On first blush, Babcock Ranch might appear to be just another massive, sprawling Florida new town development, flush with hundreds—soon thousands—of single-family homes. But on closer inspection, this 18,000-acre (28 square mile) town 15 miles northwest of Ft. Myers is something very different, and it gained significant national attention when it survived the 140-mph winds and flooding of Hurricane Ian in late-September 2022 virtually unscathed—and even sheltered residents from nearby communities devastated by the storm.

So what makes Babcock Ranch different? To answer that, RDI looked beyond the headlines into the underpinnings of the town. We found a lot more than a model of resilience.

Background

Babcock Ranch was a 91,000-acre (143 sq mi) property in southwest Florida when it was acquired by Kitson & Partners in a complex real estate transaction in which 80% of the land was immediately sold to the State of Florida. The property is named after Edward Vose Babcock, a past mayor of Pittsburgh, PA, who purchased the land in 1914.

The Babcock family conducted diverse timber, agriculture, and mining operations on the land, but sought to sell the property to the State in the late-1990s to create a conservation preserve and retain some ranching operations. An agreed-upon 2005 real estate transaction was stymied by state laws prohibiting the state from acquiring private company stock.

The private development company, Kitson & Partners, founded by the former professional football player Syd Kitson, stepped in and purchased the entire property in 2006, then immediately sold roughly 73,000 acres of the land to the State, with some of the funding from Lee County, to create the Babcock Ranch Preserve, which continues ranching operations that support the maintenance costs of the preserve. The remainder of the land is being developed in an environmentally responsible manner.

“Developers have an impact on the environment, and we need to mitigate those impacts,” Kitson told RDI. “What I set out to prove is that building a new town—a new city—can work hand-in-hand with the environment. I think we’re doing just that.”

Kitson & Partners, with input from public planning meetings held in 2006 as well as outside experts including the Rocky Mountain Institute, developed an environmentally sensitive master plan with a high-tech commercial center that would include an R&D hub for clean energy development, four villages and five hamlets that would ultimately comprise nearly 20,000 homes and six million square feet of commercial space—all powered by solar energy. Under the plan, roughly two-thirds of the remaining property would be permanently set aside as open space.

Site design and wetland engineering

As promised, nearly 12,000 acres of the 18,000 that Kitson & Partners retained, has been permanently protected as wetlands, uplands, greenways, and preserves. “Our water management plan is one that uses the natural flow-ways within the community versus clearcutting and forcing the water to go where it doesn’t want to go,” Kitson explained. “We went back and looked at maps a hundred years old and found the natural flow-ways.”

The wetlands were designed to mimic natural flows and provide natural stormwater management, according to civil engineer Amy Wicks, P.E., the engineer of record for Babcock Ranch Community and vice-president of Kimley-Horn, which provided surface water management design, master planning, landscape architecture, roadway design, water and wastewater engineering, and permitting services for Babcock Ranch.

“The water management system is a multi-faceted design that utilizes a natural systems approach, coupled with redundancy to protect infrastructure,” Wicks told RDI. “While the system internal to Babcock Ranch starts with a series of rain gardens that ultimately lead to lakes for stormwater attenuation (detention), these systems then utilize a series of created wetlands and natural flow-ways for storage, similar to how natural wetlands act as storage during large storm events naturally.”

According to Wicks, the entire system at Babcock Ranch “is designed to detain, not retain, water.” Water is continuously discharged from the property, “but we do not increase the peak discharge from the pre-development condition.” Infiltration is not really part of the design, because the soils are not well-drained and not conducive to percolation, according to Wicks.

The nature-based approach used for water management at Babcock Ranch is very different from conventional practice in Southwest Florida. The standard approach, according to Wicks, relies on berms and pipes connecting lakes in series. “Our lakes are all interconnected throughout the entire community, and the connections are redundant,” she said, “…so the system can operate both in parallel and in series.”

During extreme events, such as hurricanes, this distributed approach is highly advantageous, because it prevents blockages of culverts from causing flooding. “By having a system that operates both in series and in parallel, the system will flow a different direction with little effort,” she explained, “allowing it to function normally, even with blockages.”

Water from Babcock Ranch ultimately flows into the Caloosahatchee River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

Land-use also involves public recreation. Fifty miles of trails and pathways are being created throughout the town. Wetlands, rich with wildlife, are providing destinations for birders as well as hikers and paddlers.

Buildings at Babcock Ranch

Approximately 2,000 dwelling units have now been completed at Babcock Ranch, with hundreds more under construction at any given time. Most are single-family homes, but some are attached villas, townhomes, condos, and apartments, according to Jennifer Languell, Ph.D., who has served as the green building and sustainable development advisor through her company Trifecta Construction. The entire community will be incorporated as Babcock Ranch City, though that will be somewhat down-the-road.

