Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, Revised Edition
240 pages
7 x 10
25 photos, 25 illustrations
Book Description
The lack of affordable housing and the climate crisis are two of the most pressing challenges facing cities today. Green affordable housing addresses both by providing housing stability, safety, and financial predictability while constructing and operating the buildings to reduce environmental and climate impacts.
Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is the most comprehensive resource on how green building principles can be incorporated into affordable housing design, construction, and operation. In this fully revised edition, Walker Wells and Kimberly Vermeer capture the rapid evolution of green building practices and make a compelling case for integrating green building in affordable housing. The Blueprint offers guidance on innovative practices, green building certifications for affordable housing, and the latest financing strategies. The completely new case studies share detailed insights on how the many elements of a green building are incorporated into different housing types and locations. Case studies include a geographical range, from high-desert homeownership, to southeast supportive housing, and net-zero family apartments on the coasts. The new edition includes basic planning tools such as checklists to guide the planning process, and questions to encourage reflection about how the content applies in practice.
While Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is especially useful to housing development project managers, the information and insights will be valuable to all participants in the affordable housing industry: developers, designers and engineers, funders, public agency staff, property and asset managers, housing advocates, and resident advocates.
Every affordable housing project can achieve the fundamentals of good green building design and practice. By sharing the authors’ years of expertise in guiding hundreds of organizations, Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, Revised Edition gives project teams what they need to push for excellence.
Review Quotes
"Wells and Vermeer have written the must-read for all those engaged in affordable housing.Their persuasive narrative highlights the myriad benefits an integrative approach brings to building new,and maintaining existing,affordable housing.Professionals will find vital insight into and inspiration for how to tackle the challenges of climate, health, social cohesion,and community resilience. The clear take-away: affordable housing that isn’t green and healthy isn’t affordable."
Gail D. A. Vittori, LEED Fellow and Co-director, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems
"Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is a terrific primer, providing great wisdom from the authors' experience as well as from other pioneers in the field. If we truly care about developing affordable housing to help build healthy, vibrant communities, then we'll follow its pragmatic advice."
Dennis Creech, Fund Advisor Sustainability, The Kendeda Fund
"Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is an accessible, practical guide to the core elements of green building practice, including the all-important element of greening ongoing operations! Rich with case studies and supporting resources, it is a robust resource for affordable-housing practitioners to make healthy, high-performance homes the standard for all."
Rebecca Schaaf, Senior Vice President, Energy, Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future
"This practical and inspiring book is a must-read for anybody who shares the belief that green building's benefits should be affordable and accessible to everyone."
Stockton Williams, Executive Director, National Council of State Housing Agencies
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Foreword
Chapter 1: The Case for Greening Affordable Housing
Chapter 2: The Integrated Design Process
Chapter 3: Best Practices in Green Design
Chapter 4: Green Operations
Chapter 5: Costs and Financing
Chapter 6: Looking Forward: Four Trends Redefining Green Affordable Housing
Case Studies
1. Auburn Court, 3 Brookline Place, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2. Avery Hill Solar
3. The Villages at Cabrillo
4. El Camino Crossing
5. The Lace Mill
6. Mutual Housing at Spring Lake
7. Orchards at Orenco I
8. Phoenix House
9. Habitat for Humanity at Plaza Roosevelt
10. The Rose
11. North Santa Fe Apartments
12. Second Street Studios
13. Sendero Verde
14. Senior Residences at Decatur East
Appendix A: Glossary
Appendix B: Checklists
Index