Denver Housing Authority

Jake Martin

Chris Yonushewski

MGMT 4080: 004

The Denver Housing Authority is a company that owns and operates public housing units

in and around the Denver area. Currently serving over 25,000 people in Denver, the “quasi-

municipal” corporation is integrated into the city’s community, with a nine-member board

appointed by the Mayor of Denver. The DHA currently owns more than 3,750 housing units that

aim to provide “safe, decent and affordable housing in a manner that promotes thriving

communities”1. The DHA is also focused on “building sustainable communities” to promote the

creation of greener, healthier living conditions. This driving force can be seen through the

construction of the new South Lincoln community in Denver (1099 Osage St.), where an eight-

story complex that will host over 100 housing units is in the works, with sustainability and

energy efficiency as a focal point for the project2.

The Osage Project: Overview and Goal

The DHA’s development of The South Lincoln community is the product of a

collaborative effort between elected officials, business and community leaders, and residents to

revamp one of the oldest low-income neighborhoods in Denver, where housing units are

currently over fifty years old. The idea behind the Osage project is to create a new style of

community, promoting a mixed-income neighborhood to increase overall standard of living,

education, diversity, and to provide more attractive business opportunities as part of urban

redevelopment in the Denver area3. According to an official DHA press release, the goal of the

Osage site is to “emphasize higher densities, diverse housing choices, a mix of uses, and outdoor

environments that encourage healthful lifestyles”4.

1 DHA website, “About Us”, http://www.denverhousing.org/aboutus/Pages/default.aspx2 DHA press release, “DHA launches phase 1 new construction 1099 Osage apartments…”3 DHA fact sheet, “South Lincoln Homes Redevelopment” 4 DHA press release, “DHA launches phase 1 new construction 1099 Osage apartments…”

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The overall vision of the Osage project is to help redevelop Denver in a variety of ways,

rather than simply continuing to operate basic, subsidized low income units for the poor, as these

yields little opportunity for individual or community growth. The most important aspect in

creating the South Lincoln community is going to be creating a sustainable and energy efficient

environment centered on green housing units. As a result, the community is better integrated

with the environment as part of the push to make Denver more sustainable as a whole.

The Idea Behind Going Green

One of the main reasons why the DHA is creating public housing by following a

sustainability model is that sustainability is becoming more and more important in government-

run projects. Because the DHA is in the business of building, operating and owning public

housing, there will be no revenue from private rent, and as a result, the costs of these facilities

are taken on by taxpayer money. The company works with the U.S. Department of Housing and

Urban Development (HUD) in creating and operating housing facilities, and the recent push for

“greener” development means that there is more money earmarked for sustainable government

projects than for those without a green focus. In this respect the DHA is acting out of necessity,

as increasing sustainable housing options is becoming a requirement for funding in the industry.

Kimball Crangle of the Denver Housing Authority commented on this in an interview by stating

that the decision to go green, especially in new developments, is due to “finite resources for

funding”5.

Another important reason for the decision to build green at DHA is that it can be more

cost effective to do so. With housing units being built to fit a lifetime of 50 to 90 years, the

payoff period for a sustainable solution to something like heating can be relatively small in

5 Kimball Crangle interview

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comparison. For example, at Osage, the implementation of a geothermal heating system will pay

itself off after just seven years6. These implementations will mean that less taxpayer money will

be spent on creating and maintaining projects such as this. Crangle declared that the Osage

project will seek to operate at 50% of ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating

and Air-Conditioning Engineers) standards for energy use, cutting taxpayer funding for utilities

in half7. This would in turn help the HUD by opening up opportunities for increased urban

renewal and recovery programs to raise the standards for public housing around the country.

Sustainability at the DHA: The Osage Project

One of the most important aspects of creating “green” housing is the extent to which

energy and resource use can be reduced. The DHA is focused on bettering resource efficiency

through “aggressive carbon footprint reduction”8, which is seen in a variety of implementations

that will be included in the Osage project. These include areas of focus on improving water

efficiency, increasing renewable energy use, and shifting towards more sustainable materials and

resource use.

Water Efficiency:

In their most recent LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) scorecard,

the DHA scored eight out of a possible ten points for water efficiency, driven by the impending

use of a pilot wastewater technology system9. The Osage site will make use of “Greywater

recycling”, where, as Dan Leblanc of YRG Sustainability Consultants commented in an

interview, shower water output will flow into storage tanks and then be reused as toilet water10.

6 Kimball Crangle interview7 Kimball Crangle interview8 DHA press release, “DHA launches phase 1 new construction 1099 Osage apartments…”9 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/1010 Dan Leblanc interview

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The use of this system alone will save approximately 55,000 gallons of water per year for each of

the 26 toilets that the system will be used with11 at Osage. Low-flow toilets (1 gallon per flush)

will also be utilized to reduce the overall amount of water used in the facility, as traditional

toilets use over 1.6 gallons per flush12. With the help of these implementations, the DHA will

also be able to reduce indoor water usage by a projected 40% over the EPA Act of 1992’s

specifications13. Storm water use in xeriscaping on-site will further reduce water usage at the

location as well, says LeBlanc. This is made possible by the project being a completely new

facility, rather than the retrofitting of an older structure, which would offer far less opportunities

for small pushes towards greater sustainability14. These implementations that reduce water use

are one of the ways the DHA is using “green” measures at the Osage site to reduce cost and, in

turn lower taxpayer spending on public housing.

Renewable Energy:

Another key aspect of the sustainability at Osage is renewable energy. Two main

renewable energy sources at Osage are going to be the use of geothermal heating through a

GTHP (geothermal heat pump), and the use of solar photovoltaic energy. The coupling of GTHP

and a 50kW PV array will provide the structure with green power for approximately 35% of the

site’s energy use, accounting for roughly 200,000 kWh annually15. DHA’s most recent LEED

scorecard specifies that the business has a future goal of achieving 100kW of on-site power for

the Osage site, and that additional PV would be the most likely course for further renewable

energy production at the South Lincoln community.

