Country’s Largest Affordable Energy Star-Certified Building Wins National Green Housing Award on Capitol Hill

By Erika Schnitzer, Associate Editor   Washington, D.C.—The Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCo), a Bronx, N.Y.-based non-profit organization that builds affordable homes, has received a Charles L. Edson Tax Credit Excellence Award in Green Housing for its Intervale Green, the largest affordable Energy Star-certified building in the nation.“It’s a first of its kind and we are trying to show that it can be done, that you need to pay a lot of attention to detail and that green is a word that has multiple meanings,” Nancy Biberman, founder and president of WHEDCo, previously told MHN. (Click here for MHN’s previous coverage of Intervale Green.)WHEDCo was the only New York State recipient of this award and was nominated for the award by the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC), which helped to provide financial support to the community.The Charles L. Edson Tax Credit Excellence Award is presented by The Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition to recognize the best Low Income Housing Tax Credit properties in six categories: Metropolitan, Rural, Special Needs, Senior, Green and Public Housing Revitalization. A panel of five judges selected six first place and seven honorable mentions from 40 applications from 19 states. “Trying to pull together the best in aesthetics and energy efficiency and affordability is really a challenge but we want to show that it can be done, and it can be done even on the worst of sites,” says Biberman. Intervale Green, a $38 million, 128-unit community, was built on a former brownfield site that contained contaminated water and soil. Today, the development is 30 percent more efficient than a standard building and reduces resident utility costs by 33 percent.In addition to its Energy Star certification, Intervale Green is a participant in the Enterprise Green Communities and NYSERDA’s Multifamily Performance Program   Intervale Green’s project team included Edelman Sultan Knox Wood Architects LLP, architect supervisor Peter Franzese  and Mega Contracting Inc. Steven Winter Associates served as the project’s energy consultant