New York prides itself on cutting-edge credentials in more categories than there are lights on Broadway, but in one pecking order Gotham is still stalled forlornly in the Twentieth Century. Rated by the energy efficiency of its buildings, New York is in the middle of the pack among the developed world’s major cities.
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Bob Schneck, a member of Community Board 1, who is also a passionate advocate for the “passive house” standard of building that augurs a more energy-efficient (and ecologically sounder) future. |
One Lower Manhattan resident and community leader hopes to change that. Bob Schneck, who serves on the Planning and Quality of Life Committees of Community Board 1 (CB1), put his decades-long interest in energy and the environment to work in 2011, when he became involved in the “passive house” movement, which embraces rigorous criteria for energy efficiency, and radically reduces the ecological footprint of structures that comply with its standards. This led Mr. Schneck to partner in the development of VOLKSsHouse, in Sante Fe, New Mexico. (At the time, there were fewer than 20 passive house structures in all of the United States.)
The 1,717-square foot VOLKSsHouse (with three bedrooms and two baths) was designed not only to be stunningly efficient in its energy usage, but also to prove that such structures could be constructed for a cost competitive with that of traditional buildings. VOLKSsHouse required an investment of $283,305, or $165 per square foot. That price was actually 6.5 percent less expensive than comparable new homes elsewhere in the region.
The resulting home uses 90 percent less energy than a typical single family house, and what power it does need is provided by solar systems (for hot water and electricity). Further efficiencies are achieved with triple-pane doors and windows, airtight seals, LED lighting, energy-use monitoring, and a heat recovery/ventilation system. All of this makes VOLKSsHouse a “net-zero energy home.” It requires no power from the outside world, and adds nothing to climate change or other forms of energy-related despoliation.
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| Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer presides over a meeting of the Borough Board, at which the panel endorsed for local projects the passive house standard that Mr. Schneck supports. |
But designing and erecting an energy-efficient house in Sante Fe is one thing. Bringing the same vision to New York (where energy used in the City’s 69,000 buildings accounts for 94 percent of overall electricity consumption and 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions) requires another level of commitment entirely.
Mr. Schneck started at the grassroots level, engaging CB1, which passed (in December, 2014) a resolution saying, in part, “CB1 supports the investigation of the implementation of the passive house standard for its potential application to new construction and renovation in our community. It also encourages the completion of a public project in Lower Manhattan to demonstrate a zero-net energy standard and cost saving potentials.”
Next, Mr. Schneck organized a task force that brought passive house presentations to other Manhattan community boards. In February of this year, Community Board 5 (which covers, roughly, Lexington to Eighth Avenues, between Union Square and Central Park) enacted resolution echoing CB1’s 2014 measure.
From there, the focus shifted to the Borough Board, a panel presided over by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer that has the authority to initiate and review comprehensive plans for the borough. In April, the Borough Board adopted a resolution endorsing passive house building standards and calling upon the City to undertake construction of a public project in Manhattan that complies with those standards. “Manhattan is the center of the universe and our real estate is priced like it — but that means there’s nowhere that investments in smarter, greener construction are more prudent,” said Ms. Brewer. “We should promote the newest and best construction methods to lower our energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and counteract the urban heat island effect in our City. We can start by building a public passive house project right here in Manhattan as an example to the real estate industry and the public that a greener, more energy-efficient tomorrow is possible today.”
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| The residence hall at Cornell Tech’s new campus on Roosevelt Island will be the tallest passive house structure in the world when it opens in 2017. |
The timing could not have been more auspicious. Cornell University’s “Cornell Tech” project (a new campus on Roosevelt Island) is already at work on what will be the world’s tallest residential tower constructed to passive house standards, a 270-foot high building that will hold approximately 350 residential units and is slated to open in 2017. An airtight facade, combined with onsite solar and geothermal power systems (among numerous other features) is expected to save 882 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year — the equivalent of planting 5,300 new trees. And like Mr. Schneck’s VOLKSsHouse in Sante Fe, the Cornell structure will be a “net-zero energy” structure.
Mr. Schneck and other passive house activists (among them Ken Levenson, who leads a pair of non-profits: New York Passive House and the North American Passive House Network) will gather next week at the Third Annual North American Passive House Network Conference and Expo, which will be held Monday and Tuesday (June 13 and 14), at the Metropolitan Pavilion (125 West 18th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues). The event will feature state-of-the-art building strategies, components, and professional development curated for people interested in creating a low-energy building future. As Mr. Levenson notes, “passive house is the one proven methodology to deliver, not just needed carbon reductions, but improved health and economic activity for all New Yorkers.”
For more information about the North American Passive House Network Conference and Expo, please browse www.naphnconference.com. |
