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Boston.com
The Greenest Building Ever Built is Already Standing
The saying, “The greenest building is the one that is already built” is attributed to architect and sustainability expert Carl Elefante. This refers to the fact that new buildings consume more natural resources and energy to build than the renovation or adaptive reuse of existing buildings, therefore reuse results in lower greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Autodesk, the global leader in architectural design software,
“Experts predict that 90% of real-estate development in the next decade will focus on renovating and reusing existing structures.”
This is a trend that we should fully embrace, but it is being completely ignored by Sacramento lawmakers. In fact, the entire Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process, administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development in Sacramento (HCD) actively discourages renovation of existing housing units, particularly those that are for low and very-low income renters, while simultaneously encouraging the development of luxury housing to fulfill local quotas... the "trickle-down" economics solution, whereby according to HCD and Gavin Newsom, supply and demand solves everything.
This is the primary reason for why we are losing more low-income housing units faster than we are building them in California.
Some history
Adaptive reuse has, of course, been with us since ancient times, But among the notable examples of adaptive reuse in the U.S. in the post war era was Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. Developed in 1964, it was the first major adaptive reuse project in the U.S., converting old factory and warehouse buildings into a new mixed-use, commercial and retail center.
This was followed in 1976 by Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, the adaptive reuse of a group of buildings originally built in 1740.
Boston.com
These were followed by other notable historic renovations for commercial uses, such as South Street Seaport in NYC, in 1982, and many other well-known places that evolved over time, such as Cannery Row in Monterey, CA, and hundreds of others around the country.
A more recent example of adaptive reuse for public benefit would be the High Line on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City.
How are the benefits of adaptive reuse calculated?
The calculation used in determining the environmental benefits of reusing existing buildings versus new construction is an analysis of the “embodied carbon,” primarily in structural components of concrete, steel, and aluminum, and the embodied carbon emissions from the original construction itself.
AECOM
Another consideration is that our built environment uses approximately 40% of the world's annual extracted materials, and construction and demolition produce the single largest waste stream in many countries. So, reducing the overall new material use through renovation and adaptive reuse conserves resources and carbon emissions from resource extraction, shipping, materials manufacture, etc.
In fact, as noted in a study by the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
“Contrary to popular belief, the benefits of reusing and renovating buildings outweighed the benefits of constructing new energy-efficient structures. According to the study, a new building that is 30% more efficient than the average building takes 10 to 80 years to overcome the negative climate change impacts resulting from construction.”
And, according to AECOM,
“Because of the significant embodied carbon impacts of new buildings, any savings from operational energy use would not compensate for the initial emissions.”
CLICK HERE to view some examples of adaptive reuse projects around the world.
Housing and Adaptive Reuse
The conversion of vacant office buildings into housing is currently in the news due to the collapse of the commercial space rental markets in most major U.S. cities. There have been several of these conversion projects completed and many more on the drawing boards.
Some of these include The Pearl House located in Manhattan's Financial District, which transformed a 1970s office building into a 600-unit residential complex, and The Dallas National Bank building, which resulted in a mixed-use development of apartments, retail, offices, and a hotel.
However, this isn’t to say there aren’t significant challenges to doing this. Only a small percentage of office buildings (less than 5% in most cities) are suitable for residential conversions because of prohibitively large floor plates with deep interior cores, high construction costs and structural, mechanical, and regulatory/building code compliance issues (e.g., daylighting requirements, life safety issues, fire egress, etc.).
Still, cities such as San Francisco have announced initiatives to make these conversions a priority.
Still, there are other non-residential opportunities for adaptive reuse of excess office space, such as for healthcare and medical facilities and schools, and other educational uses. And there are even outlier proposals such as the one by KTGY architects to repurpose vacant big-box stores into mixed-use transitional housing.
Another is the JW Marriott Savannah Plant Riverside District,
where a former power plant along the Savannah River was converted into a luxury
hotel, retaining all historic elements.
Campo Architects
Adaptive reuse and economic revitalization
In addition to the environmental and community benefits, the economic impacts of adaptive reuse projects on the communities they are located in are generally positive. Adaptive reuse projects can revitalize declining downtown areas and maintain the tax base for cities. Adaptive reuse conversions are also completed much faster than new construction.
According to the CRE, adaptive reuse has been shown to increase property values due to the new utilities, amenities, and improved occupancy rates these projects bring to an area. This helps restore economic vitality, especially in areas dealing with the impact of post-pandemic workplace changes in cities.
The resultant increase in economic activity also increases tax revenues for local governments. The preservation of architectural character has also been shown to contribute to the overall appeal and real estate values.
As such, the combination of historical preservation, sustainability, and economic revitalization associated with these projects tends to make areas more desirable and valuable.
Antithetical California housing policies
All this argues against the State’s single-minded, ‘slash and burn’ housing policies that prioritize any new housing development, regardless of how out of context its design or how much it destroys the socioeconomic fabric and character of existing communities.
As noted, we are losing affordable housing units for low-income and very low-income households faster than they are being built. This trend has been exacerbating the overall affordability crisis in recent years. The reasons for this are complex but they include the rising costs of construction and land, and rent control ordinances (that discourage new investment and maintenance of low-income units), and most importantly, the continued reduction in inflation-adjusted, housing subsidy funding (LIHTC) since the 1990s.
At present there are approximately 34 affordable rental units for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. This disproportionately affects Black, Latino, and Indigenous households, who are much more likely to be renters and have low incomes. Worse still, existing low-income units are typically the units that are most in need of renovation and repair and financial assistance and attention to remain viable.
But, the State Legislature doesn’t care about any of this.
The RHNA process does not allow cities or counties to count renovated, existing housing units toward their RHNA quota because it is solely focused on new construction and disproportionately for housing those that have 80% of median income and higher, including high-end, luxury housing. The Housing Element’s procedures, required to create a “housing opportunity site list” for potential affordable units only counts new housing sites (vacant land or tear down sites) even if there is a partially occupied, run down or abandoned but easily renovated apartment building available.
The terms “renovation” and "adaptive reuse" are not even defined or otherwise clarified in state housing law. And although the adaptive reuse of a building originally used for another purpose (e.g., commercial, industrial, etc.) would qualify if converted to apartments, this does nothing to preserve the existing low-income housing stock and there are far fewer financially viable opportunities to do conversions.
This is nonsensical but par for the course in California housing policies.
Bob Silvestri is a long-time Mill Valley resident, the Editor of the Marin Post, and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization dedicated to bringing the community's voice to government decision-making and funded exclusively by individuals and nonprofit donors. Please consider donating now to support our work.