Green Builder Media editor Cati O'Keefe covers a Costco-anchored affordable housing project in South Los Angeles, federal funding talks for Sunnyside Yard, new state code activity, and architect Nathan Good on the lessons of early passive solar homes.
00:00:05:14 - 00:00:37:24
Cati O'Keefe: A bold new experiment in housing is underway in South Los Angeles. In Baldwin Village, real estate developer Thrive Living has broken ground on what is believed to be the nation's first mixed use community, with a Costco as a retail anchor and hundreds of homes above it. The 400 million plus project will transform and underutilized five acre commercial site into a Costco warehouse with 800 residential units above, including 184 set aside for low income households and the rest designated as affordable and workforce housing.
00:00:37:26 - 00:01:05:08
Cati O'Keefe: The effort uses California's AB 2011. This is a state law designed to speed up approval for housing projects that meet affordability and labor standards, and is being built without relying on traditional low income tax credits or government subsidies. I certainly hope they've included super sized pantries for all that bulk buying that's going to go down. Hi, I'm Cati O'Keefe, and you're watching the Week in Sustainability in a notable housing development.
00:01:05:08 - 00:01:31:16
Cati O'Keefe: Last week, New York City Mayor Mamdani met with President Trump at the white House to discuss a major affordable housing proposal. At the center of the discussion was securing more than $21 billion in federal support to build housing at Sunnyside Yard in Queens. The project would unlock land for an estimated 12,000 affordable homes, and is projected to create roughly 30,000 jobs.
00:01:31:18 - 00:01:59:04
Cati O'Keefe: City officials describe it as potentially the largest housing and infrastructure investment in New York in more than 50 years. If funded, the proposal would represent a rare instance of federal backing for large scale urban housing supply, something many cities have argued is necessary to address affordability constraints that are tied to land scarcity and infrastructure limitations. And that conversation was not happening in isolation.
00:01:59:12 - 00:02:39:13
Cati O'Keefe: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro administration recently toured a mixed use redevelopment project in reading, Pennsylvania. It's transforming long vacant buildings into a housing and commercial space. The project includes income restricted units and incorporates energy efficient upgrades designed to lower operating costs for residents. Now, I'm sure by now you've downloaded our Green Home of the year awards issue, but I'd like to give an extra shout out to Beazer CEO Alan Merrill, who is named our latest sustainability superhero through a focus on high performance, climate ready housing.
00:02:39:14 - 00:03:13:02
Cati O'Keefe: Merrill shows that resilience, efficiency and affordability don't have to compete. They can reinforce each other. Read the full story on our blog, or you can download the January February issue in our magazine archive. In Code news, more municipalities in Massachusetts have adopted the state's specialized stretch code. This requires fossil fuel free new construction and higher performance standards. It is not a statewide mandate, but it's spreading town by town.
00:03:13:05 - 00:03:43:28
Cati O'Keefe: Colorado advanced implementation of statewide building performance standards for large commercial and multi-family buildings. This means retrofits are no longer optional in key markets. In California, insurance regulators moved forward on rules that would require insurers to factor wildfire mitigation into underwriting. And on the federal front. Updated HUD guidance is tying housing funds more tightly to climate resilience benchmarks. Well, you'd love to hear it.
00:03:43:29 - 00:04:17:13
Cati O'Keefe: Home Innovation Research Labs recently certified its 750th home under the National Green Building Standard NBS, marking another strong year of growth in green building activity in 2025. More than 100,000 homes earned NBS green certification with five states Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia leading the way in both single family and multi-family certifications. Check out our latest webinar posted on to our archive and watch it on demand.
00:04:17:13 - 00:04:49:17
Cati O'Keefe: It's our Generational Marketing 2026 presentation, which addresses what's happening beneath the surface of the housing market. The webinar presents cognition smart data on the emotional drivers, economic pressures, and cultural shifts reshaping buyer behavior. It also includes information on all five generations of consumers. You can click the Knowledge Base tab on our website to watch. So what if climate change isn't reversible and the real job now is designing for disaster.
