Built Green: Seattle’s First Emerald Star Home by Dwell Development Exceeds Net Zero Energy
In 2015, Dwell Development completed construction of Seattle’s first Emerald Star home in the Ballard community. This 2,218 square-foot home combines green technology, renewable energy, rainwater capture, and reclaimed materials to meet Built Green’s Emerald Star certification, the program’s highest certification level. To achieve Emerald Star status, a home must show it will achieve net zero energy use and a 70 percent reduction in water consumption compared to the average home. Two years later, the post-occupancy study reveals that the Ballard home is a success and has even exceeded Emerald Star expectations!
The Results:
Achieving Built Green’s Emerald Star stringent certification isn’t easy; currently, only four projects have received this accreditation in King and Snohomish counties. Two of those projects have gone through post-occupancy analysis so far including Dwell Development’s speculative home. The analysis of the Dwell Development home shows that:
- The home produced 3,941 kWh more renewable energy than energy consumed over a 25-month period.
- They owners used just 19.95 gallons of utility-supplied water per person per day. The Seattle area average is around 67 gallons per person per day.
Home energy and water model predictions may differ from reality, and that is why it’s so important to compare models to actual performance once the home has been lived in. We at Built Green are very excited to see that Dwell Development’s home exceeded expectations and that the Emerald Star certification is achieving the desired results.
Dwell Development has been a Built Green member since 2005 and has certified over 100 homes at the 5-Star Built Green level, which includes one Passive House, and four Net Zero Energy Homes to date.
Homeowner Experience:
Does deep green living impact the homeowners’ experience and comfort? When interviewed, the homeowners living in the Dwell Development home expressed that they had a very positive experience. They believe purchasing an Emerald Star home was a smart financial decision and their lifestyle was not significantly impacted by living in an Emerald Star home. The home is more comfortable and healthier for both the homeowners and the environment. Plus, it saved them over $4,000 on utility bills! Learn more about the results of the study.
About Dwell Development:
Dwell Development is an award-winning sustainable residential builder based in Seattle, WA and the Grand Winner of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2016 Housing Innovation Awards. Dwell Development’s contribution to the Greater Seattle area has transformed the traditional landscape for residential design and construction by exclusively building energy-efficient homes featuring high performance properties and sleek modern designs. Follow the latest updates from Dwell Development on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram. For more information, visit dwelldevelopment.com
About Built Green
Leah Missik is the Built Green’s program manager and Built Green is the green building certification program of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. The Master Builders Association is the largest local homebuilding association in the country Built Green certifies homes as 3-Star, 4-Star, 5-Star, and Emerald Star through a holistic checklist-based system that requires verification by an independent third-party. Since its inception, Built Green has certified more than 32,000 housing units and 17,900 buildings. For more information about Built Green, visit builtgreen.net.
Non-Profits On $500K Units: “It Is Simply Too Complicated to Explain.”
I don’t usually root around lots of public meeting minutes, even for City Council or legislative meetings. But for some reason yesterday I thought I’d look up the last few meetings of the Capitol Hill Housing Board of Directors. You may not know it, but Capitol Hill Housing is a Public Development Authority which means it is subject to many of the disclosure requirements that local governments have. I was mainly looking to see what their board was saying about operating costs at 12th Avenue Arts (here they are: 12th Ave Operating), the project that when one does simple math ($47 million divided by 88) indicates a per unit cost of more than $500,000. Now I actually posted one explanation from Kim Herman of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC) who told the legislature that non-profit projects are more expensive because of community meeting rooms with nurses in them.
But in digging around the minutes of one of the meetings I found something interesting. A section called, “Public Relations Cost of Developing Affordable Housing.” And I felt all warm inside. They were talking about me!
I’m going to be nice and not name names, other than organizational ones. But I’ll start quoting.
There is concern in the local and housing communities about the cost of developing affordable housing. Roger Valdez, a local writer/reporter, has taken on this issue, but has a distorted reality about project costs. Valdez has repeatedly written that the cost of the 12th Ave Arts building was $500,000, when in reality it is $251,000 per unit. Per unit cost is determined through an independently audited cost certification at end of project, but Mr. Valdez has taken all of the costs of the building, including the police parking, restaurants, and theaters into the housing costs.
