Univeral Design
EDITOR:Â Thank you for a wonderful article about Graton Green and Green Valley Village, and thank you for including the news release about our Gathering on Sept. 30.
I notice that you didn’t mention that six of the Green Valley Village houses will be built according to the principles of Universal Design, which refer to creating buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to older people, people with disabilities, and people without disabilities.
 A couple of years ago I mentioned this to Orrin, and he immediately saw the wisdom of it: that people will be able to age in place when they can no longer handle stairs or need wider doorways. Also, Universal Design allows for family and friends to easily visit if the house is universally designed. And, according to Orrin, it doesn’t cost a significant amount. Years ago, Lee Saylor Estimators did an analysis of the cost of Universal Design. It cost less than 1 percent of total building costs.
Just thought your readers would be interested in this aspect of the development. Thanks again for the story.Â
HolLynn D’Lil
Graton
CORRECTIONS
Last week’s story about the Sebastopol Independent Charter School contained several errors. It incorrectly listed the purchase price of the property at $8.5 million — that was the price tag for the entire project. The property, which was purchased from the Salmon family, cost $2.5 million. The amount of the loan from the Rudolph Steiner Foundation was $4.2 million, not $4.5 million, and the vote of the board of supervisors approving the school’s use permit was 5-0, not 6-0. (There are only five supervisors.) Boy, do we regret those errors.
In addition, the article about the new Graton Green mistakenly listed the percentage of the cost of the property being paid for by a grant from the Sonoma County Agriculture and Open Space District at 40 percent. That grant will actually pay for 60 percent of the park.
