Spend just over half a million for a posh, ultragreen home in Fishtown, and builder Patrick McDonald will toss in an all-electric Chinese car.

A bit of green bling? Or "gling," as it's come to be known. Maybe. But McDonald's little design/build outfit, Onion Flats, is also clearly and most sincerely green. They famously battled City Hall for the right to build sustainably and won.

Burnishing their reputation, Onion Flats will soon finish the city's first LEED-gold homes, at Hewson and Berks. (LEED is a sustainability certification of the U.S. Green Building Council.) McDonald brags that they will earn their first gold before the Comcast Tower gets their silver.

PAID ADVERTISEMENT

"And we don't have any urinals that are plumbed up in the walls," adds McDonald, Onion Flats' construction chief, whose personal fashion statement leans toward lumberjack.

With this house and car comes a dedicated parking spot and an electric socket built into the sidewalk so you can charge your car from your solar-paneled roof. All with blessings from McDonald's new friends in government.

"We went to our good friends, Jim Kenney and Vincent Fumo, who are huge proponents of green in the city. They've been very, very helpful in everything we've taken on in the last year.

Having friends in high places is new for the 10-year-old firm. A couple of years ago, the gonzo developers couldn't get city permits for green innovation.

"Talk about guerrilla warfare with the city," said McDonald. "Me, a master plumber, growing up in a family of plumbers. At the time, I knew nothing about LEED. But I thought it was crazy not to collect rainwater."

McDonald wanted the water for the green roofs at Rag Flats, another Onion Flats' Fishtown project, where McDonald now lives.

"We tried to make it legal," said McDonald. But no city bureaucrat would sign off on it. So McDonald went ahead anyway, buried the 6,000-gallon cistern without a single city permit and held his breath.

Then something amazing happened: Word got around about Onion Flats' impressive engineering and the Philadelphia Water Department honored them at a testimonial dinner. "From the Water Department to the mayor's office," says McDonald, "we are forging amazing relationships with the city."

But McDonald insists that success hasn't come from a green agenda or their guerrilla tactics. He says it's all about how they treat communities.

"A neighborhood doesn't belong to us," says McDonald. "For us to have the right to come into a neighborhood, we sit down with neighbors and make sure they're OK with it. We don't take the arrogant approach you see with a lot of big developers."

During the mayoral campaign, Nutter tapped McDonald for advice on how to build sustainably. McDonald suggested embedding sustainability in city building codes, and rewarding green ratings with fast-tracked permits.

Though, ironically, McDonald admits, now that Onion Flats is everyone's favorite iconoclast, the city's ignorance of things green actually encourages their innovation. "It's actually a better position to be in than if someone is breathing down your throat telling you how to build sustainably."

Having new friends in City Hall, says McDonald, doesn't change Onion Flats' basic principle: to build with communities. "We like to have fun getting communities rocking and rolling. This is the 'City of Brotherly Love.' And as far as I'm concerned, you can't love your brother, unless you include him."

And it probably doesn't hurt to toss in a free car.