What’s odd is there is concern about the costs of developing affordable housing. Should we figure out how to reduce those costs? No, let’s start a PR offensive. Often, when I have criticized the expenditures on housing using per unit figures, I ask, “Is there another way to look at this?” And the answer is usually something along the lines of, “There are other things besides housing in the project!”
But that’s true of any mixed use project. So even if with some kind of discount for the parking, rooms for nurses, and retail, the costs to produce a market rate unit, minus those amenities, would still be lower. So we’re back to the fact that non-profit subsidized housing simply costs more to produce. One person at the meeting then said that he,
Thinks that while affordable housing may cost somewhat more than market rate, there is spotty evidence and information is difficult to get. [He] noted that we are developing our own analysis of those costs. [Others], have been unsatisfied with [the] HDC’s [Housing Development Consortium] reaction and direction, who have said that it is simply too complicated to explain.
It’s too complicated to explain. Well, that’s why we had to get the legislature to get the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) to figure it out; they’re pretty smart. They’ll have an answer in September.
Then the minutes say,
We agree we need to do public relations work on this issue and are planning conversations with other housing leaders.
Another participant threatened some “possible next steps” about “Mr. Valdez’ lies.” Cue Darth Vader music here.
It’s worth noting that at a subsequent meeting a board member after reviewing the minutes,
Noted a proposed edit to the Executive Committee Minutes & Report on Page No. 56. She suggested changing the phrase “Mr. Valdez’ lies” to “Mr. Valdez’ misstatements”.
The earlier meeting got even better. Here’s another board member who,
Mentioned that our messaging around this will be important. A lot of people focus on numbers, but we should focus on value of our buildings, including their sustainability and their effect on the community. [Another board member] mentioned that to the extent that there are cost differentials, we could give examples of why it might be more expensive and that those things should be changed (ie government regulations). [The first board member] proposed that comparing market rate and affordable housing is like comparing apples and oranges.
Wow. Just another day in the world of non-profit housing. Who cares about numbers? What’s amusing and sad about the last comment is that even the angry board members acknowledge it is more expensive to build their product and that “government regulations” are the reason why. This is what I have asked them to do all along; get together with us and help cut down many of those regulations that make all housing expensive.
But the board would rather spend the public time and resources finding ways to shut me up about this, even though they acknowledge it is more expensive and that other explanations are “too complicated.” It’s time for everyone to find a way to cut back all the self-imposed expenses that make housing more expensive, something that hurts poor people the most.
List of Costs and Delays to Housing Production Keeps Growing
It’s been a task that I have been wanting to undertake for some time: putting all the snags and costs and incremental regulatory hang ups that, together, are making increasingly difficult to deliver housing to the market. I’m still working on the costs figures for each of these. It’s not easy always to estimate or account for these because they vary. Some, like the increases to Street Improvement Permits (SIP) — they’ve gone up as much as 3,200 percent, in one case from $146 to $4700 — are easy to see. Others, like requiring an extension of a water main can vary depending on the length of the extension. The part that is really difficult is figuring out how do these all add up across the housing economy? How much do these things, cumulatively, add to the price tag of a house or to monthly rent? And how do they shape decisions to fund and build in the first place? How often do these things kill a new housing project.
Of course any rule, regulation, fee or tax adds to the cost of producing anything, even a hot dog. The issue, however, is how much do we regulate and fee and why? State and local government control price to a significant degree. When they dial up the rules and they dial up the price. If the rules are about fire safety most would agree that that’s worth paying for; but the color of the paneling on a new apartment building, not so much. Policy makers need to be held accountable for needlessly adding to to this list; if it can’t be justified with a straight face then don’t do it, period. But in today’s environment it’s easy to say, “Oh they’ll just make a little less profit!” We’re going to change that.
