 Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for coming to our briefing today. My name is Ellen Vaughn, and it is my pleasure to welcome you today on behalf of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute to our briefing on sustainable, affordable housing. I want to say a special thanks to Congressman Matt Cartwright and his staff for enabling us to use this room on Capitol Hill. And I want to say just a few quick items before I introduce our terrific panel. It's a large panel, so I don't want to take too much time because they have wonderful things to say about the topic. But I did want to mention that we'll have Q&A at the end of all the presentations. So please make note of any questions that you have. And we'll do that at the end. And I also wanted to mention that this briefing today follows a briefing that EESI had on February 22 on the issue of environmental justice in the Clean Power Plan. And the Clean Power Plan, as many of you know, is the EPA's regulation for electric utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There was a legal stay on that by the Supreme Court for implementation. But despite that, many states are pressing forward with their plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And this briefing today is related in a couple of different ways. One is that the EPA also published a rule that establishes an optional Clean Energy Incentive Program that rewards states for implementing energy efficiency projects and renewable energy projects in low income communities. So reducing emissions through demand use, demand side efficiency, or renewable energy in low income or disadvantaged communities is an incentive for states. But what does this mean? I'm going to let the panel tell you what that really means. But basically new and renovated homes and buildings, sustainable homes, meaning they're energy efficient, they utilize renewable energy, can be excellent compliance strategies for states for the Clean Power Plan. But it's also much more than that. Energy efficiency makes housing more affordable, more comfortable, healthier. You're going to hear a lot more about this from our panel today. Better buildings equal better communities. And we have a growing crisis in this country. We don't have enough affordable housing. And it's not just for low income households. It's even middle income. And affordable meaning you shouldn't have to spend more than 30% of your income for housing and running that house. Because then it's difficult to buy food, to buy medicine, transportation, and all of those things. So in other words, sustainable housing is a win-win win. And I'm delighted that we have this panel here today. I'm really, it's really an honor to introduce everyone. And I'm first going to introduce Linda Metropolis. Linda is Director of Housing and Neighborhood Development for Action Housing in Pittsburgh. Linda has worked with Action 4 or with Action Housing, I think, for about 10 years. It's a nonprofit. And Linda started as their sustainability consultant. And she really started this trend of sustainability in affordable housing in Pittsburgh. Linda, I'll let you take it away. Well, good afternoon, everybody. I'm happy to be here. Let me first tell you a few things about Action Housing. We're a 58-year-old organization. And I came to work with Action Housing about 10 years ago to look at their existing portfolio and to begin to look at all the affordable housing in the Pittsburgh area. And what we could do to better the energy performance of all the multifamily housing that was deemed affordable. The organization has a long track record of understanding exactly what Ellen talked about, which is that affordability is not just in your rent, but also in your utility costs. And so Action is actually the largest weatherization assistance program provider in the state of Pennsylvania. We've done about 40,000 low-income houses over the last 30 years and, on average, have saved people about 20% of their utility costs. So we come to this issue of affordable housing and energy efficiency from decades of work. And I think I was figuring about 2010. So I have a few slides. So in about 2010, I had the good fortune to travel with a group of housing developers, nonprofit housing developers affiliated with a group out of Boston that represents nonprofit housing developers' housing partnership network. I'm not sure if you know of them, but there are about 100 of us who are concerned about affordable housing and increasing the number of affordable housing units. On average, in the US, we produce about 130,000 new units of affordable housing through the low-income housing tax credit program each year. And there are many of us who have a very deep interest in sustainability and energy performance. We had the good fortune in 2010 to travel to Germany to look at passive house buildings. And so we took a much more serious commitment, thanks to our director, Larry Swanson, to develop all of our new buildings with a high degree of energy performance. And we've looked at a whole bunch of things. But when we came back from Germany, I said to Larry, can we do passive house? Can we do our newer projects to the German standard, which is passive house? And I'm not even going to try to explain what that standard is, because we have Kat Klingenberg, who's going to speak next. But it was one of those true moments of synchronicity where I came back from Germany after looking at these passive house buildings, which were spectacular and used as a fraction of the energy that we typically do with our buildings. And within two days, I was having dinner with Kat at a mutual friend's house. And it was from there that our work, which I'm going to talk a little bit about, in energy efficiency, really jumped off. And so this particular project is the Mackey Lofts, it was a historic bakery building that was built in, I think, 28, 29. And houses 45 low-income units, including about 10 that are specifically for people who have sight or hearing impairment. And this was our first foray into really big-scale energy efficiency. We were able to do a geothermal system. We did not do passive house on this project. We've taken on a couple of different YMCA projects. Most of you probably know that when the Ys were originally built in the US, most of them had sink room occupancy. They were sort of kind of transitional housing for people that might be moving into a city. Often it was only men who lived in these buildings. But now they have become a lot of our housing of last resort. So we have taken on two projects. This is a 258 unit SRO that is above about five stories of commercial space in Pittsburgh. And we are in this building on a steam system in downtown Pittsburgh. And through the authorization program, I think seven years ago through ERA, there was a huge infusion of funding that came into the WAP program. And we were able in Pennsylvania, we were one of only two states to be able to use that source of money for multifamily affordable housing. And we were successful in bringing in about $3 and 1.5 million on this project to retrofit it and reduced our energy cost by about $125,000 a year. This is heavily subsidized through county and city support. And so we are just about to break even. And that energy reduction was really important to help preserve those 258 units of SRO. The next project we took on, another YMCA, this one in McKeesport, which is about 12 miles outside of downtown Pittsburgh, was actually our first large scale passive house project. And one of the reasons we love passive house so much is because the costs are going into the envelope and not into expensive and complicated mechanical systems, which are often really complicated to maintain and require, in some cases, pretty significant skills by the management company and costs. And so after coming back from Germany, we thought, well, let's give this building a try. It was in our Li-Tech pipeline, our low income housing tax credit pipeline. And so we did design this 84 unit building to passive house standards. Our energy costs, we actually bought it from the YMCA for $10. They were very happy to give it to us at that point. Lots of deferred maintenance and issues that I don't need to go into. But our energy cost before we bought it, no air conditioning, about $70,000 a year, and really not very nice living conditions. We added air conditioning. We did a geothermal system. We'd complete passive house renovation. And our energy bills now are in the neighborhood of about $40,000 a year. So not only did we save money, but we improved the quality of life for people living there. And this is a great infrared image. The purple