Envision

What does green affordable housing look like? How can I make sure that it is built to benefit residents, the environment, and the economy?

It's All About the Elements.

To start, get to know the key elements of any green building. Energy and water efficiency, good indoor air quality, waste reduction, and site design can help build community, care for the environment, and realize significant savings in building operations.

Decisions, decisions...

Next understand how the best opportunities to green any project come early in the design phase. Deciding to build green from the start will allow a developer to do much more with the same budget, in large part because doing so will get the whole team on board and raise expectations about what can be accomplished. Go the Decisions page.

Life (cycle) is beautiful!

Think about the economic and environmental costs and benefits of green building over the life of an affordable housing development. Look for safe, durable, and efficient materials, designs, and methods that minimize these life-cycle costs. Go to the Life-cycle page.

Measure Up

Look to green building guidelines and standards, benchmarking tools, and energy modeling software to see how a proposed project measures up. Use these tools to guide your decision-making and help you verify and evaluate green building efforts. Go to the Measure Up page.

Envisioning green development means taking affordable housing and community planning to the next level. When policy makers and developers take advantage of all that green building has to offer, affordable housing can give residents manageable utility bills, durable, attractive, and healthy homes, and vibrant neighborhoods.