And a final point: non-profit housing projects pay for and deal with all of these too in addition to legal and transaction costs and requirements from funders. It’s not because there is a community room with a nurse in it that non-profit housing is so expensive, it is because costs are being needlessly and thoughtlessly added to all housing. It’s got to stop.
| Department | Department | Delay or Cost Description | |
| 1 | SDOT | Threatening to end its current practice of allowing streets to be temporarily re-opened in order to reset the meter on street use fees. Currently the per diem escalates the longer you have the street closed, but if you re-open for 5 days and then close down again you go back to the starting point again. | |
| 2 | SPU | SDOT | When we do Unit Lot subdivisions or short plots, we are not allowed to submit our applications for water or power until the city has granted the ULS and provided the correct addressing! There have been many times that we have a completed project and are ready to put it on the market, but do not have power because we have not received the official addressing. |
| 3 | SDOT | New ROWIM requirements. Last year SDOT rolled out a new Right of Way Improvement Manual which generally increased the amount of street restoration required for project. In some cases this has increased our requirements up to the total repaving of an entire street block for a single project! | |
| 4 | SDOT | ·SDOT permit fee increases. For SIP/Utility Major permits which experienced the highest increase, | |
| 5 | SPU | Multiple tap requirements. Instead of allowing a single tap location as previously required, many projects with multiple units on a street face are now being required to provide multiple taps to the main. | |
| 6 | SPU | Casing requirement. Although it’s been ensconced in CS101 for years, SPU is now enforcing the requirement to place on-site water lines in casing pipe when multiple lines pass through a 5’ setback. | |
| 7 | SDCI | Car parking requirements | |
| 8 | SPU | Lack of inter-dept communication. | |
| 9 | SDCI | Not issuing sewer permits because of private easements. | |
| 10 | SCL | Sizing of vaults required by SCL – they are HUGE and therefore Expensive! Someone told me they just checked and AMZNs new vault is running at 30% of capacity at an AMZN density. Waste of space and money. | |
| 11 | SDCI | Green Building Standard linked into HALA adds costs | |
| 12 | SDCI | +15% better than energy code tucked into MHA/HALA. This is really tough and expensive. Our code is already impressive from an energy standpoint. Makes final product more expensive, less natural light etc. | |
| 13 | SDCI | POTECH Review. Did we need a full dedicated department for this now? Don’t think so. | |
| 14 | SPU | Water Main Extension requirements. Seattle Public Utilities is already requiring new and costly water main extensions for new housing based on sub divided lots rather than parent lots. This means that although water service is feasible from existing mains, new mains are being required. The effect is either fewer more expensive units to avoid the additional costs or increasing the price of existing units to absorb the costs of the new water main. We understand that SPU may be in the process of increasing the circumstances where water main extensions will be required. | |
| 15 | SPU | New drainage requirements. Seattle Public Utilities is in the process of reviewing drainage requirements as well, and we’re concerned that new housing projects that can already handle drainage without new and expensive infrastructure are going to be now required to build storm water main extensions, another significant and we believe unnecessary added cost to housing production. | |
| 16 | SPU | System capacity (or similar) charges. It is our understanding that Seattle Public Utilities, or perhaps other instrumentalities of the City, are exploring implementing this type of charge to help build out the water/sewer infrastructure of the City | |
| 17 | SCC | SDCI | Impact fees – The Council is moving ahead with considering impact fees. We’re highly skeptical of this. While potentially legal if done properly, it’s hard to see how this would be implemented in Seattle. Again, this is yet another additional and still unknown cost to housing production. |
| 18 | SCL | Separation from Electrical Wires – Recently Seattle City Light implemented a new policy that requires a 14’ separation between new construction and the SCL service lines. This has made some projects financially infeasible, has requires significant redesign to others and has necessitated costly and time-consuming relocation other SCL facilities, at the property owner’s expense | |
| 19 | SCL | SCL has increased power line setbacks to 14’, but is no longer willing to wing-arm right of way power lines to reduce the encroachment of this setback onto private property. | |
| 20 | SDCI | SCC | Definition of Frequent Transit Service – Currently there are dozens of projects currently in permitting with as many as 100 units or more at risk because the City has not enacted legislation to clarify the definition of frequent transit service. Projects will be stopped or forced to add parking that will reduce supply and boost the price. |
| 21 | SDCI | Full Design review – Full design review continues to be a serious expense, especially in those cases where boards draw out the process into multiple meetings. | |
