Rehab Advisor

Very good resource for evaluating the scope and benefit of various improvements to multi-family and single family structures. Sponsored by the folks behind HUDUser, HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (OPDR), it includes research and recommendations from the Department of Energy and the EPA.

I met some folks from OPDR in 2007 at the National Building Museum’s “Sustainable Design: New Directions for Affordable Housing Symposium”, and found them to be well-informed about building materials and multi-family operations. They presented a welcome focus on what can be achieved through existing structures and the financing to many rather than the more demonstrative projects that due to participants, locations, or costs, are ultimately not easily repeatable. I think Jonathan Rose is an effective advocate for sustainable development, clearly a successful and devoted developer, but many of the examples cited had the feel of one-off efforts that held few useful lessons for those of us who finance and own affordable housing. Maverick Landing is an ambitious, $75 million project, but if you look at its financing structure, very few developers would undertake a similar process.

Symposia materials (Scroll about 3/5 down for lectures, materials, and background papers)

See also “Big & Green” for occasional lectures and materials on sustainable technologies.

The Rehab advisor serves largely as the front end to a database full of ideas about energy efficiency. Each page contains a summary of the proposed action, a rough cost estimate (per unit and/or psf) and an estimate of energy savings. Much of the data was last updated in 2005, so the numbers may need to be re-examined. Nevertheless, as a place to start planning a rehab or operational improvements, this is one of the best resources available.