The Pinehills in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is comprised of 3,000 condominiums,  custom homes, townhomes, cottage homes and luxury rental apartments on 3,000  acres of land. It might sound like that’s a lot of building that can wreak havoc on a community’s resources and the environment, but it’s far from it.  

 On the contrary, The Pinehills is a low-impact community that preserves open  space, balances water use, recycles and reuses wastewater, and has been deemed  a “low impact development’ case study by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Environmental  Affairs. In addition, its successful water treatment facility hosts tours that  are often sold out.  

 It’s just one example of the steps that developers and owners of HOAs and condo  communities are implementing to create housing that’s more eco-friendly, energy efficient and more likely to create a positive  return on investment than ever before.  

 “There’s a huge trend in residential green building,” says Suzanne Abbott, operations manager of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Massachusetts Chapter. “There aren’t as many mainstream residential Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design  

 (LEED) houses going up, but there is more of a market for luxury homes that are  LEED and energy efficient. Lower income housing is also taking advantage of tax  incentives to become more energy efficient. It’s hard to find a new construction condo that doesn’t have any sustainable building aspects to it.”  

 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a nationally-recognized  benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance  buildings. Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) has chosen LEED Silver as the  foundation for the city’s new affordable housing design standard. The LEED system promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by  measuring performance in five key areas: sustainable sites, water conservation,  energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental  quality.  

 Massachusetts is a prime example of green leadership. Its Stretch Appendix to  its standard Building Energy Code now requires developers to design buildings  so as to reduce energy use by a given 20 percent below base code, rather than  being required to install specific efficiency measures. Developers have the  flexibility to choose which cost- effective solutions they are going to use.  

 Identifying Ways to Save

 The Renew Boston program, through the Mayor’s Office of Environmental and Energy Services, partnered with the DND to make  available $900,000 for energy retrofit of affordable housing developments in an  effort to improve the energy performance of low-income multifamily buildings.  Websites such as MassSave.org post other financial incentives, such as  Multi-Family Energy Assessments that identify cost-effective energy efficiency  improvement or replacement opportunities at facilities with five or more  dwelling units. They focus on the facility’s envelope, lighting and mechanical systems and assess any potential savings.  

 “There are several multifamily initiatives sponsored by utility companies,  especially in Massachusetts,” says Vincent Graziano, president of RISE Engineering in Cranston, Rhode Island.  “The incentives are pretty generous and over the last three years, the program  has simplified the process for associations and multifamily buildings to  participate in energy efficient programs. As a result, multifamily properties  can have high efficiency lighting installed in units and common areas.”  

 Graziano also says there are gas and energy efficiency incentives as well. “Many are at little or no cost,” he says. “The problem is getting as many parties on board as possible to make the project  work.”  

 In Boston, several buildings have garnered attention for their green measures,  including First and First Townhomes in South Boston, a 22-unit townhouse  condominium designed by Boston architect Utile, Inc (utiledesign.com) that is  Silver LEED certified. The luxury Clarendon Boston condominiums achieved LEED  Silver certified status in their 33-story newly-constructed building, and the  140-unit Macallen Building was retrofitted with energy-efficient and  water-saving measures that allowed it to achieve the Leadership in Energy and  Environmental (LEED) Gold certification.  

 “They save 600,000 gallons of water annually and use 30% less electricity than  conventional buildings,” says Abbott. “They have a heat recovery ventilation system, water source heat pumps and no  potable water irrigation, no water to irrigate the systems that come out of the  supply.”  

 A heat recovery ventilator is a specialized ventilation system, also known as an  air-to-air heat exchanger that pushes stale air out of the house and pulls  fresh air in. As it’s doing so, it extracts heat or cold from the air it’s expelling. It saves a tremendous amount of energy, up to 80 percent of the  temperature that would’ve been lost. The cost of these systems is low so the return on investment is  quick.  

 Challenges Remain

 But even at a time when ‘going green’ seems to be the right thing to do, it’s not without its challenges. The steps that developers take to implement green  aspects to their properties depend on funding, community interest, feasibility,  and other factors. For example, Tony Green, founder of The Pinehills, says that  there were 200 public meetings over a year-and-a-half before any ground was  broken in Plymouth.  

 “It was hard from a permit point of view,” he says. “We got past it because Plymouth liked what we were doing, but that’s not the norm. Residents were worried about traffic, water quality, historical  and archeological resources, vegetation, wildlife and flatlands and we  addressed all of those issues.  

