Sustainable Buildings Initiative

Housing affordability and availability is a critical issue in our region. As such, many social and financial challenges can often disincentive organizations from going beyond code to exemplary green building. HDC and our partners work to emphasize the lifecycle implications of reduced energy and water bills, and reduced exposure to toxins. Our members are on the cutting edge, directly confronting the tension between balancing upfront costs and creating durable homes as permanent, affordable assets to our communities.

HDC is committed to working in the intersection of housing affordability, sustainability, and race equity. Solutions that treat each issue individually are no longer enough, as these social issues are fundamentally interdependent. As stricter energy codes are mandated at the city, county, and state levels, we continue to ask who is benefitting from technical advances and growth opportunities, and work to ensure that historically under-resourced communities can and will prosper in a growing green economy.

Decarbonize Affordable Housing Now

HDC has convened the Decarbonize Affordable Housing Now (DAHN) Task Force to support our members’ efforts toward decarbonization, efficiency, electrification and healthy materials.

This project will include retrofitting an inefficient multi-family property to meet future code compliance in order to document pathways and resources that can be replicated as well as creating a toolkit for portfolio management to facilitate broader application of decarbonization work throughout a portfolio of multiple properties.

Exemplary Buildings Program

Our Exemplary Buildings Program (EBP) aims to transform the affordable housing market, making it possible to standardize the construction of “ultra-efficient buildings.

In this way, our developers, residents, and communities realize long-term economic and health benefits while reducing our environmental impacts. For more information, visit our EBP-specific website, or email Loren Tierney.

Offsite Construction

Offsite construction involves the process of planning, designing, fabricating, transporting and assembling building elements for rapid site assembly to a greater degree of finish than in traditional piecemeal on-site construction.

King County’s unprecedented and growing crisis calls us to bring fresh eyes and robust, current data to the inherent challenges of affordable housing development. Modular and other offsite construction methods offer us the potential to deliver safe, healthy, sustainable homes with both greater efficiency and greater affordability, and these single-project improvements can scale, ultimately producing homes at a reduced overall cost.