By Paul Gleason and Scott Wopata
Difficult enough to address on their own, the issues of affordable housing and climate change combine to create a “wicked problem”: efforts to tackle one will only exacerbate the other. Build more affordable housing, and raise greenhouse gas emissions. Stop development, and reduce housing availability and affordability.
Organizations committed to both housing and climate justice find themselves in a pickle. Community Action Center (CAC) believes it has found a way out.
The answer is for community-based housing organizations (CBOs) to build net-zero. Net-zero design is climate-friendly, and it can actually make housing more affordable, as energy efficiency savings can reduce costs for low-income renters. The result is more housing and greener housing.
Building net-zero developments isn’t easy, but CAC – along with partners at the University of MN and the Rochester Area Foundation (RAF) – have had real-world successes. Below outlines high-level information for CBOs to plan projects of their own.
Housing development is extremely difficult and complicated. Very few CBOs will be able to build a housing development on their own. Instead, to maximize their chances of success, CBOs must gather a team of partners, all of whom will contribute their own special talents to the project. At the same time, these partners will all have needs and concerns of their own.
Not every development will require all of these partners, but almost every development will need to gather a team of stakeholders, rely on their knowledge and skills, and balance their sometimes conflicting needs.
Community-Based Housing Organization
a) What they provide: The CBO must provide the vision. Organization leaders must know what they want and keep the partners focused on their ultimate goal.
b) What they need: in a word, expertise. Most CBOs do not know how to secure financing for a multi-unit housing development, let alone know how to design or build according to net-zero standards. They will need to rely on their partners’ technical and scientific expertise to turn their vision into a reality.
Municipality/City
a) What they provide: municipalities will provide information about zoning, permits, and other legal matters. They are in charge of the infrastructure (roads, sewers) that every development needs. Cities may be able to give land, or even provide some capital.
b) What they need: city governments can sometimes move slowly. City employees will need information from the CBO in a timely manner so they can present it to governing bodies for approval.
Construction Firms
a) What they provide: building expertise. No project will succeed without an excellent partner in the construction industry.
b) What they need: Net-zero construction training. Very few construction firms already know how to build innovative, net-zero housing. They may be resistant to some ideas. They will need technical support from architects and building scientists to build according to net-zero specifications.
Architects
a) What they provide: Net-zero building designs. An architecture firm may or may not have net-zero designs on hand, but architects are the ones who can bridge the gap between building science on the one hand, and the construction process on the other. They will ensure that the building plans meet net-zero specifications.
b) What they need: vision/direction from the CBO and an open line of communication with the builders/construction company. They may also need assistance from building scientists.
Building Scientists
a) What they provide: Net-zero design plans and education for architects and construction firms.
b) What they need: building scientists need to enter a project at a point where they can make a difference. If the project is too far along, it will be impossible to incorporate their ideas.
Contractors & Subcontractors
a) What they provide: tradespeople will provide the building expertise necessary to fit the development with electricity, plumbing, etc. They may also be able to provide new ideas about how to make the building process more efficient, both in terms of time and energy.
b) What they need: clear and reasonable instructions. Like construction firms, few in the trades have built net-zero projects. The requirements may seem strange or onerous to them. They will need to understand why the CBO/building scientists/architects are asking them to do things differently. They may need technical support in order to build/install in new ways.
Community Members
a) What they provide: Community members are the most important but most-often forgotten stakeholders. Their needs should drive the CBO’s vision for the development. After all, no housing development will succeed if no one wants to live there.
b) What they need: Opportunities for input. CBOs should consult with their communities early and often. Pay special attention to the needs of neighbors, both residential and commercial. They can become effective advocates for the project–or its opponents.
Below are images of CAC’s wall assembly from Hillcrest (2021) and Ridgeview Heights (2025). CAC is committed to the continual improvement process and has implemented changes to the wall design in an attempt to increase cost efficiency ($/R-value) and further ameliorate risks related to emerging science on humidity and dew points in the coming decades related to climate change.
Hillcrest Village Wall Assembly
Ridgeview Heights Wall Assembly
High performance building design requires a high level of expertise and hands-on management. Balancing multiple priorities, it must reduce energy consumption, maintain high quality of living, and ameliorate long-term risks to building infrastructure. CBO’s must ensure that all building design elements work together while remaining buildable by local tradespeople. Because advanced construction techniques may be new to some contractors, the need for quality control and a deep understanding of how the various elements work together is required for success.