building is showing just how tight an envelope it is. The building in the back that looks more yellow is Housing Authority Projects, which is just kind of leaking heat. Next project we did was the renovation of an old VFW building. Library is now occupying it in the city of Pittsburgh. And this is just another wall detail to show you the top part, which was finished before the bottom level was finished to passive house standards. So you can see the difference just really good insulation makes in operating at a very high level of efficiency. And then the project that I next, and the last one I want to tell you about, is Uptown Loft. So we were very enamored of the results that we were getting for passives. So we decided to test out two buildings. We just opened the Slytech project, 47 units total. The buildings are almost identical. We built two of them, one to passive house standards and one to 2012 energy code. And we're still in the sort of finding stage, but I wanted to give you a sense of the building envelopes. The one on the left is the passive house building. And the one on the right is the 2012 energy code project with an older building, again, the yellow, orange building in back, with not nearly enough insulation. Both buildings are performing very well. And I just wanted to give you a sense of some of the other features that we included, the glass mural and then one of the interiors for the passive house building, which was specifically designed for youth who have aged out of foster care. And there's our passive house certification, which is really a beautiful thing to see. And so that's that. Thank you, Linda. Was that your art? Or was that someone else's art? Because I know you're an artist as well. Yeah, it's OK. So I want to mention, Linda mentioned the envelope. And that's a very important thing. Trin will speak to that. I wanted to bring it out also in the big picture for one minute that I failed to mention. Buildings in this country use over 40% of our total energy and 74% of the electricity. So that gives you a sense of the magnitude of this issue. I am delighted to introduce Katrin Klingenberg. Katrin is co-founder and executive director of the Passive House Institute US. Passive House promotes the adoption of passive building principles in North America through consultant training and certification. And Katrin designed and completed the first home built to meet the passive house standard in the United States. She's designed and consultant on numerous successful passive house and building projects. And has really evolved the standard so that it works for US climates. She's a lead instructor for the consultant training and is a licensed architect in Germany. Thank you, Ellen. It's a pleasure to be here. Hello. So I would like to very quickly just give you an overview of what passive house is, or passive building, as we have started to transition to as the buildings are getting bigger and bigger. A little bit of an intro regarding the principles that go into passive building design and also the benefits that come with it if you actually go there. Before I do that really quickly, a little bit of an introduction. Oops, I'm going backwards here. An introduction to the Passive House Institute US. We are the longest standing passive building institute that is promoting this type of work in the United States. So we have been working on this since 2003. And we do research. We do training. And we certify buildings. When I say we certify buildings, then that is, of course, a voluntary certification to quality assure buildings that are built to meet these particular passive building standards. This one project that I'm showing you right here up front as the first image, I'm showing it again later, I think. It's to date the largest completed multifamily affordable passive building in the country. And it is in Portland, Oregon, Hillsboro, but close enough. And also I wanted to quickly mention we received a grant by the MacArthur Foundation last year in support of the emerging affordable passive building movement that we're seeing around the country. We're seeing a lot of affordable developers becoming interested in this. And they are in great need of support. And together with Linda, we kind of pioneered this transition from originally single family passive buildings to passive house buildings to larger multifamily buildings. And there's still a lot of education that needs to happen out there. It's a simple concept, but it's not that easily done. So very quickly here, the background story to why passive buildings are relevant. We are in a period of time where we are seeing a transition in the energy market. We are transitioning away from fossil fuel energy sources for reasons of carbon climate change, but also, well, resources are becoming more scarce. So this is actually a study here done by Shell. What they were envisioning for the next century, they were envisioning a transition to renewables as well as the red area right there, which is conservation. So if we assume that energy consumption worldwide increases as they're projecting right there, we do really need to tap into conservation as essentially an actual energy resource. In a different way, right there, we have this gap of where this red arrow was previously. And that is the amount of energy savings that we need to realize in our buildings. And that is essentially the equivalent to the passive building standard. That's where we want to end up. What that amounts to is roughly an 80 to 90% savings in heating energy demand. That's, as you might imagine, is quite a challenge. So what is that compared to other building programs right now? You're probably all familiar with the 2030 challenge brought forward by Ed Ms Ria. If you build your building shell to passive building standards today, you're already at the 80% mark of the 2030 challenge. So that leaves until 2030 to figure out how to finance a very small renewable system or to build community-based renewable systems. And then we are actually within reach of zeroing out our carbon emissions. Passive building principles, you don't have to understand all these different circles. Just mainly the little house in the middle that really depicts the benefits of passive building. There's comfort and help. That's the first and foremost. Of course, the energy savings are also nice, but we're shooting for a very, very healthy and new air quality, for filtered air, fresh air all the time, comfortable living spaces because now the surface is all well insulated. There are no cold spots. That results then in a high quality and durable envelope because we're doing everything right that has to be done right from a building science perspective. Of course, there is the cost effectiveness, the affordableness. We want to save enough energy that we can actually kind of get our payback on the additional investment in the envelope. Efficient, of course, but then also last but not least, really important is resilience. So the passive building standard also is designed to create spaces that can coast through power outages for about five days. We've run energy models where we can show now that that is actually the case. People could theoretically stay in their homes when the power goes out and that is also during a very cold period in the winter. That's going on around the country. Quite a few codes and cities are starting to look at that, programs, to require passive buildings. This Seattle, as the first city has passed an ordinance and they are now actually incentivizing passive buildings, multifamily, by allowing developers to build to a higher FAR, which is a significant incentive for developers and we're seeing quite nice uptake for that. Passive buildings also are expedited regarding permitting and the city of San Francisco has been doing this for a while now as well. And then last year NMPI Screen Communities added FIES Plus passive building certification to their highest tier of energy efficiency points for their certifications, which of course has given the program a nice boost as well. And in the affordable sector, we have now seen over the last two years affordable housing agencies signing on incentivizing passive buildings. PHFA was the first one, Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. They actually give now 10 additional points. Passive buildings are more competitive during the LIGHTEC application process and Illinois Housing Development Authority has also done so just this past fall. They are now also awarding extra points and New York is about to also go that route but they are a little bit more careful. They say like passive building is just like any other green