This is my column in the Monitor today. Note the NIMBY shot at the end.
This column concerns a New Hampshire housing development that will be net-zero, something the world really needs, but before we get to details, let’s face facts: Your first reaction is that it will be too expensive or too weird to make a difference.
I know this because it was my first thought, too. For good reason.
I’ve covered a number of super-efficient houses in my day. If affordable they were oddball, like a DIY hay bale house, and if conventional they were a rich couple’s midlife crisis costing more than an entire subdivision. Either way, they were irrelevant to the job of widespread reduction in energy use for our buildings.
The 26 duplex condos being built on Barrett Hill in Hudson, pitched as the state’s first net-zero housing being sold on the open market, seem like they’re different. That’s why they drew a big crowd to the groundbreaking ceremony last week, from U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen to a bunch of clean-energy fans.
The Barrett Hill duplexes will involve a lot of details developed over the years as part of the “passive house” movement, such as being aligned not toward the road but in ways to maximize passive heating and with deep thought given to insulation, window placement and airflow. They’ll also have more recent innovations such as heat pumps and induction stoves (no gas hookup), EV-ready garages, and solar panels on all buildings.
But there’s nothing oddball; they look normal.
As for cost, they’re projected at $699,000 for a 1,967-square-foot, 3-bedroom half of a duplex sharing a one-acre lot. This seems wildly expensive to those of us lucky enough to have bought our home years ago but the price is within striking distance of similar townhouses and duplexes in the close-to-Boston parts of New Hampshire.
And that’s before you consider that if they live up to their net-zero promise – producing as much energy as they use – owners will have no utility bills.
John Gargasz, founder of Aspire Residential that is developing the project, pointed to a similar-sized traditional home dating from 1999 that pays $650 a month in average utility bills. “We’re going to zero that out, equivalent to about $120,000 in extra mortgage in today’s dollars,” he said.
As you know, buildings consume a huge amount of the nation’s energy, particularly in places like New England where so much of the housing stock is old. We’re finally starting to build a lot of homes again in New Hampshire and those buildings are going to be using energy for decades to come so it behooves us to make them to be as efficient as possible.
But construction is a conservative business that’s loathe to deviate from long-established practices. Home developers aren’t going to embrace a bunch of new ideas unless there’s good evidence that they work and people will buy them. That’s the role of Barrett Hill, said Gargasz.
“There are no subsidies. This is a market-rate project. We believe that the market is going to be attractive to these not only for the sustainable piece, but because they’re much more affordable to own,” he said.
If this development succeeds, the next one will be that much easier.
By the way, a key part of keeping the cost relatively low wasn’t technology or architecture, it was zoning.
“What Hudson has done is allow duplex zoning … with open space. You get to split the cost of the lot basically in half,” said Gargasz. That lowers the cost of land, roads and utility hookups.
Gargasz said if he built this type of a net-zero project with single-family homes on separate one- or two-acre lots, each would cost a million dollars or more. “Every time you allow more density, you’re making housing more affordable,” he said.
Remember that the next time your neighbor who worries about climate change and the lack of homes for workers speaks out against denser housing because it will “ruin the character of the neighborhood.”
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