 “However, we are more educated, but properties are not going for LEED home  credentials as much. There are Energy Star appliances and energy-efficient  systems put in. On the other hand, I think that the market kind of slowed due  to the downturn. There aren’t as many mainstream residential LEED houses going up. There is more of a market  for luxury that is LEED and energy efficient. Lower income housing is taking  advantage of tax incentives to become more energy efficient. It’s hard to find a new construction condo that doesn’t have any sustainable building aspects to it.”  

 The Pinehills is taking sustainability to a higher level with an impressive  number of green measures that included narrowing roads, natural drainage so  rainwater goes back into the soil and drilling three wells that pump 480,000  gallons of water with a two-million gallon storage tank.  

 The Villages at Brookside in Bourne, Massachusetts, also received LEED  certification and includes such features as high-efficiency sealed combustion  furnace and air conditioning condenser (meets or exceeds Energy Star  requirements), programmable thermostats, a ducting system that limits air  leakage, low-emittance coated glass with argon gas windows, Energy Star  appliances, heating, cooling and hot water equipment and fans, dual flush  toilets, carpets and other items with low volatile organic compounds, algae  resistant roof shingles and more.  

 The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), based in Greenfield,  Massachusetts, has resources for anyone in the industry interested in making  their buildings more energy efficient. “We educate practitioners on designing buildings or specing out the mechanicals  for the building,” says NESEA executive director Jennifer Marrapese.  

 "We have sustainable ‘green pages’ that list different product and service providers who are involved with energy  efficiency and renewable energy work,” says Marrapese. “We also have case studies of green buildings and multifamily affordable housing  projects that have a year or two worth of results that we share. How did they  do and what lessons did they learn?”  

 Take a Tour

 NESEA also offers a solar home tour, offering visitors a personal look at green  buildings, annually on the first Saturday of October. “It features over 500 buildings, primarily single family, institutional buildings  and college campuses,” says Marrapese. “It’s an opportunity to learn from their peers. What were the improvements, what  worked and didn’t work, what they would do differently and what were the cost savings?”  

 “While incrementally it may be slightly more expensive to build LEED, if you take  all the data, operations costs over a five-year run, it pays back plus more,” says Abbott. “Of course, the initial startup could be slightly more but there’s a misinterpretation about the return on investment. Make sure your design team  is well aware of the incentives. If you don’t bring them in early, you miss out on getting money back and meeting certain  standards.”  

 Paul Wessel, executive director of the Green Parking Council, says that the  parking industry has also worked at contributing to the green changes in the  building industry. “There’s been a perception that parking is a problem,” says Wessel. “We want to be part of the solution.”  

 He says that changes are ahead with parking garages installing electric vehicle  charging stations, ride-sharing opportunities, promoting bicycle usage and  more. “We are saving on electricity, discouraging idling and installing recycling  programs in garages,” he says. “We are becoming recycling points for dead car batteries, speakers and more. We  are also working on what can be done to retrofit existing garages to handle  storm water runoff systems.”  

 For example, Wessel says that in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Charles Square  Garage under the Charles Hotel offers a ‘juice bar’ for electric car charging which can become a feature in multifamily garages.  

 Leland DiMeco, owner and partner of Boston Green Realty, was working in  construction and his wife was working as an environmental consultant when they  decided to combine the two. “She brought the green aspect of the company in and I brought in how to build a  green company to show people that you can have a healthier way of living,” he says. “I haven’t seen opposition to going green other than the cost. You had to make the  presentation pay off. They want to know how long it’s going to take to get their money back, but the margin has cut back  significantly. The prices are coming down on the materials being sold.”  

 DiMeco manages a student-populated building in Boston and worked with the owner  to upgrade the heating ducts and tune up the heating system, replace appliances  with Energy Star ones that were more energy-efficient and, next on the agenda  is upgrading to energy-efficient windows.  

 There’s still a long way to go for other multifamily buildings and condo associations  to jump on board and recognize the benefits of implementing green strategies  into their community. In the long run, any changes that make the building more  environmentally sound can save money, electricity and valuable resources. It’s taking that first step to start and many buildings are already beginning to  climb.    

 Lisa Iannucci is a freelance writer and a frequent contributor to New England  Condominium.