Green Homes and Sustainable Communities

Last week I attended the 5th Annual IPED Conference on Green Homes and Sustainable Communities. This conference brought together over 200 industry leaders in affordable housing and sustainable building to discuss new ways to push the envelope on energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor air quality, and smart sites. Affordable housing is trending more and more towards being energy efficient and developers are generating significant financial, health, and environmental benefits for their projects and tenants. (Agenda)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan was the keynote speaker. Secretary Donovan said that developing greener buildings and more sustainable communities is the cornerstone of President Obama’s vision for our country. Over the next several weeks, HUD will be finalizing a comprehensive energy action plan that they hope will build on the momentum of Green Retrofit Program created by the Recovery Act (ARRA). Because of the Green Retrofit Program, “private owners of assisted multi-family housing are on their way to retrofitting more than 20,000 units of HUD-assisted housing through HUD’s first one-stop national energy efficiency green retrofit program targeted at improving the performance, heath, and long-term stability of our aging multifamily portfolio.” (Speech) (His Blog Post Regarding the Event)

Developers presented of-the-minute projects that are on the cutting edge of green and affordable housing. These projects were offered as solutions to the one big question which was raised throughout the entire conference: How do you make developing green affordable multi-family housing financially feasible?

The Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) enables low-income families to permanently reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient. However, the way the program is written, it does not work well with the purpose (typically building multi-family units) of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program (federal subsidy that has been used to build 90% of affordable housing stock). For example, one conference participant stated that through WAP, she was able to get funding for energy efficient windows, however, not for the scaffolding to install them.

The take away: Although their are solutions to financing green affordable housing, DOE and HUD need to come together to cut the red tape on this issue and allow the developers and tenents of affordable multi-family housing to experience the financial and health benefits of energy efficient buildings.