certification but we incentivize those. We put those to the front of the line and they might go even further in the near future. They're investigating right now the certification programs. Couple of quick projects for you. Recently we've seen multifamily projects and especially in the affordable housing sector really, really sharply increase. And this again here is Dindas Project, McKeysport and I'm showing you this because this is really when the development started for passive houses to move into the multifamily sector and again action housing has done a phenomenal job of piloting this transition and I think the community can really think them enough. That was some real pioneering work there and we're now hopefully going to be able to distill that into like a resource center for other affordable housing developers who want to do the same through the McArthur Foundation. Again the uptown loft right here you already have seen that one by action housing here in D.C. a couple of habitat projects. Habitat very early on jumped in on this. Nothing really large yet but the last project here, the Ivy City Project couple of townhouses. This is again the Ward Shorts, 57 units in Hillsborough, Portland next to Portland, Oregon. Very nice project and we will hear more about this project here recently completed. The Weinberg Commons in D.C. So you have a local project that you can go and tour and see how it looks like. And under construction this is to date the largest one, 276 units affordable in Kansas City. Another one here in Maine, 47 units. So you're starting to get an idea. This works really and truly in all different climate zones not just in one. Largest currently, no not the largest one that was the Kansas City one. This one is the first mid-rise that is about to complete in New York City in Queens actually with 101 units. And this developer says he's building it for zero percent additional cost. That's how well we have started to kind of dial in the climate specific passive building standards for North America. We switched our certifications over from the German standard last March. We're certifying now completely to the new standard which was developed in a Department of Energy grant together with Building Science Corporation. With these two base certifications, the left on the left, the pH is just the envelope. If you just want to do the conservation measures. But if you also want to add renewables or community based generation and zero out your source energy completely then we also have a source zero certification basically an add on verification. These are all the different climate zones right here. Each location essentially has its own targets. We found that that is really the best way to dial in and most cost effectively the energy performance per buildings. And the Department of Energy actually is co-promoting FIES Plus certification as the next step in energy efficiency above and beyond the zero energy ready home. We're very proud of that cooperation has been working really well for all of us. To date in the country we have about like 240 project certified, pre-certified. That means they are now construction almost completed or completed and they are another 100 plus in the certification phase. It takes a long time and that's pretty much it. Yes, so one last word though. I'm wrapping up the project curve. You can see this is nicely developing into this hockey stick. Beginning of this year we looked at the square footage and not just the projects. We have just crossed the one million certified square feet around the country. So that's no longer just a small niche project and we're very, very happy about this development. And it's mainly due to multifamily developments. Thank you. Thank you so much, Catrine. This timeframe doesn't do justice to all the information that's represented on this panel. Philip Hett is our next speaker. Phil is president and CEO of Transitional Housing Corporation and has worked to address family homelessness in the District of Columbia for more than 25 years. In the late 1980s he helped form the partnership of Christ Lutheran Church Community Family Life Services and Samaritan Minister of Greater Washington that became Transitional Housing Corporation. Phil was a member of THC's board of directors for its first 25 years serving as president from 2000 to 2003. He was a partner in several DC law firms for 23 years and led a pro bono legal program, has lived in DC since 1980, mostly in Ward 4 and has many degrees. I'll let you see those. Welcome and thank you. Thank you, Ellen and good afternoon everyone. I want to say that I'm very pleased to have been invited to participate on this wonderful panel. I want to acknowledge my board and staff, colleagues who have come to either listen to me or to make sure I don't do anything wrong. But for sure, I'm the least technologically savvy of all of the people on the panel. But I'm here because I believe in affordable housing, the cost of affordable housing being available to people who need it and to continuing THC's mission to put more affordable housing on the street in Washington DC. So permit me to give about two or three minutes of the background for THC, even more than Ellen already did. We're 25 years old. We serve today more than 500 families in the District of Columbia. Those families typically come out of places you've read about, DC General Hospital, the motels on New York Avenue. And right now, as of today, there are more than a thousand homeless families who are looking for places to stay here in Washington. Our uniqueness is that we provide both the housing to our families and the services that they need to advance and to thrive. That's what our mission has been since the beginning. And if I'm at the helm, it will always be that way. We will always provide both housing and services. We started small. We had one building, 14 units. It was not passive house qualified. Now we have more than 200 affordable housing units and we are preserving, or in the process of preserving, 150 more units, all in Washington, DC. The types of housing we provide are transitional, rapid rehousing, which I'm sure people have read about, permanent supportive housing and affordable housing. Our affordable housing units, and we'll see this later in Weinberg Commons, are all for families earning 50% of the area median income or less. 50% of the area median income or less than that. And that's our sweet spot, that's who we serve. So with that, let me go to the project we wanna talk about today. It's called Weinberg Commons. I believe Katrin also already referred to it, but I'm particularly proud to say it is at the apex of one of the main entrances to the District of Columbia. You see that sign there? It's at the corner of Benning Road and Southern Avenue, Southeast, in Ward 7. We didn't intentionally put it there, but that's where we found the available building that we could buy and renovate. Weinberg Commons is an innovative community that combines state-of-the-art energy, which you'll hear more from our architect, Matt Fine, with affordable rents and supportive services for low-income and formerly homeless families. Let me show you, though, what it looked like before. You've probably seen this type of building in your own neighborhoods or in your own cities. They're rife throughout the District of Columbia. I would say this building was constructed in the late 50s or early 60s. Frankly, there was nothing really wrong with it. It could have been renovated, as we've done our other projects, with non-passive house approaches, traditional techniques and traditional building materials. But somebody convinced my predecessor, I've been in a job nine months, one of the, somebody convinced my predecessor that she should embrace passive house. So what we ended up with is an affordable housing project that actually can be beautiful, is beautiful, and not simply functional. We utilized the passive house design principles to transform Weinberg Commons into a modern 36-unit affordable housing development. That's another shot of the, there were three buildings, actually. Each one has 12 units, but they were all constructed to passive house standards. Again, our architect Matt will address the technological aspects of it. But this is one of the three buildings that we renovated. We opened it in November of 2015, so we've only been open for about four months now. We were able to reduce the energy consumption in this building by 50% so far. I think the jury's still out on ultimately how it will perform. I think we need more than three or four months worth of experience, but we expected it will achieve the highest standards. The interiors, and I'll