On a 17,000-acre patch of land about 15 miles northeast of Fort Myers, Florida, a community that aspires to be the nation’s greenest is on the rise.
With more than 340,000 solar panels in place, Babcock Ranch aims to be the first town in the U.S. powered solely by solar energy. Residents will live in energy-efficient homes and use self-driving electric shuttles to get around. To avoid wasting water, the community is emphasizing less thirsty native vegetation over grass. And all irrigation uses “gray water” reclaimed from the town’s wastewater treatment plant.

Babcock Ranch is the brainchild of Syd Kitson, who played in the NFL before turning to real estate in 1986. When he bought the land near Fort Myers in 2005, he saw it as a blank canvas upon which to create an entirely sustainable community from the ground up.
Or, as he calls it, “an opportunity to prove that a sustainable, really well thought out, and environmentally responsible development could work. We want to prove that something like this can work economically so that others will do it — not just around the country, but around the world.”
First of its kind
There are other smaller-scale sustainable developments in the U.S., and about half a dozen cities have met “100 percent renewable energy” targets using a range of renewables, such as wind and hydropower, according to the Sierra Club.

But experts agree that Babcock Ranch is the first large-scale, master-planned community to be powered by renewable energy in the U.S. — and unusual in that sustainability has been considered in just about every aspect of the development.
“This developer is looking more holistically from a green environmental perspective,” says Haris Alibašić, an assistant professor at the University of West Florida and former director of energy and sustainability policies in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “The project itself is very intriguing to me — to see that somebody is committed to doing that,” he said, adding that he hopes it will set the bar for future developments.
