The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) recently released a guide to aid affordable housing developers and designers to construct new sustainable affordable housing.
The Guide for Greener QAPs identifies strategies to overcome social, regulatory, and financial barriers for new development. Affordable housing projects typically submit Qualified Allocation Plans (QAPs) when applying for federal low-income housing tax credit programs that are administered by state housing finance agencies.
QAPs have a significant influence on the type of housing that gets built and can be used to incentivize certain building types and features. Many state finance agencies have found that adding sustainability criteria to their QAPs can be an effective method to encourage projects to consider health and energy efficiency, according to ILFI.
The guide is the result of three years of work by ILFI working with state finance agencies around the country to encourage sustainability and healthy materials use in affordable housing projects through QAPs.
Related Stories
Multifamily Housing | Apr 16, 2015
Seattle’s size restriction on micro apartments blamed for rise in rents
Seattle’s city planner recently said that the council’s new rules have made small apartments more expensive to build and charged the board with “overreaching” and not giving micro-housing “a fair shake.”
Green | Apr 16, 2015
New version of Building Energy Data Exchange Specification launched
BEDES is a dictionary that facilitates consistent exchange of building characteristics and energy use data between tools and databases in the building energy efficiency sector.
Codes and Standards | Apr 16, 2015
New York tops U.S. cities in walkability
Revitalization pushes Detroit and New Orleans up the rankings
Green | Apr 14, 2015
USGBC will recognize energy and water standards for the Living Building Challenge
This move means that projects achieving the energy and water requirements in Living Building Challenge will be considered as technically equivalent to LEED.
Codes and Standards | Apr 14, 2015
New York City preparing new codes for evacuation elevators
New York City’s Fire, Buildings, and City Planning Departments in New York are writing rules to govern occupant-evacuation elevators, reflecting a change in philosophy of how to evacuate people from skyscrapers in an emergency.
Codes and Standards | Apr 12, 2015
California imposes stringent new water standards
California is the first state to adopt standards that are more efficient than those set by EPA's WaterSense program.
Codes and Standards | Apr 12, 2015
Virginia surpasses Florida for strictest hurricane building codes
Virginia has edged out Florida as the state with the most stringent hurricane building codes, according to the Institute for Business and Home Safety’s “2015 Rating the States” report.
Codes and Standards | Apr 6, 2015
Industry groups petition for change order reform on federal projects
Nine design and construction associations ask for assurance that funds available for additional work.
Codes and Standards | Apr 6, 2015
DOE releases Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines
The guidelines are aimed at strengthening and streamlining commercial building workforce training and certification programs for workers in energy auditing, building commissioning, building operations, and energy management.
Green | Apr 3, 2015
Georgia may ban use of LEED on state buildings
Georgia's state legislature is considering a measure to require all state buildings to only use green building standards that permit the use of Georgia's lumber.