just show you a couple of shots of that, are constructed for families. So in order to live here, you need to be a family with children. So each of them has two bedrooms, one bath, and they're all constructed in about the same format, where you have a kitchen part of the living area and two bedrooms off to the side. As the owner and developer, THC, and its affiliate THC affordable housing, is able to pass on the savings that we have in our energy to our low-income families through offering below-market rents, which include utilities. Another shot. Matt, I hope you'll address the really cool windows in the space. I think they're from Europe, aren't they? All right. Let me go to the actual specifics. When it's certified, Weinberg will be the first passive house, multi-family retrofit development in the country. We will utilize elements that are expected to reduce our energy costs by at least 90%. Sorry, that's wrong, up to 90%. As you've heard already, passive house is the most rigorous energy efficiency building standard in the world. It's achieved by constructing a building envelope that is extremely well insulated and airtight. Now, there's a common feature of all DC housing, multi-family housing, affordable housing. It's old. 78% was built before 1960. And the overwhelming majority of our low-income families in the district live in old buildings with aging systems, poor insulation, and frequently deferred maintenance. I can take you on a tour right after this hearing and show you a number of buildings that I've looked at, but suffer from all of those melodies. So, why? I, a small non-profit, relatively small non-profit in the District of Columbia, why would we wanna do this? Because it's part of our mission and always has been. Weinberg will have 36 two-bedroom units, 24 of the units are reserved for people who make 60% of the area median income or less. That's, sorry, let me take that back. Their rents will be $1,228 per month. That's what a 60% AMI person can afford. What we've done at Weinberg, because of the energy savings, is offer them to our families for $950 a month, utilities included. So we are substantially below what the market would bear, even in the neighborhoods where we are operating. Now, the low rents that we can charge are only possible because of the passive house standards that we've achieved. I will, in a minute, turn it over to Matt. But why would we, again, a small profit, wanna non-profit developer want to do this? How could we do it? Well, I think as one of the speakers before me has said, it doesn't cost that much more to do it. We believe that it was approximately 8% more costly to construct with passive house standards than it would have been through traditional techniques and materials. The other reason we could do it is because we have a combination of fancy financing. Through tax credits, we have the Department of Behavioral Health in the district helping us out with a grant. We got vouchers from the D.C. Housing Authority for the families who live in our permanent supportive housing units. And these are all important factors to being able to afford it. With that, I think it's customary up on the hill to say that, Madam Chair, I cede the remaining time to the gentleman from Virginia. Thank you, sir, and I will hand over the gavel as soon as I introduce the gentleman from Virginia. Matt Fine is Project Manager for Peabody Architects, and Mr. Peabody is sitting in this room for those of you who are curious. And Matt has over 20 years of general architecture practice and has focused the last 10 years on affordable multi-family housing. As Phil mentioned, Matt was the Project Manager for Weinberg Commons when he was with Zabos Architecture and Design, a firm out of Frederick, Maryland. He was the Project Leader. And Matt is a Certified Passive House Consultant. He consulted to the Parsons, the new school for design on the 2011 Solar Decathlon, you might have heard of, known as Empower House. He captained D.C. Habitat for Humanities, Ivy City Passive Townhouse, Project Through Its Duration, and he brought near net zero performance to those residents. And again, he's with Peabody Architects now, and his aim is to bring high-performance buildings to the mainstream. It's not just for the economically privileged. Matt, thank you for being here. Thank you all. Good afternoon. A day-to-day basis client comes to you and gives you a great opportunity like THC and Phil's group, and you really kind of sink your teeth into it. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the details of this project just because that's really kind of what makes it all happen. It's kind of on a microscopic scale that we deal with these buildings and it's really what kind of motivates us. So Weinberg Commons Project is not your typical project. Typically, we deal with fly tech projects, the affordable housing, nonprofit world. While it's important that mainstream work is being done at the scale it is, the resiliency just is not getting there. The comfort and the health are not getting there. We're not reaching our 20, 30 goals. So, when we saw this combination of THC, a mission-driven developer, a mission-driven developer, and they really knew what true sustainability meant when it came to energy reduction, it really met with our kind of philosophies and kind of to bring those technologies, those philosophies to a larger scale, to communities, not just individuals, but families, and bring that to the kind of mass market. As Kitrin explained, the technologies are certainly different, take a different mindset in every step along the process. And while I'm not gonna go into the details because that could take a long time, the metric is understood as the best tool to get to net zero or to reduce drastically the energy of these buildings. Now we had to acknowledge another priority, and that is the team needed to be committed from day one and they had to be integrated. That goes from pre-development, from conceptual brainstorming, to all the way to progress meetings on site, punch lists, inspections. It took every individual to kind of integrate that and to really bring it together. So that process, as we all have learned, is not always reality. We also had to identify that the existing conditions were something that we had to work with, not necessarily fight with, but in retrofit buildings, you're just given this condition and you have to respond to it. So knowing kind of the principles of passive house, it's nice to kind of think of an ideal situation, this pristine building, that everything's gonna be ultra-efficient, where you can save every BTU possible, but you have to kind of pick your battles in these buildings and understand which ones to fight. So we had crawl spaces that were kind of nasty. We had roof sheathing that was moldy. We had existing joists that we had to somehow make an airtight assembly out of. So we had to adapt. But most importantly, we did not want to lose the focus of the end user being the primary goal here. While all the building science is fun and the process is fun, it really needs to be a healthy and comfortable space for families and individuals and then kind of extending to the community. So kind of when we sat down and did the brainstorming exercise for this project, we said there needs to be some kind of substance to this. It can't be just a one-off project. It needs to be repeatable. And as we knew, there are countless, countless opportunities in the DC metro area to do this. So if we could make it work, we think that the larger community could embrace it. Again, we knew this was gonna be a different project, a different process. So from the first week of construction, it came pretty evident how different it was. We hung wood joists on the sides of this building to hold twice as much r-value of insulation on the outboard side of this wall. So really kind of using the first step of kind of design and saying, let's make the envelope as robust as possible. So we basically created this woolly sweater for the building. We filled nine and a half inches of dense-packed fiberglass paying attention to kind of the moisture in the climate and making sure that the wall breathed at the same time of being airtight. Second huge step of passive house is to control air infiltration to make sure that where it does infiltrate, we know it. And as you can see, the numbers there were five times tighter than a code building. So that was certainly a high mountain to climb for retrofit building. And that is our actual test. So we got under the .6 ACH threshold for passive house. And we really wanted to make sure that we could achieve this in a common, simple low-tech way. So