00:04:49:20 - 00:05:19:15
Cati O'Keefe: That's what's covered in the very first episode of the Green Builder Media Networks The Impact series. In this podcast, Green Builder Coalition executive Director Mike Cullinan sits down with legendary sustainable architect Nathan Good for a conversation that tackles resilience, affordability, AI, insurance pressures and the future of architecture. Head on. This one goes deep from passive solar lessons to climate refugees to whether AI could replace architects.
00:05:19:16 - 00:05:21:16
Cati O'Keefe: Here's a short clip.
00:05:21:19 - 00:05:50:29
Nathan Good: I've worked on projects that have had passive systems and very active systems. You know, residential and commercial. And as I'm sure Ron Jones is familiar with, passive solar homes were a big thing in the late 60s and early 70s. And now I've been remodeling some of those early passive solar homes. And what a disaster the trauma walls have turned out to be.
00:05:51:01 - 00:06:25:05
Nathan Good: And what a challenge that's been with, you know, restructuring the thermal mass in these homes. The beauty of them were that they were passive systems that did not require mechanically operated exotic controls and things like that. So somewhere between those early passive homes and our newer generation of passive house homes, there's got to be a nice balance. And so that's been one of the things that I've been interested in pursuing.
00:06:25:06 - 00:06:29:27
Nathan Good: And I can't say that I found that perfect balance yet.
00:06:30:00 - 00:06:56:06
Cati O'Keefe: Here's a question the housing industry needs to answer and frankly, has needed to answer for decades. If we say resilience, efficiency and durability matter. Why don't our appraisals reflect that high performance homes are being built to withstand climate risk? They have lower operating costs, and they're delivering healthier indoor environments. But too often, outdated appraisal models fail to capture that added value.
00:06:56:09 - 00:07:20:22
Cati O'Keefe: This blog explores what's broken in the appraisal process and, more importantly, what can be done to fix it. The good news is that the tools to do this definitely exist. Learn what they are and how the industry can put them to work. Click the link in the description to access this blog. AI is moving beyond gadgets and well into building systems.
00:07:20:23 - 00:08:02:11
Cati O'Keefe: The next evolution of the smart home is predictive load management, adaptive HVAC optimization, real time energy monitoring, and AI driven fault detection across mechanical systems. We're talking about homes that learn occupancy patterns, adjust thermal performance, dynamically integrate with distributed energy resources, and then potentially reduce peak demand without homeowners having to do a single thing. For builders, this raises new considerations that they probably haven't had to address before around cybersecurity data ownership, and also how AI platforms will integrate with high performance envelopes and electrified systems.
00:08:02:17 - 00:08:36:08
Cati O'Keefe: If you want to learn more about this, head to Mashable. They're the ones who originally wrote this blog on this very important, timely subject. Did you know that right sizing plumbing systems can save up to $190,000 on multifamily projects, and on site reuse and demand reduction can defer costly infrastructure expansion? Well, these are just a few of the facts featured in New March for water 2026 program, which is released in time for World Water Day and World Plumbing Day, which are both this month.
00:08:36:13 - 00:09:00:06
Cati O'Keefe: You can learn more at Uniform Codes Dawg for water. In case you missed it. Our Reclaiming Affordability event in Orlando, which I talked about last week, was a huge success, and now it's all up online for you to peruse at your leisure. Click on the Value per Square Foot tab on our website and learn more about the initiative and watch all the recorded sessions.
00:09:00:07 - 00:09:21:11
Cati O'Keefe: It also has a link for you to join the networking and leadership group that's moving this conversation forward. Well, the next 30 to 60 days are packed with major sustainability and housing events. Check the links in the description below for more information, and check back here on our weekly pod, as I will keep adding events as I receive them.
00:09:21:11 - 00:09:52:20
Cati O'Keefe: In short though, for coming up they are Design Columbus, which will be March 16th in Columbus, Ohio. The ResNet annual conference is March 17th through 20th, and that's going to be held in San Antonio. The Living Future Conference from the International Living Future Institute will be held April 14th through 17th in Seattle, and the Gulf Coast Green Building Conference will be held April 24th in Houston.
00:09:52:23 - 00:10:02:03
Cati O'Keefe: That is it for this week. We'll see you next Wednesday. And don't forget to subscribe and share and send us your important updates and news that you think the industry needs to know.
00:10:02:03 - 00:10:13:16
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