THE GREENING OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING THROUGH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS: DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL FOR GREEN AFFORDABLE HOUSING

The trend towards affordable, green housing highlights the need for a Green Affordable Housing (GAH) model that produces durable dwellings that are not significantly more expensive to build, cheaper to operate, healthier for their occupants, and more environmentally sound. The model should also reduce the risk of poverty for those with low and moderate incomes, be close to public transportation, and support a neighborhood that is healthy, walkable and connected to the broader community and natural environment. This case study utilized detailed interviews with occupants, town officials, a developer, and a design builder to explore how green building strategies could be applied in real-world communities with the help of a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and contributions from other funding bodies. Focusing on the Roanoke and Lee Street housing project in Blacksburg, Virginia (VA), this study demonstrated how green building strategies can be integrated into affordable housing with help from public programs and incentives to provide houses that are more durable, no more expensive to build, cheaper to operate, healthier, more environmentally sound and less risky for their occupants. The new framework includes ways to deal with neighborhood issues such as the deterioration of housing stock and infrastructure to support the creation of a vital and healthy neighborhood with improved public services and community spirit, as well as providing an integrated design process framework that enables stakeholders to work together to achieve the goal of building green and affordable housing.

Energy recovery from solid wastes in China and a Green-BRI mechanism for advancing sustainable waste management of the global South

The only proven alternative for the recovery of value from materials that cannot be recycled is waste to energy(WTE).The first part of the paper provides evidence as to the advantages of WTE over landfilling and examines the role of WTE in the urban environment.The second part of the paper is a holistic analysis of the legislative instruments used in China,that have led to the construction of nearly 400 plants from 2005 to 2019.The Chinese government was instrumental in the development of Public and Private Partnerships(PPPs),in form of Build-Operate-Transfer(BOT),or Build-Own-Operate(BOO)models with a lifetime of 20 years to 30 years.The government accepts most of the investment risk by participating in the equity structure,providing strong tax and policy incentives,and becoming fully engaged in public education and acceptance of new WTE projects.The construction and operation of these plants by the private sector had to comply with the governmental performance standards in order to receive incentives,such as an appreciable credit over the price of electricity received by coal-fired plants.The last part of this paper examines how the elements of the Chinese renewable energy and waste management laws,may be transposed to federal and state legislation for potential application in countries of the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)region.