we designed it so that the control layers are reachable on the outside. And that it didn't take highly skilled laborers to put this assembly together, both on the inside and on the outside. And then just as at a basic scale, basic level, okay, we're creating this wonderful insulated envelope, but we need to kind of think about what holes are. The holes are the windows and doors. So while I said there was a low-tech solution to the walls, you really need a great system in the glazing and the compression seals of European windows and what's now becoming American manufactured windows. So we created these apertures around these holes in the building that Phil alluded to. In a retrofit building where we cannot recite the building, we can't turn its axis so that the solar gain works in our favor. We have to kind of deal with what we have and we have to tune the angle of these apertures so that the solar gain during the summer is not making uncomfortable interior conditions. So we're finding kind of that optimal angle to bring shade in the summer and capture the heat of the solar gains in the winter. At the same time, we didn't want to make these boxes that created dark cavernous interiors so you can see from the interior that it opens up still. And you can also see kind of the crisp shadow lines along the window, so basically that window there is taking 50% of the sun at that point because of that solar shade. And resilience is just kind of a cornerstone, again, to this type of design and building. The rain screen, tough rain screen that can last for years but still have the ability to breathe reachable. These buildings, again, as trying to make them repeatable, reachable as far as economics go is critical as well. So I'm gonna just go through a couple of these sustainable features that we used. Again, these are not high-tech pieces of equipment. They just are integrated. So the lungs of the building, the ERV, recaptures energy at the same time it delivers ventilated air to all spaces. It removes the moistures, the smells of the kitchens and baths, low-tech. Again, we dug trenches around this building to extend the insulation. We used that as an opportunity to put a ground loop, pecs and glycol and bring that energy back into the building on the incoming stream of ventilation air. High efficiency heating and cooling. This is basically a piece of machinery that normally is specified for a single family house. It's serving 12 dwelling units. Drain water, heat recovery system. Again, kind of tapping into the heat that we already have in the building, recirculating that. And then renewables on the roof. So solar thermal collector for hot water. It's astounding how much energy goes into heating water and just having it sit there and stored and reheated just to deliver it to occupants. Well, we're choosing to do that in a passive way. And then solar PV as a last step. We wanna stress that in a passive house, kind of philosophy, that's always the last step because you don't know how much you have to make up until you really optimize that building. Again, this is just kind of the scale of the project. And we believe that kind of projects like this really reach out to the communities. Again, on a small scale, but you have to start at the small scale, work up to the family level, make sure health and comfort is delivered and retain these communities with this type of building. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. And last, certainly not least, our final panelists. Krista Egger is Senior Program Director of Green Communities for Enterprise Community Partners. Krista is Director of Initiatives at Enterprise and she has more than a decade of experience leading energy efficiency initiatives with affordable housing stakeholders. She manages Enterprise's National Green Training and Technical Assistance Programs which includes strategic oversight of the Green Communities criteria and National Certification Program. A technical assistance fund focused on portfolio energy reductions through the Better Buildings Challenge and initiatives designed to improve the health of residents through building upgrades and other related trainings and tools. I'm delighted to welcome Krista. Great, thank you and I'm very pleased to be here. I'm going to be talking with you about a program of enterprises called Enterprise Green Communities that's very compatible with Passive House. And I'll start by sharing a little bit about the background of our program and our intentions in entering into the sustainable space. And then I'll give you a high level overview of the different technical components that are included in the program. And then I'll finish with a few different examples of how the program has been implemented into policies across the country. And I'm really looking forward to your questions at the end. So I will begin with a quote from our founder, Mr. Jim Routh. And I'm going to, he says we believe because it is true that people are affected by their environment, by space and scale, by color and texture, by nature and beauty that they can be uplifted, made to feel important. And I think that's just a really lovely way of setting the context for all of us that are involved in implementing or affecting housing that whenever we're engaged in that sort of activity, we have the opportunity to affect the quality of life of the people who are going to live there. So Mr. Routh created the Enterprise Foundation, now known as Enterprise Community Partners, upon his retirement from a prolific real estate development career. We're a national nonprofit based in Columbia, Maryland and in short, we focus on increasing both the quantity and the quality of affordable housing nationwide. So since 1982, we have worked to bring together the people and the resources needed to create affordable housing in strong neighborhoods. To date, Enterprise has invested more than $18.6 billion, helped create nearly 340,000 homes and touched millions of lives. And for a moment, I'd like you to imagine with me a world where housing for low and moderate income people is not only abundant, but also healthy, safe, durable, comfortable, efficient, resilient and environmentally responsible. And that these attributes were achieved without great cost and through standard practice. This is our vision and we think that this can be our reality. So since the launch of the Enterprise Green Community's criteria in 2004, Enterprise has been leading a national effort to ensure that people living in affordable housing are healthier, spend less money on utilities and have more opportunities through their connections to transportation, quality food and healthcare services. In the early 2000s, we started hearing from our partners who are owners and developers of affordable housing around the country that they were really interested in building more efficient, durable, healthier homes. They just really didn't know how to get there. At that point in time, the LEED program existed but there was no pathway for residential projects in particularly multi-family building. So we did what one of the things that Enterprise does best. We gathered some of the greatest minds in the country. It came together and developed the Green Community's criteria to be that standard that affordable housing developers could use to guide their activities and creating more sustainable homes. So since that time, we've been working quite hard. So in 2010, we developed a certification system to verify projects' compliance with our criteria. And since that time, we've certified more than 29,000 units across 39 states, all the blue states you see here, and the District of Columbia. In addition to those unit counts, we currently have more than 51,000 units approved for pre-build. So they're in the midst of construction right now. We have 2,700 other units also at a stage of the process. So certification to our criteria is only available for affordable housing projects. And slight variations in the criteria allow appropriate nuance when addressing single-family versus multi-family, new construction versus rehab of existing buildings and properties that are either located in urban or rural locations. So we try to do all of that through our one set of criteria. And what is our criteria? The eight categories are listed here on the screen that you see. And collectively, they reflect an ambitious yet achievable framework, a holistic framework appropriate for the affordable housing market. They've been collaboratively created, maintained, and updated, balancing ideal performance outcomes with the realities of implementation. So if you start at the very top, there's integrative design, which