Affordable Housing Goes Green

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Trolley Square is one of many new developments applying sustainable building practices to create a green living environment. The sleek brick building, in the heart of North Cambridge, Mass., tries many ways to conserve energy in the face of long New England winters. It has heavy insulation, high-efficiency boilers, programmable thermostats, variable speed fans, high-efficiency appliances, solar panels and lighting controlled by occupancy sensors. It has storm-water retention tanks to conserve water. It's close to public transportation, to cut down on automobile use. Trolley Square is green, green, green. But the project stands apart from most green developments because it was built for low-income residents.

The developer, Homeowner's Rehab Inc., built 40 affordable residential units, 32 rental and 8 homeownership, in addition to 2,800 sq ft of both community and commercial space and 14,000 sq ft of open space. The total cost of the project came to $15,300,000, funded by grants and loans from the city, the state, the federal government and affordable housing non-profits.

Green building is often regarded as a luxury of the rich, but affordable housing developers are beginning to take on the green standard. Low-income communities, many experts say, have a lot to gain from greener, more sustainable homes. Sustainable building practices lead to energy conservation, water conservation, healthier indoor air quality, more durable structures and access to public transportation - all of which significantly cut down on long-term costs for residents.

The green building movement is also creating more jobs - not only with new construction but also by retrofitting older structures. From a public-health perspective, building affordable housing as green has been shown to reduce injury and disease caused by environmental factors like lead poisoning, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.

While greening houses makes them more affordable on a daily-use basis, the process increases construction costs and also adds the expense of being certified as officially "green." According to an affordable housing study by the non-profit New Ecology Inc., going green can cost developers up to $9,700 more per unit of housing. On average, developers that build green affordable housing face a "greening premium" of roughly 2.42 percent.

This higher cost is the key reason most developers still shy away from building green lower-income housing. Since affordable units are rented or sold below-market rate, any additional building costs can make developers hesitate. In addition, the greening process can also take longer to build, and the certification process requires far more paperwork.

Some housing experts now talk about having local, state and federal governments pick up some of these added costs, in order to make the green standard the mainstream standard for affordable housing.
The challenge with affordable housing is balancing short-term costs with long-term gains, according to New Ecology Inc., a sustainable development group in New England that recently released a cost-benefit analysis of green affordable housing. Take, for example, a building located in a colder climate. Adding more insulation during construction can mean big savings on heating costs, but also means increased initial materials costs.

Other long-term considerations include operational costs, said New Ecology president Ed Connelly. "The challenge for affordable housing isn't just raising the money to build it. It's having the funds going forward to operate it," he said. "It's really not hard to come to a good balance between reducing operating costs by improving construction and performance of new buildings." The additional price for greening these projects is about 2 to 3 percent of the total construction cost, according to da