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[joyful music]
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(Michael Colgrove) Probably about, must have been five years ago now,
maybe even longer,
the American Institute of Architects,
AIA, partnered with the city
with the department of Housing Preservation Development, HPD.
They had a lot, a site up in the Bronx
that needed to be developed.
And this particular site had a lot of challenges,
which you're going to hear about.
And they decided to organize a design competition
to solicit proposals from a variety of design teams
to promote or discuss or present how they
would develop the site in a sustainable way,
with sustainable housing that was affordable,
that sort of connected to the community,
and that dealt with some of the obstacles
that this particular site presented,
and the finalist for that project
basically received the parcel of land
for a dollar from HPD
and took advantage of
our multifamily performance program,
the new construction component.
So, and now we have finally seen
the fruits of that labor, that effort,
which was a very interesting collaboration
and one of my first when I joined NYSERDA.
And really does make me proud to be able
to present this case study and the panelists,
because this project,
you've literally seen it from drawing board
to completion and occupancy.
And they really did a fantastic job
of realizing all the potential that they
had presented in their initial design.
(Ari Goldstein) The green roofs on the project really start--
they're a spiral all the way up,
so the idea was Via Verde, or the green way,
for the name of the project, and that's really based
on this concept of building as much as we can on this site,
so we can have the most units and most affordable housing,
but then using all of that rooftop space
as green roofs and amenities,
which you know, helps with insulation,
storm water runoff, but also just creating
a nice amenity space for residents to use
in the south Bronx where there's really not a lot
of parks and open space.
So, it starts in the courtyard,
there's a two story amphitheater.
We have a first level roof, which has Evergreen Trees,
then the next level roof has Dwarf Fruit Trees,
and the roof we're on now is actually
large gardening plots,
so people will be able to do their own fruit,
vegetable, and herb gardening in these
two-foot tall planters.
And then as the building steps up,
we also have all of these other roofs,
basically extensive green roofs with sedum species like
four to six inches in soil,
all the way from the seventh floor roof
up to the 18th.
And then on the 20th floor,
we have a community room and a roof terrace,
which has amazing views of the Bronx
and Manhattan skyline.
So, that was sort of the horizontal surfaces,
and then on the vertical surfaces,
we did the solar panels, because we're--
Our building is stepping up from the south to the north,
so we have the perfect solar exposure.
So, basically on all of the areas where the building
steps up, we have solar panels that are sort of
built into the south facing facades
and we have a racking system.
So, the racking system is tilted
and then the solar panels on the racks
are also tilted so that they're maintaining
the optimum angle as the sun moves
across the sky from east to west.
And we're expecting about 65 kilowatts
of energy production which will power all of the elevators,
pumps, basically the entire owner meter,
which is about 5% of the total building electric load.
So, it's gonna make a pretty significant impact
and the PVs themselves, you know, there's something
that's easy for people to recognize
as a really great unique green design element,
but they're also, you know, having
a significant production element,
because we designed them to be the most efficient.
And one of the things that NYSERDA helped with,
actually now that I think about it,
is NYSERDA's very strict on needing
the PVs to be efficient.
They won't offer any of their subsidy programs
to inefficient PVs that are overly shaded
or have the wrong angle,
so, you know, I think that's great,
because they only want to subsidize things that are
actually very effective.
And so, that's one of the reasons why we had
to make them perfectly aligned
with the right angles to the sun.
So, that's what they're gonna produce.
And then in the lobby, we actually have a display
that shows the total production from
the PV panels compared to the total building energy usage.
(Engela Sthapit) NYSERDA incentives are a great thing
for multifamily--
For multifamily buildings, 'cause it helps pay for
some of the incentives that--
pay for some of the measures that the building owner
wants to put into the building,
but it costs, you know, the costs are a little bit
higher than the regular measures that
they would install in the building.
I mean, it pays for itself very quickly,
even without the incentives and it saves a lot
in the long run during the operational phase
of the building, but the first costs
are like, you know, a little something
that deters the owner away from doing these measures,
but having the nicer incentives come in,
the owner is able to put in all these great measures
into the building and you know,
save energy later on and it's good for,
you know, the owners or the renters,
who are gonna occupy the building in the future
and also in the common area charges that
the building management has to pay anyway.
(Andrew McNamara) NYSERDA is critical in closing that
capital cost--
helping owners get across that capital cost threshold,
where, you know, the incremental cost of energy improvements
and green improvements might just be a little bit more
than an owner is interested in biting off.
And NYSERDA just brings it down enough so that
the cost effectiveness of the measures
and the return on investment that the measures bring,
you know, becomes palatable enough that owners are then
willing to make the investment.
And I think, you know, in that way, NYSERDA's
able to, you know, leverage the, you know,
the many, many millions of dollars being spent
on a project like this to really nudge it
in the direction of--
Much more than nudge actually really,
you know, give it a strong push in
the direction of energy efficiency
and renewable energy.
I think a lot of the features that were implemented here,
you know, might not have been done so.
I think, you know, the blower door testing
that we're seeing and the attention to detail
during construction, you know, that NYSERDA mandates,
you don't typically see on most projects.
Not because it's not a good idea,
but because NYSERDA helped to set out a framework,
which everyone understands they're going to be held to
and judged by if they want to get that incentive money,
and that turns out to be a strong motivator,
which I think is a good thing.
(Ari Goldstein) We have a bunch of projects in different stages
of construction and we've done
the NYSERDA program for all of them.
And I encourage all of the other developers
I know to do it as well.
It's really not any more work
from a developer's perspective
if we're already doing LEED,
because it's really the same energy model
that you can sort of tweak for both purposes
and you know, it comes with the subsidy program,
which covers the cost of the NYSERDA consultant,
the MPP partner.
And it covers a little bit more than that,
so you can actually use it, you know,
to help with all your Energy Star lights
and your high efficiency billing systems
and your extra insulation.
And at the end of the day,
I mean, we really believe that green building
is responsible, especially for affordable housing,
keeps the total utility cost down,
lets the buildings be more sustainable in the long run,
and programs like LEED and NYSERDA
are, you know, third party accountability programs
to make sure developers are doing it--
doing the right thing and that they're actually
following up and installing all the things
that they said they were.
So, we think it's great from a third party
verification perspective and accountability perspective,
and definitely having the quality control
and the subsidy and the expertise,
where we can ask NYSERDA questions
about different things, has definitely been helpful
for us during both the design and the construction process.
[joyful music]
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