is making sure that you have an appropriate team together doing thoughtful planning up front. Then we move to location and neighborhood fabric, which is where are you going to build your project? Then site improvements, which is self-explanatory, right? But deals with erosion control, stormwater management, et cetera. Then we go to water conservation, energy efficiency, materials, healthy living environment. And then we close with operations, maintenance, and resident engagement. And ideally that the lessons learned also from operating current properties will influence the integrative design process of your next project. So in order to receive Green Community Certification, projects must meet all mandatory criterion, which are located in eight, in all of those eight areas I just explained, and achieve a certain number of optional points through other measures. New construction projects are held to a slightly higher bar than our rehabs of existing buildings as the opportunity to cost effectively implement performance measures is greater in new construction projects. However, all projects are held to a level of rigor, and there's only one level of certification. You either are or you are not certified. So the process of certification is verified at two stages, pre-build before construction begins, and then post-build. And teams are helped along the way throughout the construction process as well with the assistance of local energy professionals. So that's a background context of our program I'm going to go in now to a high level overview of those eight different categories and then touch on the policy work. So the first one, integrative design. I've listed the names of the different measures that are included in this category up in your slide here. So a successful integrative design process facilitates the design and development teams' achievement of their objectives throughout the project lifecycle. So all the thought that went in to the goals, making sure that that is not a useless exercise that it actually gets realized later. And through our evaluation work of Project Certified to our program, we found that the projects that invest the most time and energy in decision making before plans are finalized are the ones that have the highest levels of performance at the least cost. And while this is intuitively important, right, plans and specs are the instructions for the project team. Our objective is to ensure that these are thoughtfully developed with an eye towards project outcomes. Green as an add-on is a strategy to increase project costs. Considering green as one goal of many for a project is a strategy to increase performance and satisfaction without increasing costs. So the criterion here is specified collaborative planning, energy performance goals, resident health, and resilience. Moving on to the next category, location and neighborhood fabric. This is critical because locating a project within an existing neighborhood and in close proximity to infrastructure, transportation and services encourages more resource efficient development of land, reduces development costs, conserves energy and adds to the vitality of the overall community. Third category, site improvements. Low impact design and development principles minimize the site's environmental footprint and lower infrastructure costs associated with stormwater management. Four is water conservation. This translates into direct utility savings for residents and owners and conserves a precious natural resource. According to the American Water Works Association Research Foundation, the average US residential household uses 41 gallons per person per day in their homes. We're trying to contain this through the measures that we have in this category. Five is energy efficiency and improvements in building energy performance result in utility cost savings for more efficient heating, cooling, hot water, lights and appliances which improve residents comfort, lowers operating costs and provides environmental benefits. Six is materials. Purchasing green materials and recycling and reusing materials whenever possible can improve conditions for resident health, enhance project durability and reduced waste and disposal costs. Moving on into seven, which is all about health is healthy living environments. So criteria in this category address environmental factors such as radon and lead which have a direct impact on human health. They also address the design of outdoor spaces and interior common areas in a way that encourages greater frequency and duration of physical activity. Measures in this category guide project teams create healthy living spaces through various construction practices like ventilation and maintenance practices like green cleaning and pest management. And finally, category eight operations, maintenance and resident engagement is about creating educational materials and orientations to help educate residents and staff on green features that were designed to deliver health, economic and environmental benefits as well as their role in realizing those benefits in their own lives and the project itself. So this is a system that brings the benefits of green building to those that need it most. We're talking about lower energy bills, less energy consumption, healthier living environments and stronger communities. These issues are not abstract. They have clear impacts for families across the country. And we feel that this is a method to create housing that is truly affordable and sustainable. And I'll close by sharing a little bit about policy implementation. So for the past decade, the criteria has served as a powerful and influential policy lever by setting a standard for state and city housing finance agencies and guiding what housing providers are either required or incentivized to include in the development and rehab of their properties. The criteria has been integrated into financing mechanisms for affordable housing in 25 states and seven large metropolitan areas. It raises the bar to say that healthy, sustainable affordable housing is not an add-on or a bonus. It's the minimum acceptable standard for housing that is being publicly financed in this country. So for example, the District of Columbia here is a national leader in green building which supports the vision set forth in their sustainable DC plan. And in DC, all projects for which public financing constitutes 15% or more of their total project costs must meet the standards relative to green design and building and must certify to the enterprise criteria or at least the lead, the silver level of the lead program as a condition of getting financing to develop their project here. So where there is the greatest need, let's provide a solution. The technology and processes for building sustainable homes that are affordable or understood, they just really need to be applied. I feel that the green community's criteria and passive house are important tools to ensure that low income families have healthy, well-designed, affordable and sustainable homes that are connected to opportunity. So I encourage you to visit our website and peruse our criteria, the requirements, the recommendations, the rationale. We also have hundreds of tools on our website that I'd encourage you to download, customize and use for yourself so that we all can work together to ensure that these practices that I've described move from being best practice to standard practice. Thanks. Thank you, Krista, and that was great to wrap up on the policy note, how appropriate. And I want to open it up for questions now, but on that, I thought maybe I would just start by asking, a few of you mentioned LITECH, and for those of you not familiar, that's a low income housing tax credit. And I wondered if you all could talk about kind of the bringing together some of these policies, federal, state, local, and the importance of public-private partnerships and sort of how you're making this work and so folks can understand sort of how these come together and what is important to keep an eye out. Anyone want to take us to that? Is it on? Okay, great. So LITECH is a mechanism for financing affordable housing in this country. The housing credit is one of the most important financing tools to create affordable housing. And each allocator, generally each state in the country gets to decide how they disperse those funds, those housing credits, right? So they have a QAP or a qualified allocation plan which includes their priorities for which projects they'll fund or they will not fund. And we've found that the vast majority of states in this country now in their QAPs do require or incentivize an energy efficiency or a green