Green Affordable Housing: Glenmore Gardens, East New York, Brooklyn

We’ll stick with green affordable housing projects in Brooklyn today and note Glenmore Gardens, a $2.3 million, five-building, ten-unit development in East New York which was funded by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s (“HPD”) New Foundations Program on land owned by HPD. New Foundations encourages smaller developers to build affordable housing in neighborhoods where ownership is difficult for many residents; most of the purchasers at Glenmore Gardens earn more than eighty percent less of the neighborhood’s median income. The project was completed earlier this year and is profiled in the November 2007 issue of Dwell (though the article is not available online.)

In addition to co-developing the project with ET Partners, Brooklyn-based Della Valle Bernheimer Architects designed two of the buildings and directed Architecture Research Office (“ARO”), BriggsKnowles Architecture + Design, and Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, as they designed one building each. Della Valle’s proposal for the complex included common materials for each building’s design- 90% recycled corrugated aluminum siding, fiber cement panels, and renewable cedar siding. According to Dwell, the entire complex was built for $108 per square foot, and also includes energy-efficient appliances and extensive site landscaping. Over 2,200 applicants sought to purchase the homes, each of which includes a smaller second downstairs unit designed to be rented out and help offset mortgage costs.

While not a LEED project, Glenmore Gardens emphatically demonstrates that the intersection of modern, affordable design with sustainability is possible even in a neighborhood where you might not expect to see it, precisely embracing the much broader definition of sustainability that’s an imperative for the movement’s long-term prospects.

• Atlantic Terrace, Brooklyn, New York (gbNYC)
• New Foundations (HPD)