All buildings at Babcock Ranch must be certified by the Florida Green Building Coalition’s Green Home or Commercial standards, which Languell describes as similar to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating, but specifically designed for hot-humid climates. She notes that this is “the only certification program that contains a disaster mitigation section.” Under the building code, “homes are required to be designed to 160-mph wind loads,” says Languell.

The average Home Energy Rating Score (HERS) for homes at Babcock Ranch is 58—which Languell says is “25% more efficient than the Florida Energy Code, which is fairly stringent.” Electric heat pumps are used for all heating and cooling, though natural gas is used in some houses for cooking and water heating.

Both indoor and outdoor water conservation is a community focus, according to Languell. “All plumbing fixtures must be at a minimum WaterSense, but we find that most builders are doing better than the minimum WaterSense conservation levels.”

Ryan Foelske, a resident at Babcock Ranch, whom RDI interviewed, estimates that 70% of housing units are single-family, 20% multi-story condos/townhouses, and the remaining 10% are “twin-villas” or duplexes. He says a rental apartment complex is under construction.

Foelske’s house was built by national homebuilder, Pulte Homes, which is one of about eight builders that have built homes at Babcock Ranch—a group that also includes D.R. Horton, Lennar, Toll Brothers, and Meritage Homes. The list of homebuilders will be expanding in future phases of development.

Foelske works remotely for the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), where he focuses on using finance to decarbonize the U.S. electric utilities sector. The choice of Babcock Ranch was very much related to Foelske’s work. “Babcock Ranch was an obvious place to live as someone who wants as much of my life to ‘rhyme’ as possible,” he told RDI. “Living here shows that one can have a ‘normal’ life that automates sustainability without giving up the modern comforts we’re accustomed to.”

Foelske’s wife teaches at Babcock Neighborhood School, which their two children attend. “The idea that a more sustainable and environmentally conscious life could be automatic was a powerful motivator to moving here,” he said. “Being solar-powered and consciously using resources is important, and packaging those things into a true community atmosphere, where neighbors know each other and look out for each other across the community was also a major factor.”

A solar city

Babcock Ranch bills itself as “America’s first solar city.” As part of the development plan, Florida Power & Light (FPL) operates two solar farms that generate 150 MW on 840 acres of Babcock Ranch. The FPL arrays produce enough electricity to power 30,000 homes—more than will exist at Babcock Ranch at buildout. The rest of the power is fed into the FPL grid.

Kitson describes the relationship with FPL as extremely positive. Kitson & Partners gave FPL 440 acres for the first 75-MW solar plant, and the company purchased another 400 acres to build a second array. More than 700,000 solar panels have been installed on these 840 acres. In addition to the large ground-mounted solar array, most of the commercial buildings have extensive solar arrays on their roofs.

A 10-MW battery system helps with power management, but this is really part of what Babcock Ranch refers to as their “Living Laboratory,” according to Languell, which will showcase new and emerging energy technologies. “As battery technology is changing rapidly, we continue to work with Florida Power and Light to research and potentially test next-generation systems,” she said.

Dan Slone, Esq., an attorney with extensive experience in green developments and owner of Vertical Vision (who has not been involved with this project), credits Babcock Ranch with completing the deal with FPL, which had historically been resistant to large solar installations in their territory. Indeed, today, FPL has a goal of installing more than 30 million solar panels by 2030 (their ’30-by-30’ Plan) and make Florida a leader in solar energy production.

Requiring natural landscaping

For a planned community in Florida, Babcock Range goes pretty far in mandating native landscaping and minimal chemical treatments. “In common areas Babcock requires 90% native vegetation, and for the homesites, 75% must be native,” says Languell.

Languell explained that “in general fertilizers are not permitted during the rainy season, unless there is a specific need such as grow-in [the period of time when plantings are being established]. Controlled-release fertilizers, or non-chemical water-soluble, foliar-applied fertilizers are allowed.” Quick-release fertilizers are allowed only for establishing plantings, but they must not contain any urea nitrogen.”

“We require native plant materials here,” says Kitson. “We decided that we were going to go for something authentic. What did Florida look like one hundred or two hundred years ago? There’s a reason those native plant materials do very well in hurricanes and dry seasons and wet seasons—they’re accustomed to it.” Kitson, who doesn’t have any lawn area at his own Babcock Ranch home, describes the native landscaping as beautiful. “I think if you drove through Babcock Ranch you would notice almost immediately that this area is different.”

Yards at Babcock Ranch can only be 30% grass. Lawns are restricted, explains Kitson, because they don’t want the chemicals—including phosphates and nitrates—contaminating their surface waters. “Our lakes are crystal clear because of the limerock, and we don’t want to do anything that disrupts that,” he said. “There are no algae blooms here.”