building program. We've done, we did a study on this last year. It's on our website called Green Policies Build Green Homes. And we saw that the vast, I think 75% of all homes financed in this country by the housing credit are meeting some energy efficiency or green standards. So it's a really important lever. But what I think is critical in ensuring that it's meeting the objectives is ensuring that it's referencing a standard that is verified by some body, right? Like Passive House or Green Community is leading other standards. But also that project teams when they're applying for the financing are also prepared to follow through with their dates and housing credit allocators address the issue of following up to see how their projects are performing in different ways. For instance, the state of Virginia just released a study showing how the green projects that they financed to the QAP performed differently than non-certified projects. And it showed a compelling case to do so. So it's a really important tool. Thank you very much. I'd like to just add on to what Krista spoke about as far as kind of the quality assurance protocols that organizations like FIAS have baked into their process. That really kind of underlines kind of the responsibility of the team members from the schematic phase while you make the application for the QAP. And without that piece, we could all be kind of just signing our life away if we really don't know what's gonna go into this and we don't have qualified builders on the team. We don't have qualified engineers and architects. So that's kind of a hurdle that there's kind of this growing this gap that we have to get trained people on these projects to make sure that they do bring long-term resilience. So I wanted to add to that my slightly different perspective. Most of the states in the US still operate with the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code. It was a 2012, there's now a 2015. And the 2012 and 2015 actually have really benefited by protocols that have been introduced into the US. And it's our perspective that adhering to the most recent IECC is actually a game changer for the US. I think there are those of us who are really mission driven and really feel strongly about this, that we're gonna do this work ourselves. But it's all the others that don't do this work that we really have to impact. And so state by state, we need to look at adopting the most recent energy conservation code as a way to really make some significant gains in the amount of energy that buildings are using. It's not just for those who are mission driven but has to be for everybody. Very good point, thank you. Hi, my name is Dan Reber. I'm with the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation in New York City. We're the largest weatherization agency in the borough of Manhattan. And we have lots of experience with enterprise green communities, thankfully. I wanted to ask two questions. One for Linda and Phil and Matt. The contractors that you employed to do your projects, what was the learning curve like for them? Because I know, much like with architects and engineers, as you mentioned, Matt, there's a big learning curve. And then I'll have just a quick technical follow up question. It really does start with putting together the best team, I have to tell you. Makes all the difference. I can tell you that on our Uptown Lofts demonstration project, we used Masaidi's construction and we did hit the 0.6 air changes per hour on the passive house building. But they also delivered a building that's not passive house that's 0.9 air changes per hour. So there was a deep commitment from them to quality control. And then we saw it spill over into the other building. So we have just a beautiful tight building not as tight as passive house, but a really high quality building. And they are now adopting this as regular practice for their work. Did you have to go through some several contractors or you were able to go through a process to help you pick the right one the first time? We interviewed several contractors and then they came on at the same time we started our passive house work and our design work. So they were an integral part of the design. I'll just say from a layman's standpoint, I think the learning curve was steep for the contractors and the subcontractors we used. Matt may have a more detailed and technological answer than I do, but it's hard to find somebody who locally, at least who knows the kind of passive house standards that we were trying to approach and the techniques. Yeah, I think Linda really hit the nail in the head when she talked about air tightness because at the end of the day, air tightness means quality, means craftsmanship. And we talk about contractors having kind of some experience with passive house. There's builders trainings now available. That should be an absolute. But it should go one layer deeper, should go to the subcontractors because again, we're talking about the details. So the bidding process and how subcontractors are qualified to be on that team, really in reality, does not happen until the 11th hour of the process. And those are the folks that need to be trained as well as the general contractors. So that's kind of the gap that we really have to work through. The great follow up question was on the... Just let's see for that. We're both searching online. The follow up question was on, you mentioned the 0.58 air changes per hour at CFM 50. Was that a whole building test or was that unit by unit test? And Linda, what did you guys do on your project? I'm actually glad you brought that up because it's not easy doing a whole building that's 25 or 30,000 square feet. And so you do have to have the contractor buy in. Things have to shut down in the middle of the project and then at the end of the project. And we didn't hit it. I mean, we did great in the middle of the project. And then at the end of the project, when you have a lot more penetrations and a lot more challenges, it took a couple of days to work through all of the variables and all of the issues. So it's definitely not easy, but we did it. I'd like to interject something here also real quick. So on both of these projects, we now have actually multi-family on-site verification protocol. Those guys were still so early that they were kind of like front lines. So now the on-site verification protocol, for one, there's a training that is geared towards large building verifiers who are being taught how to do a whole building blower door test and how to set up for it. And I think in your case also, you had a lot of leakage between the units. At that time, we didn't have the leakage requirement for the units just yet. So FIASPLAS aligns also with the multi-family high-rise, mid-rise, EPA quality assurance protocol. So we test between the units, each unit itself, and the whole building test as well. Yeah, just to kind of reiterate, Katrin said whole building for our building, but we thought that that was, looking at kind of the overall volume as the easiest way to make the whole, so unit by unit, make it airtight, and then kind of go unit by unit and seal cracks with the traditional methods of caulk and tape so that communication of odors and vapors don't pass because that's obviously one important part of multi-family living, is to have your own volume of air, really. Thank you for that question. Other questions? Hi, my name's Pola Lem, a reporter for Climate Wire. And so Mr. Heck, you talked about the added cost of retrofitting being about 8%. So I was wondering, maybe this is a question for Mr. Fine, but what is the cost if you're just building a structure from scratch of putting in all these energy-saving devices? I was with you till the very end when you said the cost from building from scratch. I don't know what the answer to that is. We've never really built from scratch. In terms of retrofitting buildings, existing buildings, that's what we've done so far. And the 8% that I referred to was for the additional cost of doing a retrofit. Matt, do you have a suggestion for new construction? If that's what you meant. I think we're gonna see costs apples to apples go down for new construction relative to retrofit. That 8% comes from taking all the site development work that we had to do. Those in an existing building, in a 60s-era building, can kill the opportunity to make a passive house because we're talking about splitting metering up that's to submeter, to basically redo the infrastructure coming to the buildings, both for electric, for water. And we were able to work those channels on this project and not absorb a lot of those costs and make sure that that cost