide more insulation.
Granite boulders excavated from the property off Scotts Valley Drive now grace the entrance to The Terrace homes. • Photo credit Jondi Gumz
Once inside, you don’t hear street noise even though the location sits above two busy streets.
Each home is 1,858 square feet, three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms.
Prices range from $859,000 to $895,000, comparable to asking prices for the newly built Aptos Village townhomes. The Terrace homeowner fees for common areas, road maintenance and landscaping are $179 a month.
Picture windows face out to mountains in the front and the landscaped hillside with a patio in the back — not face to face with your neighbor.
“More privacy,” Burrowes said.
Attendees of the open house at The Terrace chat outside. • Photo credit Jondi Gumz
The hillside has been planted with cypress, a fast-growing tree, and rosemary.
Each homeowner has a garage, a parking space outdoors and a guest parking spot.
“More than what the city requires,” Burrowes said. “We have the space.”
The wall-mounted heating and cooling units are expensive but efficient, according to developer Chris Perri, who saw them in Italy.
“It’s unusual, but in the future, it’s what people are going to wan to do,” he said, noting California’s new building energy efficiency requirements.
He opted to incorporate solar ahead of the state’s requirement.
“We’ve been doing it since 2009,” he said. “It’s a good selling point and it’s the right thing to do.”
The hillside location posed some challenges.
Chris Perri, developer of The Terrace at Scotts Valley, stands in the patio of one of the new homes. • Photo credit Jondi Gumz
The state requires stormwater runoff prevention, and in this case Perri installed retaining walls and four collection drains that send eight inches of water per hour to a recharge area for the Santa Margarita Aquifer on Scotts Valley Drive.
City Council member Donna Lind said that installation, along with low-flow toilets and faucets, will result in more water saved than when the site had nothing but trees.
Previously, the wooded property was an attractive spot for teens and homeless campers, and she had concerns about fire safety.
When Robert Cromer, the Freedom-based builder, started work at the site, he was surprised to find massive granite boulders underground, requiring time and jackhammers to get them out.
The boulders, once extracted, now grace the entrance into the development.
“I’m really impressed,” said Janet Van Zanen of Boulder Creek, who came to the open house. “They’re really built well. I’m blown away by the views.”
She added, “It’s really quiet.”
Willie Croskrey said he liked the three-story design with bedrooms upstairs but wondered who could afford the price.
“A million-dollar home, you’re paying $3,500 to $4,000 a month,” he said.
The Terrace at Scotts Valley brochure includes a page with calculations for an investor buying one unit, estimating rent of $4,000 a month, an interest-only loan at 4 percent with 25 percent down, netting $6,237 positive cash flow.
