Green Urbanism
About Green Urbanism
The Green Urbanism Program fosters sustainability in urban environments by establishing collaborative partnerships and facilitating the development and implementation of sustainable policies, programs, and projects.
Green Schools
A green school, also known as a high performance school, is a community facility that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green schools protect occupant health, provide a productive learning environment, connect students to the natural world, increase average daily attendance, reduce operating costs, improve teacher satisfaction and retention, and reduce overall impact to the environment.
Green Cities
Global Green USA works in partnership with local governments and other public agencies that are ready to “do” sustainability.
The goal of our work with public agencies is to create innovative and replicable policies, programs, and procedures so that sustainable practices become standard in the planning, design, construction, and operation of the built environment.
By working closely with agency staff and community stakeholders, we have helped create a number of innovative and precedent setting green building programs, sustainability plans, green urban design proposals, and climate action strategies. These include the City of Los Angeles, City of Long Beach, and City of West Hollywood green building programs, the West Hollywood Environmental Task Force Summary Report, and the Local Government Green Building Program Guide.
Affordable Green Housing
Over the past decade, Global Green USA has established itself as a national leader in promoting green building practices in the affordable housing community. Through our Greening of Affordable Housing Initiative, we work extensively with non-profit community development corporations, architects, financial institutions, and government agencies at the local, state, and national level.
Green affordable housing directly benefits individuals and families in need by reducing energy bills and creating healthier living environments. Affordable housing developers and operators gain through higher quality, more efficient, and more durable buildings.
Publications
Green Urbanism Program Case Study: Los Vecinos
Los Vecinos is a 42-unit affordable housing project that meets nearly all of its annual electricity demand through 93 kW of on-site solar photovoltaic power. Located along a light rail line in the southern part of the San Diego metropolitan area, this LEED Platinum certified project is the second Zero Energy Affordable Housing project in the State of California. The project, located on the site of a former dilapidated motel that had the largest number of police calls for any single address in Chula Vista, is a testament to what can be accomplished by a determined development and design team that stands by its commitment to extremely high performance standards. Released March, 2010.
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Green Building Criteria in State Low Income Housing Tax Credit Programs, 2009 Update
Global Green's review of the low-income housing tax credit allocation policy shows significant progress being made in the effort to make green building measures standard practice in affordable housing. This development is particularly apparent through a summary of the changes over the last five years to the green building criteria found in state Qualified Allocation Plans (QAPs), which states develop to guide the distribution of federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). For the first time since we started the analysis in 2005, all 50 states were shown to exhibit some aspects of green building in their QAPs. To learn more, download our 2009 report here.
Here are links to Global Green USA’s QAP reports for the previous four years:
Click here for 2008
Click here for 2007
Click here for 2006
Click here for 2005
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