The CBO will need to gather a sizable building design and construction team. It may include building scientists, architects, developers, builders, subcontractors for mechanical systems, and more. For each of the items listed below, the CBO will have to ensure that the right people are part of the design process.
Building Envelope/Wall Assembly
An array of building envelope and wall assembly designs are emerging. In order to pick the right envelope and walls, the CBOs must consider both the skill level of local builders and location-specific weather patterns. As material pricing changes with new technological advances in bringing new products to the market, the chosen wall assembly should reflect a value-engineered perspective to maximize insulating value/dollar.
Mechanicals
Efficient and high performance mechanical systems need to be right-sized based on the energy modeling of the building design. This can be challenging, as many mechanical systems have traditionally been designed to be “more than a minimum” without a maximum bound. In other words, they are often intentionally oversized. High performance building design often entails a reduction in the size and cost of mechanical systems, helping support the eventual return on investment.
Thermal Bridging
High Performance building design will prioritize minimizing thermal bridging at various weak points. This often happens near windows, floor level changes (slab, joist, and truss), and at inside/outside corners. It is critical to incorporate detailed plans to eliminate thermal bridging where possible.
Windows & Doors
High performance wall assemblies often require different installation methods for window and door fenestrations, especially with exterior mounted insulation. The selected windows and doors must support the R-value of the entire wall assembly. They should be installed in a manner that is structurally sound and manages moisture appropriately.
Building Orientation
Passive heating and cooling from the orientation of the building can help reduce energy consumption. Additionally, building (or roof) orientation can help optimize solar exposure for roof mounted solar panel installation.
Energy Modeling
The planning team should forecast how all of the high performance building design selections interact together. They should identify risk points and manage moisture, as both factors are essential to an intelligent and low-risk high performance building design. It also allows for value-based decisions to be made to invest in the most critical and impactful areas of building design, while understanding how each decision impacts the whole.
One of the main challenges in high performance building design is the pace of work and decision making. Since an intelligently designed high performance building requires all components and elements to work together, previously successful building plans may need to be altered to accommodate thicker walls, different mechanicals, or a change in orientation. Prioritizing education early in the development process appears costly, as it slows down the project. However, this investment will make future high performance building projects more efficient.
Community Engagement is an oft-neglected but essential component of the housing development process. Communication during a housing development process comes in three broad types:
- Communication: how the CBO communicates to the broader community
- Feedback: how the community communicates to the CBO
- Community Engagement: how the CBO and community communicate with each other
At various stages of the development process, each of these types will be useful. However, community engagement is especially important. Community engagement is the way a CBO gathers stakeholders, builds a coalition of partners (like banks and building scientists), and finds assistance and advocates within the broader community. If done well, community engagement can produce a groundswell of support for the project.
The goal of community engagement is empathy. It has succeeded when all of the participants understand each others’ needs and priorities, as well as how their actions and decisions will affect each other.
Good community engagement proceeds in several steps:
1: Identify Stakeholders
Identify people, groups, and stakeholders most impacted by the overall vision and by each important decision. There will be different groups impacted at different stages of the development process.
2: Plan Engagement
Schedule/plan “right size” engagement with each person/group/stakeholder (meetings, discussions, phone calls, etc). “Right size” means “those most impacted by a decision should have the loudest voice in the decision.” For example, if a CBO is planning a low-income housing development, then future low-income home buyers should likely be your loudest voice. When it comes to neighbor relations, they should have a minimal voice on the design of the interior of the home, but a louder voice on the exterior design. Likewise builders, architects, and building scientists all deserve a voice on the wall assembly design and selection, but should have less influence when it comes to the rent-up.
3: Assess Equity
Reflect on equity and justice. Are there any people/groups/stakeholders who are impacted but essentially don’t have a voice? For a housing CBO, this is often people experiencing homelessness or who don’t speak English and don’t have opportunities to join in discussions.
4: Share Insights
Ensure that the insights from all groups are shared with all groups. Information and understanding of the many priorities is critical to empathy.
5: Finalize Vision
Form the decision/vision based on #2-4. Fact check to ensure that the decision/vision is truly reconciling the insights identified by the diverse groups of people/group/stakeholders (also – right size them so that funders or neighbors aren’t getting their priorities met over everything else).
Community engagement is difficult, costly in terms of both time and resources. Its outcome is uncertain; some conflicts may be intractable. But the goal is NOT “everyone leaves happy.” The goal is that everyone has a chance to hear each other out and wrestle with the challenges that everyone else is facing.
CAC’s vitality depends on the community — from volunteers to donations to program-specific support — so that we can continue to meet our neighbors’ basic needs.