Enterprise calls for low income energy efficiency

Essentially a position piece that encompasses an exceptional range of societal ills, Enterprise nevertheless identifies some reasonable solutions to promoting energy efficiency for LIHTC and other low income programs.

Enterprise describes one of the problems thusly: “In many areas, the utility allowance estimates for tax credit developments are based on older properties with much higher energy costs due to less efficient design and construction than is possible and increasingly common today. This results in higher than necessary utility allowances for many tax credit properties and reduces the incentive for developers to incorporate energy- and water-efficient features into their developments. Owners generally are not able to use alternative sources or methodologies.”

In bullet point form, Enterprise recommends:
• Building capacity to implement low-cost improvements
• Expanding and leveraging funding for weatherization
• Ensuring climate change legislation supports low-income home energy efficiency
• Funding the Energy Efficiency Block Grant and prioritizing very low-income homes
• Investing in green jobs and prioritizing homebuilding and rehabilitation
• Strengthening HUD’s commitment to energy efficiency
• Greening the revitalization of distressed public housing communities
• Improving and expanding federal tax credits for residential energy efficiency and solar power
• Incentivizing major financial institutions to finance energy efficient very low-income homes
• Supporting research and driving innovation

National Green Building Standard submitted to ANSI for certification

The National Green Building Standard (NGBS) (http://www.nahbrc.org/technical/standards/greenbuilding.aspx) a joint effort of the National Multi-Housing Council, National Association of Home Builders, and the International Code Council, recently submitted the second draft of the NGBS to ANSI for acceptance as a standard for green home building construction practices.

Based on building codes, the new standards would be compliant with future revisions of IBC and a product of public comment and input.The submitted draft and comments from the first draft can be found on the NAHB website.

Most helpfully, this proposed standard incorporates a multi-family perspective that is missing not only from previous efforts but also those of other organizations. From the NMHC’s perspective, “LEED for Homes, like other green building rating systems, was crafted as a voluntary program that established aspirational green building goals. The USGBC has consistently maintained that LEED for Homes is designed to target the top 25 percent of new homes in terms of environmental responsibility and was never intended to be a baseline green building standard. As a result, LEED rating systems include complex and time-consuming certification and documentation requirements and inflexible technical provisions that can prove problematic in mainstream apartment construction.”

With the integration into IBC (which states and localities have the option of accepting), this is a significant game changer. When combined with IBC and heating and cooling codes, the NGBS should make all construction sustainable. This will require a substantial retraining of architects, engineers, and contractors, as well as cooperation from underwriters and MAI. We are actively exploring this at the office and I hope to know more as the comment period proceeds.

HR 6078: GREEN (Green Resources for Energy-Efficient Neighborhoods)

I’ll have to take a longer look at the bill, but it seems to replicate or perhaps enhance the energy efficient mortgage and Fannie transit proximity bonus programs that are already extant. When I spoke with folks at HUD at last year’s Greening Affordable Housing conference, they said the EEM program was not very effective. I think the various building technology programs at HUD and DOE probably achieve most of what a ‘sustainable building institute’ would accomplish.

Press release as article.

LEED 2009 Follows MS Windows model of customer choice

Gleefully embracing the idea that if one LEED rating system is good then 9 LEED systems must be whatever is more impressive than gaping mouthed awe. It’s unclear if this is an effort to make the process look more rigorous or ‘attentive’ to special building types, but all those studying for or re-upping for AP designation will need to get some more flashcards.

In fairness, LEED 2009 (aka LEED v3) will incorporate some baseline concepts common to all 9 (!) systems as well as more coherent and achievable goals. Most interestingly is the notion of regionalization as defined by regional councils of USGBC.

Nevertheless, what sounds most intriguing is the concept of an Alternate Compliance Path using lifecycle assessments to award points in the Materials and Resource section. This program is discussed in greater detail at NTHP’s “Preservation Nation”, but everything is still in hush-hush draft mode and not yet ready for public comment.

You can read more about these initial efforts at an earlier Preservation Nation post, “A Report from the Greenbuild Conference in Chicago – Part 2”

Governments Are Urged to Build Greener – washingtonpost.com

Governments Are Urged to Build Greener – washingtonpost.com: The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments called for a new wave of ‘green building’ across the region yesterday, recommending that local governments build structures according to environmentally friendly standards and that they push private developers to do the same.The council’s recommendations, approved during a board meeting yesterday, are not binding for the 21 local governments on the council. But council officials said they hope that laws will change soon and that the Washington area’s next wave of develop”Which explains why San Francisco’s new green initiative is a… potentially costly error.

“The city’s Office of Economic Analysis has issued a report concluding that the city guidelines would significantly reduce greenhouse gases over time. But it also found that the higher costs of constructing environmentally sustainable buildings would translate to higher housing prices and commercial rents, slow construction rates and possibly discourage businesses from locating and expanding in the city.The report also analyzed a possible alternative: charging local businesses a tax based on energy use that results in greenhouse gas emissions. The Office of Economic Analysis concluded such a program could reduce pollution without affecting the city’s economy.” Report here.

Meme of the Moment: Responsible Property Investing

Professor Gary Pizo, University of Arizona, is a leading author and proponent of Responsible Property Investment (RPI). His recent paper, “Responsible property investment criteria developed using the Delphi Method” (Building Research & Information, (2008) Vol. 36, Iss. 1) discusses the development of criteria used to evaluate the micro (property level) and macro (community level) value of property investments.

The Delphi Method, which uses multi-round feedback from a group of experts as a way to achieve ‘broadly considered opinion’, was employed in a 3 round exercise involving experts from socially responsible investing (35%), real estate (40%), engineering and design (8%), and academia (17%). Using a group of 51 experts to start, the Delphi Method helped prioritize 66 criteria when considering responsible property investing. There was considerable overlap amongst the top 20 criteria, and among the top 10, most are derivations of either efficient use of utilities or proximity to multi-modal transportation. Most interesting is Table 4, which describes the criteria using categories such as location, site and building design, owner behavior, occupant behavior, and operations and maintenance. Tellingly for my purposes, 52 of the 66 criteria had some overlap in operations and maintenance. In short, investors value the sustainability of their sustainable investment. Overall, an interesting paper that should lead to further investigation by academia and industry.