Non-automobile transportation

Open spaces in the community will include at least 50 miles of trails and 100 miles of sidewalks, according to Lauguell. With so much commercial space at Babcock Ranch and with telecommuting more common since COVID, a lot of families are able to get rid of a second vehicle.

When Foelske and his family moved to Babcock Ranch they were able to downsize to one car. They do much of their driving within Babcock Ranch using their electric golf cart, or bicycles. All houses come standard with an outlet in the garage for charging an electric vehicle, according to Foelske. “We use our electric golf cart for most trips around town, whether to school, parks, pools, or even grocery shopping,” he said. “I also have an electric bike that I use when it’s just myself needing to run an errand or grab a quick loaf of bread from the store.”

Foelske describes Babcock Ranch as being extremely pedestrian-friendly, with wide sidewalks and pathways running throughout the entire development. “Every road has a bike lane,” he said. “It’s exactly two miles to the grocery store, also the site of two restaurants, a pack-and-ship store, vet, dentist, and more to come; it’s one mile to Founder’s Square, where there are two more restaurants, The Hatchery (a co-working space), preschool, gym, and health center; and 1.5 miles to the school, playground, pickleball courts, and community pool.”

Telecommuting from Babcock Ranch is made very easy because of the one gigabyte of fiber going to every home. Because of this, Foelske hasn’t had to worry about connectivity or bandwidth issues that a lot of his remote-working colleagues deal with. There is also free WiFi throughout common areas of Babcock Ranch.

Diversity?

A lot of planned communities in Florida focus on retirees. Not so with Babcock Ranch, according to Syd Kitson. “In Florida, it’s very easy to become an empty-nester community—a retirement community,” he told RDI. “But we’re not. We are multi-generational.” He described how their Food Truck Night every Friday at Founder’s Square brings out a couple thousand people or all ages. “You’ll see literally hundreds of kids running around, playing football, just being kids,” he said.

While Babcock Ranch has done well with multi-generational diversity, they’re still working on racial diversity. “I think we can do better,” said Kitson.

Resilience features

Several factors contributed to Babcock Ranch’s performance during Hurricane Ian. For starters, most of the land is about 30 feet above sea level—veritable highlands for South Florida! Wicks says the natural grade ranges from 11′ to 32′ NAVD (North American Vertical Datum).

All homes at Babcock Ranch are built “one foot above the flood elevation of a 25-year event followed by a 100-year event,” according to Wicks. This standard was adopted to address the increased flood vulnerability when soils are already saturated from prior precipitation, and it equates to about 11” of rain followed by 14” of rain (25” total), she told RDI.

There are no basements to flood, because all buildings are slab-on-grade (which is standard practice for much of Florida). Fill dirt from creating the lakes was used to elevate house sites on the building lots.

Specialized floodproofing measures, such as flood vents and use of wettable materials (materials that can get wet and dry out without growing mold), are not required at Babcock Ranch, according to Wicks, “because we do not anticipate any flooding events.” She explained that “because of the extra precautions taken in the design of the elevations and the stormwater management system, floodproofing of the buildings is not necessary.”

Resilience also involves protection from winds. “All utilities are underground,” Kitson told RDI. The Babcock Ranch-owned water, wastewater, and reclaimed water pipes were co-located with conduit for electricity and data utilities. With all utilities buried, risk of damage from storms is all but eliminated.

Hip roofs are used on most single-family homes to protect against high wind, because of the better performance in high wind than gable roofs. Hurricane strapping, continuous structural connections between foundation and roof framing, and other structural requirements are rigorous—as mandated by the Florida Building Code, which Kitson credits with dramatic improvements in how well newer homes perform throughout Florida.

“I’m really proud of the state,” Kitson told RDI. He explained that the state put in “great building codes” following Hurricane Andrew in 1992. While community-scale resilience might be lacking in development projects around the state, “the homes themselves do quite well.”

Homebuilders who build at Babcock Ranch also have to either install hurricane-rated windows or supply homeowners with removable hurricane shutters. Foelske explained how storm-prep for him and his neighbors mostly involved installing hurricane shutters, with contractors from Pulte Homes helping out as needed.

So how did Babcock Ranch do with Hurricane Ian?

When asked if he was worried as Hurricane Ian was approaching Babcock Ranch, developer Syd Kitson recounted his experience of being there:

“I didn’t sleep for 48 hours. I was sitting here and had the weather on, and the weatherperson said, ‘the hurricane is now a Category 4 and it’s headed right for Babcock Ranch.’ I remember thinking to myself that this was going to be the test: all the planning, all the people that had been involved in creating this place, the architects, the engineers, everybody who really stepped forward believing in this vision….