11 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/1012 National Efficiency Standards and Specifications for Residential and Commercial Water-Using Fixtures and Appliances13 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/1014 Dan Leblanc interview15 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/10

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Sustainable Materials and Resource Use:

A third focus for the DHA at the new Osage housing structure is to use more sustainable

materials and resources, focusing on using more recycled and reusable materials, as well as

utilizing regional materials and reducing the overall amount of resources used for the site. The

first of these is to manage the destruction and subsequent construction of the area while

minimizing waste. According to the company’s LEED scorecard, they will be able to recycle

50% of waste involved in the process through on-site recycling, and will attempt to raise this

number to 75% through the recycling of drywall16. The DHA will also be increasing the amount

of certified wood used in the project to at least 50% (cost based). This will make the wood that

the company does use during construction less environmentally damaging, but the DHA, with

the help of Leblanc and YRG Sustainability Consultants, are cutting down on overall wood use

for the project, with a specified budget of $330,000 for the structure17. The Osage site will also

aim to use more regionally produced materials in the construction of the housing structure, with

an assured 20% of materials (including drywall, asphalt, and concrete) being sourced from

producers within 500 miles of Denver18. Recycled carpet will also be utilized in the units at

Osage, bringing the DHA close to 20% of total materials being from reused or recycled

resources. Furthermore, despite the glitz and glamour of the new “green” technology that the

Osage project is utilizing, the most impactful aspect of the building stems from its architectural

design. According to John Yonushewski, principle architect for Buchanan Yonushewski Group

(the design firm working on the project) the two single biggest contributors to the increased

energy efficiency is through better insulation and specially designed windows.

16 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/1017 Dan Leblanc interview18 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/10

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Analysis

The DHA is clearly working to increase sustainability and promote greener communities

with the construction of developments like the South Lincoln community in Denver. The

company states that its goal for the Osage site is to act as a template for “maintaining the

attributes of a highly green, sustainable community”, where the HUD can use the DHA as a

national model for other major cities to push towards sustainability19. While this is a tremendous

goal, and is backed by the ambitious, mixed-income redevelopment of the Osage site in South

Lincoln, it seems that the DHA’s real goal behind going green is more about competitive

position and maintenance of funding than anything else. Because government funding for urban

redevelopment is so limited, as Crangle mentioned, the DHA needs projects like this to show

progress in the hot-topic area of “going green”20. More funding will be possible for successful

project completions, which will better lend future funding to businesses like the DHA, keeping

them afloat and helping them grow, where less sustainable projects would not generate as much

enthusiasm.

With this in mind, the DHA’s sustainability driven push for Osage and the redevelopment

of the area seems to be a use of green marketing for the company. Working in collaboration with

the City of Denver on the project will assure that the city is setting the standards for the

development, and hiring on specialists like Dan Leblanc and YRG shows that the DHA is

committed to creating more sustainable communities. This is undeniably beneficial to the

company, as their most recent LEED scorecard well outdid simple LEED certification, and

achieved platinum rating for the Osage project21.

19 Kimball Crangle interview20 Kimball Crangle interview21 LEED Scorecard, 9/29/10

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The overall goal of redeveloping 17.5 acres of land at South Lincoln will necessitate

nearly $120 million in funding from HUD, with the Osage project garnering $16 million thus

far22. This illustrates the importance of not only meeting standards, but going above and beyond

in areas like sustainability to make the project and future development of the area more attractive

to the departments that will be providing funding for continuation of projects like these.

Overall, the DHA and the Osage project in particular do show a great amount of

emphasis being placed on creating more sustainable living conditions in cities like Denver.

While it seems like the motivation behind this is more for profit sustainability than following a

model of “doing the right thing”, the finished product at Osage will be the beginnings of a much

greener community model. The increased expenses for the project due to implementation of

things like solar PV and recycled materials will, as Crangle says, “pay itself off” during the

lifetime of the units, but her claim that these will lead to less taxpayer spending as a result seems

ambitious. Even with speaking to Kimball about the move to “green” and the company’s LEED

scorecard covering a wide variety of sustainable initiatives for the project, the true costs for all of

these goals do not seem to have been added up at this point in the project. The previously quoted

$16 million in funding for Osage may therefore fall short of achieving all of the implementations

that the DHA would like to roll out. Even with these question marks about the project, the intent

of the DHA is clear, and projects like Osage could very well be the model for future

redevelopment in urban areas, creating a much “greener” living environment for people in the

future.

Works Cited

Crangle, Kimball. “Denver Housing Authority sustainability”. Personal Interview. 26 Oct. 2010.

Denver Housing Authority. “About Us”. 2010. Web.

22 Kimball Crangle interview

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<http://www.denverhousing.org/aboutus/Pages/default.aspx>.

Denver Housing Authority. “DHA Launches Phase 1 New Construction 1099 Osage Apartment

For South Lincoln Master Plan”. Official DHA Press Release. 27, Sept. 2010.

Denver Housing Authority. “Fact sheet”. 2010. Web.

<http://www.denverhousing.org/Pages/default.aspx>.

EPA Water Sense. “National Efficiency Standards and Specifications for Residential and

Commercial Water-Using Fixtures and Appliances”. EPA. Web.

<http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/>.

Leblanc, Dan. “YRG Sustainability Consultants”. Personal Interview. 28 Oct. 2010.

“Sustainability and Design: Can We Evolve? Practicing Architecture”. The American Institute of

Architects. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB086275>.

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