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Eco Village residents will have community produce gardens and common green spaces and walking trails. There are even plans for a small fleet of communal electric cars. Houses are designed to qualify for LEED-Platinum certification. Houses have their own photovoltaic arrays, between 5 kW and 6 kW in capacity, plus solar thermal systems designed to provide about half of the domestic hot water demand. A separate 75 kW PV installation at one end of the property will provide power for community purposes, such as lighting, and will also produce revenue that can go toward additional construction. The many energy enhancements should save a family between $200 and $300 per month in utility bills when compared to a conventional home of the same size and $100,000 over the course of the 30-year mortgage. Since the project was launched, there has been a 69% increase in the number of volunteer hours donated to the local Habitat chapter, and a 59% jump in the number of volunteers. In all, hundreds of volunteers donated 16,000 hours of time to get the first part of the project complete.