Luxury Green Homes Become An Arson Target

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 4th 2008 at 6:13PM

The world of luxury eco-friendly housing was shattered this week by the news of the arson fires at the Street of Dreams homes in Snohomish County, Washington. The five homes were part of what's called a "rural cluster development" and were built "five star BuiltGreen" standards. The homes were all unoccupied and listed for sale at prices from approximately $1.6 to $.19 million. The Seattle Times reports that federal investigators are trying to determine whether a group of radical environmentalists known as the Earth Liberation Front, are responsible for the fires. A spraypainted message from the ELF was left at the scene. It said: Built Green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF." Law-enforcement officials wonder if the fires were timed to coincide with jury deliberations in the trial of an alleged ELF member accused of a previous fire.

Monday's fires did $7 million total in damages. The homes had a variety of "green" features such as energy-efficient appliances, native-plant landscaping, high-efficiency insulation and the use of recycled materials. The homes had video-surveillance systems and alarms but they were turned off because they weren't consider to be needed and the homes were for sale and real estate agents were concerned about setting off the alarms.

Tags: arson, elf, green, seattle, washington

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

goofball Mar 4th 2008 11:54PM

i think it was one of the developers. they were $10million in debt from this particular street of nightmares. they didn't find any of the explosive devices that the ELF usually uses. pretty easy to write ELF on something and then burn it down

Tammy Mar 5th 2008 8:23AM

Only one of the houses was 5 star "built green" ... and that was the one that burnt completely to the ground ...

Another house was (I think) 3 star "built green" ...

The only house that had NO damage was the one that allegedly had a buyer very interested in it ... The houses had been on the market since like May/June ... And some had recently lowered the sale price ...

The subdivision's been a thorn in the side of the county govt, neighborhood & ecologists since day one ...