Bridge Builders Award
Enterprise Community Partners and its Green Communities partners for collaborating with more than 25 developers, investors, builders and residents to create Green Communities, the first national green building program developed for affordable housing. Enterprise has made a commitment of $555 million to build more than 8,500 homes for low-income people and to bring environmentally sustainable development to the mainstream of the affordable housing industry.
Affordable housing has traditionally been developed with one major factor in mind: affordability. However, in 2004, Enterprise, a group that has always been dedicated to the expansion of affordable housing in the country, along with numerous partners renewed its commitment to not only providing affordable housing, but to changing the paradigm of affordable housing from that which seeks to cut costs in any way possible to that which, in addition to being affordable, is environmentally sound, public health-friendly, and sustainable. It was with this ultimate objective that the Green Communities Initiative was launched.
The idea of ‘going green’ began among senior leaders at Enterprise well before the Initiative began, with staff and trustees initiating conversations with a wide variety of experts from the environmental, community development, and public health fields. As a first step, they brought experts together as an interdisciplinary committee under the newly-minted designation of Green Communities, including representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Center for Healthy Housing, the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, the American Planning Association, the American Institute of Architects, Global Green USA and Southface.
At the time, there was no national framework to help affordable housing developers set green goals for their developments that would deliver measurable health, economic and environmental benefits. Enterprise and its partners created the Green Communities Criteria to provide a cost effective framework for achieving deep green benefits in all kinds of affordable housing in all parts of the country.
The Criteria were developed to provide a holistic approach to green affordable housing development that would result in measurable outcomes related to affordability, health and environmental sustainability. The Criteria set a definition for green affordable housing that goes beyond energy efficiency and embraces smart growth, integrated design, water conservation, healthy indoor air quality and building materials, and green operations and maintenance.
To encourage and enable affordable housing developers to meet these comprehensive and rigorous criteria, Enterprise also made a major commitment to financing, technical assistance and policy advocacy for construction and rehabilitation of homes that are healthier, more energy-efficient, and better for the environment — without compromising affordability.
Since its inception, the program has resulted in $570 million in grants, loans, and equity committed, 11,000 highly sustainable Green Communities homes in 242 developments in 25 states that are complete or in development, more than 3,000 affordable housing professionals trained in sustainable design and development practices, and more than 20 city and state affordable housing policies changed to support green affordable development.
With these criteria that outline a complete, integrated approach to green development and with Enterprise and its partners’ commitment operating within green models, the Green Communities Initiative is showing the power of partnerships across sectors to create better homes and communities for low-income families that ultimately benefit the owners and residents through reduced costs of maintenance over time and the environment through more sustainable development.