NEW POLICY LANDSCAPE FOR HOUSING
Green Affordable Housing Encourages Greater Collaboration
In an op-ed article in Affordable Housing Finance, Enterprise Senior Vice President Stockton Williams identifies opportunities to expand support for affordable housing in expected federal action next year on climate change, energy and transportation. “Green affordable homes are an important part of the solution to these issues, encouraging greater collaboration among housing and environmental leaders,” Stockton writes. Read the article.

OFFSETTING 5,500 TONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Enterprise Helps Make Urban Land Institute Annual Meeting Carbon Neutral
This week’s national ULI Fall Meeting and Urban Land Expo, attended by more than 5,000 real estate leaders, is a completely carbon neutral event. The Enterprise Green Communities Offset Fund™ is “offsetting” all the emissions of carbon dioxide generated by the meeting by providing funds to reduce an equivalent amount of emissions in environmentally sustainable affordable housing developments participating in Fund. For this event, Enterprise estimates attendees will generate more than 5,500 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Download the press release. (PDF, 25KB)

IN THEIR OWN WORDS
New Report Features Voices, Leadership of Green Developers Sustainable, Affordable, Doable features the stories of eight extraordinary Green Communities projects as told by the remarkable community leaders who developed them. The free report adds to the body of literature on green affordable housing by richly describing the realities of developing green affordable homes for low-income people, tracing the major stages in the development process. Each story is informative and inspiring and includes lessons in practice and policy. This free publication is a must-read for anyone who shares the commitment to making green and affordable one and the same. Download the report. (PDF, 1.1MB)

CALLING ALL GREEN TECHNICAL EXPERTS
New Program Aims to Expand Access to Specialists
Enterprise has announced our first Request for Qualifications for technical assistance providers interested in working with green affordable housing developers. Our goal is to increase access to expert assistance more broadly, by geography as well as areas of specialized expertise. These specialized areas include architecture, engineering and energy services in the design, construction, retrofit, rehabilitation, operations and maintenance of green affordable housing. The purpose is to help enable more projects in more places to achieve their green goals more cost effectively. Download the report. (PDF, 71KB)

GREEN COMMUNITIES TOPS THE LIST
Report Ranks Healthiness of Leading Green Building Programs
The National Center for Healthy Housing has published an analysis of major national green programs. The analysis aims “to determine whether these [green] programs adequately protect residents from housing conditions known to affect health status, such as asthma and respiratory disease, unintentional injuries, allergic reactions, cancer and other health effects from contaminants and allergens.” The paper examines the Green Communities Criteria, the National Association of Home Builder’s “Green Home Building Guidelines,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star with Indoor Air Package and the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes rating system. It ranked Green Communities the highest, “largely due to the fact that the program includes many mandatory criteria for the indoor environment.” Download the report. (PDF, 228KB)

MAKING PROGRESS
How HUD is Promoting Energy Efficiency
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that HUD is working to promote energy efficiency by providing financing, information, training and technical assistance. HUD is also using performance measures to track the progress of its energy efficiency efforts. GAO recommends that HUD:

1. Accelerate efforts to publish pending regulations related to energy efficiency
2. Develop a utility benchmarking tool for multifamily properties
3. Provide non-energy green building incentive points in some grant programs

Read more. (PDF, 1.4MB)

THE NEXT FRONTIER FOR GREEN AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Experts Identify Challenges, Solutions and Next Steps
Environmentally Sustainable Affordable Housing, a report from the Urban Land Institute, highlights leading examples, challenges and solutions to scaling up green affordable development. The report was generated by the 2007 ULI/Charles H. Shaw Forum on Urban Community Issues. The forum, held in Washington, D.C., brought together a diverse group of 25 experts and land use professionals from the public, private and nonprofit sectors to identify next steps for making green affordable housing more widely available. Dana Bourland, Enterprise Green Communities senior director, was the keynote speaker. View the report, Dana’s presentation and other material form the meeting.

MARKING A MILESTONE
Green Act Passes U.S. House of Representatives
The House passed the Green Act, a sweeping bill to expand green affordable housing, as part of comprehensive energy legislation. While Congress adjourned for the year without enacting the bill, House passage represents another public policy milestone for green affordable housing. Enterprise worked closely with members of Congress to develop and advocate for the legislation. Rep Ed Perlmutter, who sponsored the bill, has secured the commitment of the House leadership to advance the bill as a priority next year. “The G.R.E.E.N. Act measures will help revitalize our economy by making energy efficiency practices more affordable, accessible and achievable by consumers, businesses and government entities,” Perlmutter said. “By prioritizing energy efficiency practices, we can ease the woes of homeowners, lenders, financial markets, builders and our environment.” Read more.

• G.R.E.E.N. Act Fact Sheet (PDF, 77KB)
• U.S. House of Representatives Pass the G.R.E.E.N. Act (PDF, 24KB)

CITY RECEIVES QUARTER-MILLION DOLLARS
Special HUD Funding Awarded for Green Affordable Housing in Minnesota
The city of Duluth, Minn., was selected to receive $250,000 from HUD through a national competitive grant. The funding will enable Northern Communities Land Trust (NCLT) to further enhance the sustainability of 10 single-family rehabilitations in the city’s “Greening City Homes” project. The project, which meets the Green Communities Criteria, includes solar hot water and space heating and lead paint hazard abatement. “I am certain that NCLT's participation in the Green Communities Demonstration Project made our organization competitive for this funding,” said Sarah Hannigan of NCLT. Learn more, on the Northern Community Land Trust website.

GETTING A MILLION DOLLAR BOOST
Green Developments Go Even Greener Thanks to Partnership
As part of a unique public-private partnership, Enterprise has announced the opening of eight deeply green townhomes on a formerly vacant lot in Los Angeles. Each home features a tankless water heater, energy-efficient lighting, low-e windows, low-flow plumbing fixtures and high efficiency toilets, Energy Star dishwashers and roof-top solar electric systems. Enterprise’s Green Communities funding was leverage by a $1 million commitment from the South Coast Air Quality Management District for the installation of the solar electrical systems for this and other developments throughout the city.

FREE WEBINARS ANNOUNCED
Green Communities Online Training Now Available
Enterprise regularly offers online training in green affordable design development, operations and maintenance in partnership with leading national experts. All sessions are archived. To see one you might have missed as well as what’ s coming up, visit the Green Communities website.

GREEN PROJECT PROFILE
Chuska Apartments in Gallup, N.M.
This highly sustainable 30-apartment community is dedicated to addressing the housing needs of low-income and formerly homeless families. The apartments feature passive solar design, rooftop solar hot water and thermal baseboard heating and rain barrels that harvest water for landscape irrigation. Chuska is the first development supported by Enterprise’s newly launched Rural and Native American Initiative, a program intended to help build and preserve 8,000 rental and homeownership opportunities in designated areas over the next five years. Download the Project Profile. (PDF, 172K)