|
|
Did You Know?
|
|
|
Did
you know that on average, Americans spend 90% of their time indoors, yet the air
in new homes can be ten times more polluted than outdoor air, according to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Children are particularly vulnerable when
it comes to air pollution. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine states
that 40% of children will develop respiratory disease, in part due to the chemicals
in their homes. ." (From BuildItGreen.org) |
|
|
|
Helpful Tools
|
|
|
To
view the most recent information regarding the Mark-to-Market Program and the
Program’s Green Initiative please go to www.oahp.net
. If you are not a registered user of the Website already, you will need to register
to access information. |
|
Green
Initiative Outline: "The Greening of the M2M Portfolio." |
|
|
|
In July of 2007 HUD introduced its Green Initiative, a nationwide pilot initiative
to encourage owners and purchasers of affordable, multifamily properties to rehabilitate
and operate their properties using sustainable Green Building principles. These
principles comprise sustainability, energy efficiency, recycling, and indoor air
quality, and incorporate the "Healthy
Housing" approach pioneered by HUD. The Green Initiative will focus on
properties within HUD's Section 8 portfolio, specifically properties in the Mark
to Market (M2M) Program administered by the Office of Affordable Housing Preservation
(OAHP).
What is Green Building? The real estate industry, including the
housing industry (and more particularly the affordable housing industry), is undergoing
a fundamental shift toward Green Building principles. Green Building is an approach
to sustainable development that is designed to result in a property that reduces
its impact on the environment, costs less to operate, and improves the residents'
quality of life. Green building considerations start with site selection and include
building placement and design, materials and techniques used in construction,
and all the systems, appliances, and fixtures within the building. Wikipedia
provides a good working definition for the OAHP Green Initiative:
- Green
building is the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings
and their sites use and harvest energy, water, and materials, and reducing building
impacts on human health and the environment, through better siting, design, construction,
operation, maintenance, and removal - the complete building life cycle.
To
date, the focus of green initiatives nationally has been primarily on new construction
rather than on rehab, particularly the moderate level of rehab that is typically
associated with M2M properties. There are fewer opportunities to Go Green in rehab,
but the opportunities are nonetheless significant and worth pursuing, particularly
when viewed in the context of the M2M standard 20-year schedule of property repairs
and replacements.
Green rehab practices should result in lower utility
costs that benefit HUD as well as residents. They should also result in other
benefits, generally in the form of lower environmental impact. When rehab is performed
in a manner that meets both Green and Healthy Housing principles, residents will
benefit from lower utility costs (to the extent the cost savings are shared by
the owner and residents), improved indoor air quality, lower risk of pest infestations,
lower levels of allergens, and reduced risk of mold-related illness.
Why
apply Green principles in the M2M Program? The M2M Program offers a unique
platform for establishing a Green Initiative in the HUD affordable housing portfolio
because it can be implemented within existing statutes, regulations, and authorities.
M2M affords the opportunity to implement Green Building principles in a representative
sample of M2M restructurings involving properties that are already undergoing
rehabilitation, from within the larger HUD portfolio. As HUD's primary housing
preservation tool since its creation in 1997, OAHP has restructured more than
1,600 projects nationwide through the M2M program. These projects are privately
owned, HUD-subsidized (through Section 8), multifamily properties, with approx
100 units each, on average. In addition to rehabilitating properties, M2M also
resizes and restructures property debt to account for market rent levels, to pay
for rehabilitation and 20 years' of estimated repairs and replacements, and to
establish a financially viable project for the long term.
M2M provides
an opportunity to test the impact of Green and Healthy Housing principles in the
existing HUD-subsidized multifamily inventory by providing modest incentives to
owners and purchasers to perform needed rehab and maintenance using Green alternatives,
and to collect ongoing data to validate impacts on utility consumption and indoor
air quality.
In developing the Green Initiative, OAHP has consulted with
several industry experts, and their participation has been invaluable in the development
of this outline. By launching the Green Initiative through M2M, HUD has the opportunity
to continue to work with industry leaders to shape both the future of HUD's efforts
and of the Greening of affordable housing in this country.