goes to the passive house, the envelope and the systems. But whether it's new construction or not, we need to understand the priority of the locations of these sites and urban centers and not make it more challenging whether at the same time that we're trying to do good. So I think there's some work to do on the QAP in all these jurisdictions to see where our priorities are, whether it's really saving the use of communities and sites or whether it's just about checking a box off. Our McKeesport renovation project of the Y was about $100 a square foot and the construction of the Uptown Lofts building. There was a 3% differential between the passive house and the non-passive house building. And that was controlling for everything. The only thing we changed was the envelope. We used triple glazed windows on the passive house building and double glazed on the other. And we spent a lot more attention to the separation or the elimination of, what's that term? Of the interior and exterior. And we eliminated all thermal bridges in the north building. So it was about a 3% differential, about $300,000. I'll add one other price point to that conversation. So with green communities, our energy efficiency mandated level is aligned with the Energy Star program. So it's not as aggressive as the passive house, although we incentivize through optional points projects to follow passive house and more aggressive standards. But in 2012 was the last time that we did an analysis of the costs to build and to operate projects to our standard. And at that time we found that on average, it was a 2% incremental cost to the total development cost, which does vary per building market, right? But it was slightly more than 2% for rehab, slightly less than 2% for new construction. And overall the payback was about five and a half years. Just one real quick comment too. So the passive building standards, as I mentioned earlier, we recalibrated them. We started originally with the European standards, but it turned out that they were kind of like in many cases taking people to two high levels of insulation because they were coming from a heating dominated climate. So there's a bias towards that. Now in most North American climates, we have at least in the US like heating and cooling demand. So really what needed to happen was like a balancing between heating and cooling. We've done that. We have new climate standards, climate specific standards now, which are also cost optimized. And what we're seeing now, the one project that I showed you in Queens that is currently under construction that where the developer says he can do it at 0% additional cost, we're seeing some really, really good results applying these new standards. So I think we're gonna see the cost come down significantly. Thank you. That was an important question. Others? Hi, my name is Andrea Bradenke. I'm with Congresswoman Susan Del Vene. This question is for you, Christa, and maybe others. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by resident engagement? Is that more on the after the building has been developed or is it more in like local sourcing materials and labor or could you just kind of elaborate on that? Thanks. So our category eight, which is operations, maintenance, rest engagement really has to do with engaging, making sure that so when we certify a building, it's right when the building's completed, right? Either when the construction or the retrofit is finished and people are starting to move in. Although our engagement with the project kind of ends at that point, we wanna make sure that the project is set up to operate for 30, 50 years, just as well as the people who designed it hoped that it would be, right? And so whether or not you mean to or not, if you're living in a building, you're operating the building. You're going to have an impact on how much energy it's going to use, how healthy it's gonna be, et cetera. So we work with the resident services staff of these multifamily properties in that design and construction phase to make sure that when the building is put into service, there are orientations for the residents that include information about key tips to reduce energy, ways to make inexpensive but green cleaning products that they can use at home. Making sure that they know how the home that they're living in is different than a standard home and how to maintain it over the long run. So that's what that category is about. We also make sure that, or our standards make sure that when the buildings are designed that residents have a voice at that table, right? So that they're sharing their priorities and their experiences with the building and that can feed into the design decisions as well. I wanted to, real quick, have you had, what kind of feedback have you had from residents? Most residents are really proud to know that they're living in a green building, that they're living in a building that is a high performer. Actually, right now we're doing some work with the DC Housing Authority and Rest and Engagement and it is amazing to hear the stories and just the wealth of information that residents can bring to the table and start sharing with their neighbors about the concepts of efficiency and green cleaning, conservation, et cetera, that they can really add to the conversation as well. Thanks. Yeah, my question is about sort of the operations and maintenance as it relates to verification. Do you have a, and rather than take it abstract, you have a real project. So do you have a professional property manager there at the site? And do they have any particular training that to maintain these buildings so that, yeah, and what's the sort of feedback loop between the split incentive, right, between your cost to capitalize these measures versus how do you see that the residents are operating within those bounds and not going on a spree or something like that? So how did you balance those kind of competing economic things in a real project? That's really the biggest question we have going forward. We do have a professional property manager. It's a property manager who is familiar with the area, familiar with the demographics of the neighborhood and who has been on site since before the building was opened. One of the differences, I think, between what Krista was saying and our experience, we didn't consult with the residents before we did it. It was an empty building and we renovated it to the standards that we thought would help the residents long-term, but frankly, would also help THC. If we're gonna be paying utilities, we darn well wanna make them as low as possible. So one of the things we're going to be doing, we got some money for this from one of our funders, the LISC, Local Initiative Support Corporation LISC, is gonna give us money to train both the staff, the property management staff, and the residents on how to use the building, and probably equally importantly, how not to use the building. Because when you go in, it's like this rush of air that comes out at you. And it is duty of what your design was. You wanna add anything to that? Yeah, great question. The energy bill right now, because that goes to THC's mailbox right now, is the only way to know that right now. But certainly the engagement process needs to happen in these projects. We need to think of designing the building, not stopping with turning over the keys but actually making sure that it's functioning like any other engineered machinery. The proof is really in the performance of that. So definitely an area of improvement and development. Thank you. Other questions? I have just a quick one on job opportunities and sort of what you're seeing is some local economic development opportunities in green building and retrofits. Anything come to mind? I think this is a huge opportunity. So as we're seeing this kind of like curve develop that I showed with the projects and it has become clear that we need knowledgeable professionals who guide that process from like building, over designing and verifying and quality assuring. So there's that that needs to be a massive kind of training that is going on to bring people up to speed. But also we talked about it earlier, the materials that are coming onto the market are like sought after the high performance. There's a lot of opportunity for actual manufacturing I think. So hopefully we'll see the high performance industries in the US step up to the plate and come up with new products that are more cost effective. Thank you. And we're seeing some more products manufactured here that were overseas not long ago, right? Okay, thank you. I wanna thank the panel and I wanna thank all of you for coming today very much.