Affordable Green Guidelines

The following are guidelines designed to help you review Green Building practices for inclusion in your housing designs. Not all items are practical in all circumstances depending on climate and availability of systems or materials. Initial costs vary and often can be made up over time by energy cost savings. These are options the developer and design team should consider in the beginning of the design process.

For help with some of these terms, go to the GREEN GLOSSARY

1. Community Context
2. Site Design
3. Building Design
4. Water Conservation and Management
5. Energy Efficiency
6. Reduced and Sustainable Material Use
7. Recycling During and Post Occupancy
8. Indoor Environmental Quality—Healthy Buildings
9. Quality Assurance/Commissioning
10. Innovative Design Strategies
1. Community Context
1. Encourage infill and avoid greenfield (undeveloped land) development by building within existing cities or within urban growth boundaries. Try to use one of the following:
1. Infill parcel—Surrounded on all sides by development
2. Urban renewal areas—usually in redevelopment districts
3. Mixed-use developments—mix of retail, offices, commercial, and housing
4. Adaptive reuse—recycle existing buildings for new uses
5. Compact development—higher density than surroundings or attached housing
6. Brownfields—sites that have been cleaned of hazardous contamination to make usable for construction
2. Locate near public transportation if available or request that it be extended to or near your development
3. Use existing grid system of streets
4. Landscaping
1. Use plant species that thrive in local climate with minimal irrigation
2. Use efficient irrigation systems such as drip, or a measured moisture level spray system that only goes off early morning
3. Mitigate wind and sun with evergreen and deciduous trees
4. Minimize heat island effect at paved areas, i.e., provide a 40 percent shade coverage at tree maturity or provide alternate paving such as light color or permeable or grass-covered pavement
5. Save existing mature trees on site
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2. Site Design
1. Public Open Spaces
1. Where possible, provide usable areas where the community can meet and gather
2. Provide safe play areas for children in multifamily developments
3. Provide community garden areas
2. Semi-Public Open Spaces
1. Use patios, front yards, porches, or balconies to encourage community interaction and provide eyes-on-the-street surveillance
3. Provide for alternative transportation, e.g., bike paths and storage, pedestrian links, car shares
4. Provide accessible routes of travel and avoid use of stairs, wherever the terrain permits
5. Prioritize pedestrian over vehicular traffic and use traffic calming devices. Incorporate attractive well-lit pedestrian paths wherever possible
6. Consider outdoor spaces for urban agriculture- community gardens, planters for food, herbs, flowers
7. Consider Internet connectivity for telecommuting
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3. Building Design
1. Provide a well-insulated building that minimizes heat gain and loss
2. Specify energy-efficient windows
3. Orient building for passive heat gain and cooling/natural ventilation. Provide shading devices, operable windows, shutters, and thermal mass to fine-tune these strategies
4. Provide daylighting with windows and skylights. Minimize glazing on east and especially west exposures to reduce heat gain
5. Build cool roofs which provide low heat absorption and high reflectivity roof assembly or green roofs (vegetated)
6. Incorporate universal design principles, and child-friendly and senior-friendly design
7. Meet or exceed your local requirements for accessible and special needs housing
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4. Water Conservation and Management
1. Make sure water meters are installed and that there is owner/tenant accountability in water use
2. Use water-saving strategies such as
1. Dual-flush toilets
2. Looped domestic water system with recirculating pump for immediate hot water at the tap
3. Recycle gray water (rain water collection or bath water recapture)
1. Use in landscaping
2. Use in toilet flushing if local code allows
3. If your locality uses tertiary treated wastewater for irrigation, request a hook up for large landscape areas
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4. Storm water management
1. Follow best management practices, e.g., cleanse and slow peak flow using vegetated swales or sand filter retention and cleansing systems or similar strategies
2. Minimize storm water discharge using permeable paving and retention systems
3. Provide mitigation during construction to avoid siltation of surrounding streams or drainage systems during heavy rains
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5. Energy Efficiency
1. Assure that electric and gas meters are installed and that there is accountability by owner or tenant for use
2. Use properly sized and designed sealed combustion boilers or furnaces and distribution systems or other low-energy use heating
3. Use tankless water heaters, indirect water heaters, sealed combustion water heaters, or solar hot water heaters
