City neighborhoods throughout New York State are burdened with vacant or underused houses that eventually deteriorate, leading to increased costs of code enforcement, policing and fire protection and decreases in taxable value. In many cases the property owners walk away from their responsibilities, leaving local governments to care for the properties and to work to dispense of them. None of this happens fast, so the houses decline further, too often leading to demolition via taxpayer dollars.
It can be argued that one cause of vacant houses is the drive to create affordable housing by constructing new houses and multifamily apartment buildings. These new developments are attractive, in the sense that they attract people out of existing housing into the bright, shiny, new thing. But with a low- or no-growth population across Upstate New York, every new housing unit means that an existing one goes vacant. We taxpayers cover both sides of the equation, both constructing the new and protecting or demolishing the old. [Indeed, certain housing developments are needed to serve residents with special needs, where services can be provided more efficiently than if the recipients are dispersed. But the housing needed by healthy, able-bodied residents need not be concentrated.]
It can also be argued that we need to carefully consider whether new buildings are warranted, knowing that construction of all sorts is a major contributor to climate change. We know that upwards of 20% of all greenhouse gases come from the process of constructing buildings, including extracting ores from mines, felling trees in forests, cooking limestone to make cement, shipping materials thousands of miles, and then stacking them to make buildings. Another 20% of global emissions come from operating those buildings, for heating, cooling, lighting, etc.
If the construction industry is forced to abide by the emission limits in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, construction of all sorts—of buildings, roadways, utilities, airports, etc.—will be much more difficult, if not impossible. Therefore, state leaders would be wise to begin shifting support for affordable housing toward the rehabilitation of existing buildings—and neighborhoods, streets, utilities, etc.–rather than toward construction of new.
We know that renovating existing houses is cheaper than building new houses and apartments. In the City of Rochester, most houses have good bones, and even the most beat up, vacant ones can be saved. The Greater Rochester Housing Partnership has been doing this since 2002, turning some 775 of the worst houses into like-new homes. While there are differences in the type, size and condition of the properties, most have three or four bedrooms, not the one or two of new apartments. Over the last three years, GRHP has spent an average of $199,000 on a mix of new-build and renovations.
Meanwhile, the price that an affordable housing developer is paid to construct a new, 1- or 2-bedroom apartment in or near Rochester is averaging around $270,000. The following chart shows 13 randomly selected, recently constructed or proposed affordable housing projects that are new-build from the ground up. These developments were subsidized by New York State, which also supports the rent payments. All this information is available on the websites of the NYS Department of Housing and Community Renewal, the City of Rochester, the NYS Governor’s Office and the development companies.
The chart shows the number of housing units and total project development cost, which normally includes the costs of financing, site acquisition, planning and design, etc. The number at the bottom right is the average cost per unit.
Compare this cost to the medium value of an owner-occupied house in the City of Rochester which, according to US Census Bureau data from 2015-19, was just $83,100. We’re paying almost 3½ the value of an average 3- or 4-bedroom city house for a developer-owned 1- or 2-bedroom apartment.
The basic point is that there no public cost to changing our state and federal housing policies to favor retrofitting over new construction.
And on top of this, the reduction in environmental damage is immeasurable. Constructing buildings contributes over 21% of global emissions, as shown in the following chart from the 2019 Global Status Report, Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, and Architecture 2030.
Of all the materials used in buildings, just two—cement and steel—account for 10% of all U.S. energy related C02 emissions. And that’s just making the stuff, not moving or placing it. We’re stuck with these two materials, though, for intractable reasons: 1)we lack market-suitable alternative materials and methods, 2)the construction industry is notoriously slow to change, and 3)there isn’t enough time to innovate and adopt new ways. The following chart is from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2018, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy 2018
Embodied carbon will be responsible for almost half of total new construction emissions between now and 2050, per the UN Environment Global Status Report 2017; US Energy Information Administration International Energy Outlook 2017.
Some will argue that the energy efficiency of new buildings offsets the energy embodied within them. But a study conducted a decade ago found that it can take from 10 to 80 years for a new energy-efficient building to overcome, through efficient operations, the climate change impacts created by its construction. The study also found that retrofitting buildings uses more labor than constructing new buildings and imports fewer materials from distant sources (critical factors in a post-Covid economy).
Saving and renovating a house helps more than just that one property, a message that has become a clarion call for members of the American Institute of Architects. The AIA’s national president in 2018, Carl Elefante, said that “Every building represents an enormous carbon investment and investment by the community. There’s a road outside, there are utilities in that road, there’s a school down the street that has a seat in the classroom waiting for the kid that lives in that house. We have to optimize each one of those resource allocations “. Carl Elefante, FAIA; Existing Buildings: The Elephant in the Room, Architect magazine, October 2018
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