| 22 | MAYOR | SCC | Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning/Mandatory Housing Affordability – W We know this program makes many projects infeasible because the cost of fees, inclusion, and additional construction to realize the benefits of additional floor area out weigh the value of that square footage. Again, this is an as yet unknown but significant cost and slowing of production, not to mention that many sellers of land in areas potentially impacted by upzones are beginning to demand more money for their property. |
| 23 | SDCI | New registry for vacant buildings — If a proposal goes forward to create an inspection and registration regime more complications will be added to many projects in low-rise zones. | |
| 24 | SPU | SDCI | Increases in size of garbage facilities – Because of a change of staff, previous allowances for multiple weekly pick ups of recycling and garbage, garbage rooms are getting bigger based on the assumption of once a week pick up. |
| 25 | KING | SDCI | King County has introduced a new requirement for plan review for plumbing and gas piping for all projects 3 stories or greater |
| 26 | SDCI | SCC | Easement required for cars on lots with no parking requirement; removed from omnibus legisation |
| 27 | SCL | Seattle City Light is taking over a year from project application to service letter. We literally have to start our service applications at the outset of project design to have a hope of getting power to our projects before they are complete. | |
| 28 | KING | SPU | Sewer capacity charges are higher for multifamily than single-family; this adds big costs to multifamily buildings |
| 29 | SDCI | Historic review for all structures over 50 years old. ($5K per project to prove that a piece of junk is a piece of junk). | |
| 30 | SDI | Traffic studies required for all projects with no parking, despite code that prohibits SDCI from acting on the information. ($5-$7k per project for a study that is simultaneously mandatory and meaningless). | |
| 31 | SDCI | SEPA | View corridor studies needed to verify that views from adjacent residences are not being blocked by the addition 4’ of height granted to buildings to allow 13’ tall commercial use. This has been in SEPA regs forever, not ever enforced until recently. The commercial use in most cases is mandatory, but we still have to study the impacts of the height increase associate with it. ($5K per project in drawings and diagrams). |
| 32 | SDCI | Additional phase of design review for public outreach (unknown. likely $10-30k per project, weeks to months of timeline depending on how administered) | |
| 33 | SDCI | Design review requirements for dozens of pages of bespoke context analysis which could be provided a better format with 4-5 links to google maps, walk score, zoning maps, etc. ($25K per project, several weeks of work) | |
| 34 | SPU | SPU memorandum of drainage control process. Dozens of pages of gobbledygook that must be reviewed and recorded for each project. Drainage reviewers are choking on the workload, delaying projects by weeks and months. The recording process adds an extra correction cycle with the review staff that is slowest to turn things around as it is.($5-10K per project to prepare and correct. Associated reviews and corrections are taking up months of review time) | |
| 35 | SDCI | Administrative design review has gone a little bit off the rails. While some of our projects have gone smoothly, the general consensus among my peers is that ADR is now considered riskier than full DR. This is to say, architects feel they have a better chance of being treated fairly and predictably by the citizen boards in full DR than by the professional planning staff in ADR. This is a tremendous inversion from what we’ve experienced in the past & raises concerns for a future in which more project go through ADR than full DR. | |
| 36 | SDOT | SDCI | New pedestrian zone requirements for large canopies over the sidewalk ($50K per project min.) |
| 37 | SDOT | SDCI | New pedestrian zone requirements for wider sidewalks, more improvements along public ways ($25k per project) |
| 38 | SDOT | SDCI | New requirements for curb ramps at corners ($25k per project) |
| 39 | SDCI | Increasing conservatism from reviewers on details of how fire rated assemblies should be constructed. | |
| 40 | SPU | Requirements for civil engineers to design OSSM measures that are essentially prescriptive. No flexibility provided to allow OSSM measures to mitigate need for costly main extensions. | |
| 41 | SDOT | New requirements for pavement restoration in recent Pavement Opening and Restoration Requirements (PORR) | |
| 42 | CCAB | SDCI | CCAB ruling make it impossible for SEDUs to be the size intended by council (220sf) |
| 43 | SCC | SDCI | New bike parking regulations requiring 1.2 bike parking spots per unit |
| 44 | WA | SCC | Real Estate Excise Tax charged on every sale of real estate |
| 45 | WA | KING | Document Recording Fee charged on every substantive change to boundaries, lot size etc |
| 46 | WA | LOCAL | Property taxes |
| 47 | WA | LOCAL | Sales taxes |
A Room With A Nurse: The Finance Commission’s Bizarre Answer to $500K Units
Some things still surprise me. I guess I should be happy. Here’s the email I sent to members of the State House of Representative’s House Community Development, Housing & Tribal Affairs Committee. I testified in opposition to giving the Washington State Housing Finance Commission an increase on their debt limit without requiring more accountability. There is a link to the video of the hearing below.
