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Larry Page’s Neighbors Think His ‘Green’ House Is A Load Of Crap

Google founder Larry Page may be trying to be a friend to the environment by building a “green” house, but he’s not being a very good friend to his Palo Alto neighbors (at least according to them). And, for what it’s worth, they don’t think he’s being a particularly good friend to the environment, either.

Page is in the midst of erecting a just shy of 10,000-square-foot home in Palo Alto, not far from Google Headquarters. In order to build the almost 3,500-square-foot basement, the construction crew has to continuously pump water into this basement, which, according to the Palo Alto Daily News, neighbors have deemed both wasteful and annoying. Sounds like it.

One neighborhood resident estimated the construction crew is pumping two or three gallons per second into the storm drain. That’s somewhere between 7,200 and 10,800 gallons of water an hour. This began in the Fall and, after a city-mandated Winter break, picked up again in April.

The first question: Is Page going to get away with it? You bet. City officials say it’s allowed and isn’t that significant of a concern environmentally. Huh.

And the second question: Will his house still be considered “green?” Affirmative, again. The GreenPoint system, which is sort of like the LEED certification for homes, awards GreenPoints for energy-efficient appliances or things like green roofs, but it doesn’t penalize should you choose to outfit your house with energy-guzzling features. That’s good news for Page’s house, which includes three kitchens and an elevator.

Page is allegedly a big believer in energy-efficient technologies – he and Google co-founder Sergey Brin were early purchasers and  investors in electric car company Tesla motors, for example. Still, we have to wonder: Is Page a real environmentalist, or just a green poser for show?

TAGS: google | green house | larry page google | larry page green house | palo alto green house

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