4. Specify compact fluorescent fixtures and educate tenants about their energy savings. Provide collection for spent bulbs to be disposed of properly.
5. Specify Energy Star appliances throughout
6. Avoid or minimize air-conditioning with natural ventilation or other passive cooling strategy
7. Consider renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics (or pre-wire to be added when feasible) using research grants and rebates
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6. Reduced and Sustainable Material Use
1. Use fewer building materials through advanced framing techniques or other systems approach to building construction.
2. Use recycled content such as:
1. High fly ash content concrete in foundations, flat work, wall systems, finish floors
2. Cementitious siding, or stucco with high fly ash content
3. Composite framing such as engineered joists instead of dimensional lumber
4. Light-gauge steel in whole house or interior walls. Verify that thermal bridging is addressed if steel is used in exterior walls.
5. Rapidly renewable resource materials for flooring and finishes such as wheat straw board and bamboo
6. Specify insulation made of renewable, easily recyclable material or recycled content such as recycled newspaper (cellulose), soy based foam, cotton fiber, or other
3. Use locally available (within 500 miles) building materials such as:
1. Locally produced masonry or other earthen system
2. Recycled lumber or locally milled timber or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified lumber or other recycled materials
3. Recycled aggregate from demolition of existing site work or structure or nearby source
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7. Recycling During and Post Occupancy
1. Reduction and Management of Construction Waste
1. Reuse form-boards, mulch waste wood on-site
2. Sort construction waste and recycle applicable materials
3. If remodeling, salvage reusable materials
2. Recycling of User Waste
1. Mulch yard waste on site or provide recycling bins for pickup by local recycling authority
2. Provide recycling bins along with trash bins for residents
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8. Indoor Environmental Quality—Healthy Buildings
1. Detail building envelope to shed water with adequate flashing and a continuous drainage plane (rain-screen). Design walls to be able to dry to the interior, exterior, or both as appropriate to the local climate.
2. Provide operable windows with screens and take advantage of natural cross-ventilation when possible.
3. Provide mechanical ventilation to remove excess moisture and indoor pollutants from living spaces and to provide an adequate amount of outside air
4. Specify sealed combustion boilers, furnaces, and water heaters
5. Use only low volatile organic compound (VOC) paints, sealants, and finishes
6. Use paperless gypsum board or cement board at all damp areas and exterior walls to prevent mold due to water penetration
7. Install flooring with low or no off-gassing such as concrete, ceramic tile, FSC certified wood flooring, or bamboo with low urea formaldehyde content in its binders. If wood or bamboo flooring needs to be finished on site, use low VOC water-based polyurethane finish.
8. Minimize the use of carpeting, which can hold dirt, mold, and other allergens. When used, specify carpet with low  VOCs and recyclable fiber and backing content. If available, install carpeting that can be recycled.
9. Install carbon monoxide detectors in living areas as well as garages
10. Perform fresh air flushing for a week before occupancy. Do not turn up heat as that can cause new compounds to be released into the air.
11. Educate tenants or owners by providing user manuals on use of systems, their required maintenance such as changing of filters and batteries. Use filters that remove allergens in forced-air units.
12. Protect onsite building materials from rain during construction to prevent mold growth
13. Design wall and ceiling assemblies to mitigate impact sound and air-born sound transmission between units
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9. Quality Assurance/Commissioning: Third-Party Confirmation That All Systems are Functioning As Intended and Ongoing Maintenance
1. Perform blower door tests for leaks in building envelope
2. Perform duct testing if ducts are used in heating and or cooling system
3. Calibrate thermostat, carbon monoxide detectors, and any other similar systems
4. Generally confirm that all systems are functioning as intended and in a coordinated fashion
5. Have a written maintenance program in place, as part of management, for proper maintenance and functioning of the building and systems respectively
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10. Innovative Design Strategies
1. This section allows for any design innovation not covered above. It is most desirable if others can replicate this innovation.
2. In addition to building technology and design, innovations can include
1. Educational programs for visitors and occupants about green building technology
2. Research that yields solutions to help provide green affordable housing.
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