Hello members of the Committee,
I think I look pretty good for my age and I have to say, it doesn’t feel like 25 years that I’ve been doing this kind of thing. But it’s been about that long.
In all that time, I don’t think I have heard a more, well, strange and obfuscating response than the one that Mr. Herman gave yesterday after I rattled off the costs of the projects I mentioned, about $165 million for roughly 350 housing units in Seattle.
I took the time to transcribe what he said from the TVW video which is now available.
The problem with the per unit cost limit division, it’s very easy to take the cost of a project and just simply divide it by the number of units; what it doesn’t do, is it doesn’t look at what kind of community rooms there are in the building, what kind of certain types of supportive housing. There may be rooms for nurses to come in twice a week to look at people and provide those kind of services. There may be meeting rooms with counselors. All of those are usually not housing but when you do the division of housing units into the total cost you come up with a much higher cost than if you had taken out those service or other types of facilities that are inside a housing project and then made the division.
The emphasis is mine of course.
As I mentioned in a previous note, how much do rooms for nurses cost?
Let’s take 12th Avenue Arts, a project in Speaker Chopp’s district, that cost $47 million for 88 units, or about $534,090.91 per unit.
Let’s reduce or “take out” some of that cost for the theater and non-profit office space, and since Mr. Herman did not offer a discount factor I’ll just suggest $10,000,000, or about 20 percent. So let’s do the math again, $37,000,000 divided by 88 is $420,454.55 per unit.
As I’ve pointed out, based on data from Zillow, “the median price of homes currently listed in Seattle is $688,000 while the median price of homes that sold is $647,200.”
I am a philosophy major, so I might be missing something. But that is the average house price in Seattle. Which means there are houses priced between $400,000 and $500,000; so even with a discount for a room for a nurse and counselor, these projects are so expensive we’d be better off buying houses for the 88 people living in that project for the same price. That’s outrageous!
One obvious answer to reducing the per unit cost (again, I’m just a philosophy major here) is to build more units. It’s stunning that Capitol Hill Housing did not ask for a significant upzone of this project while they spent years getting the land transferred to them by the City. I’m not sure that the $47 even includes land costs. Commerce and the Commission could be forced to require better return for their investment by demanding a different scale: we do support more housing, including subsidized housing when it’s needed.
Here’s another way to think about this. If a person making minimum wage earns $31,200 per year and is paying 40 percent of her income on housing, she’s paying $1,040 or about $260 more than she should per month. That is her cost burden. For about $46,800,000, we could pay that difference for 5000 people for three years ($260 X 5000 X 36 months). We’d even have $200,000 left over to pay for a nurse and counselor.
Please, consider amending this bill on the floor or proposing legislation for next session that will require the Commission to report regularly to the legislature on these costs and what they are doing to lower them. If you don’t, it appears that Mr. Herman will continue to hand wave these costs and, I’m sure, the JLARC study of which he likely supported a veto.
As the public becomes more aware of the cost of these projects, and as they continue to rise, they’re going to ask you why didn’t the legislature step in and do something. In California, Governor Jerry Brown said this: “We’ve got to bring down the cost structure of housing and not just find ways to subsidize it.”
Do we have to wait until things get as bad as they are in California?
Thank you for your consideration.