“What was really hard about it was that it just sat on top of us for hours and hours. It just started to wear you out. When it hit eight hours, it was just exhausting. From where I was, the winds were so intense it was hard to see anywhere. When there was any kind of lull—and a lull was 100 miles an hour—I’d look across at the town, and all the roofs were on, trees were still up. Was I concerned? Yes, because I had 5,000 neighbors who were depending upon the promise we had made that it was a resilient community and they could shelter-in-place safely.

“What struck me first was that the power never went out. We were the only place in Charlotte County—in the entire county—that had power. But what that meant was that you could watch all this live on TV and see everything that was happening all around you. It was a very surreal feeling to be able to see it, to be right in the middle of it, and have everyone talking about it. That eastern side of the eyewall was right over the top of us, with those brutal winds.

“So it really wasn’t until the next morning…the wind died down to gusts of probably 20-30 miles an hour, and I was waiting for any kind of daylight. As soon as the sun started to come up, I jumped in my car and just started driving. I drove for 4-5 hours, hit every single neighborhood, talked to all my neighbors here to see how they all made out. It was striking to see how little damage there was.

“Some of the younger trees had gone over, but we just tilted those back up. The ones that had rooted—that had been here a little longer—did very very well. …Some of the signage was damaged, and some of the roof shingles or tiles had been dislodged. But other than that, if you drove through here a day later, you would not know that all around us—I mean ALL around us—there was destruction or that a Category 4 hurricane basically sat over us for over eight hours. The emotional part of it was watching neighbors helping neighbors. All they were really doing was taking down the shutters, but everybody helping each other to do that, and everybody being thankful that with this storm that came over us, they didn’t lose electricity, they didn’t lose water, everything worked.”

Babcock Ranch resident Ryan Foelske also rode out the storm with his family. “We lost three to five ridgecaps on our roof and had a few trees become uprooted,” he reported. Many neighbors had similar amounts of damage, and 50% had major damage to their screen enclosures—which we, somehow, did not experience.”

Most of the damage Foelske saw at Babcock Ranch was downed trees, bent or broken signs, damaged screen enclosures, and mostly modest loss of shingles or metal roofing. “Compared to outside of Babcock Ranch, we fared extremely well.” When he went out to Lowes or a doctor’s appointment outside of the development, even a few weeks later, it was a “much different story,” with blue tarps over roofs, debris piled up on curbs, missing business signs and roofs. There was “carnage in any direction—not just toward the coast.”

Looking ahead

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Kitson & Partners is looking at what needs to change in their design standards. “We’ve done a full look at what’s happened,” Kitson told RDI. “We have a detailed analysis of how we performed. And there are certain things that we are going to change.” Kitson described these changes as minor in nature. “What we really discovered was that there were a lot of things we did right, so we’re not going to change any of those.”

Seeing how well Babcock Ranch performed during Hurricane Ian was eye-opening to the builders working there, according to Kitson. “Some builders who don’t like how tough we are with our standards—I think this opened [their] eyes to say, ‘wow, these standards really worked.’ I think we’ll have less pushback going forward.”

One significant change Kitson is focused on has to do with the insurance industry and the difficulty Babcock Ranch residents have getting affordable insurance. Insurance companies lump Babcock Ranch into the Southwestern Florida region, according to Kitson, rather than looking at actual performance. “We have real data now that we can point to and say this is how we perform. I do think we’re going to be able to help ourselves not only in getting insurance policies, period, but hopefully more competitive in the pricing.”

When asked how Babcock Ranch could be improved, Ryan Foelske suggested a move entirely away from natural gas—which is still used in many homes for cooking and water heating. With all the solar power produced right at Babcock Ranch, it would be a great place to move away from fossil fuels and demonstrate the transition to all-electric.

The electric transition could happen in a few relatively easy—yet highly visible—ways, suggests Foelske: by providing power to the food trucks that operate each Friday night at Founder’s Square (so they wouldn’t have to use generators); by requiring landscaping contractors to use only battery-powered electric equipment; and by providing Babcock Security with electric vehicles (EVs) to replace their gasoline-powered vehicles.

There is also a strong desire for Babcock Ranch to serve as a model that can be replicated elsewhere. “One of our focuses continues to be education—to homeowners and builders,” according to Languell. “Part of the plan is to have people copy what we have done here,” she told RDI.

Foelske calls Babcock Ranch “a wonderful place to live” and an example of how developments can embrace sustainability. “The town’s design and structure has now been through a major test—and came out the other side as a shining example of how thoughtfulness and resilience can weather a storm,” he said. “I’m excited to see more places like this and see existing communities embrace parts of the concept to ensure that their community is able to make living a sustainable live automatic.”

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Along with founding the Resilient Design Institute in 2012, Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed. To receive e-mail notices of new blogs, sign up at the top of the page.