Sustainable Initiatives: Nicollet Meadows Townhomes
CSBR worked with the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund and the Southwest Housing Partnership on a pilot project in St. Peter, Minnesota to apply sustainable design principles for multi-family affordable housing. The research focused on initiatives: reducing energy loads through envelope design; reducing heating and cooling cost through HVAC efficiency; reducing plug loads through appliance selection; reducing water and energy related to hot water through water conservation and hot water heater efficiency; improving indoor air quality through material selection and HVAC design; examining the environmental impact of material life cycle including production, durability, and potential for future recycling or reuse; and examining integrated ground level Solar Greenhouse technology to reduce heating and cooling loads, and improve indoor air quality. The goal of this initiative was to increase energy efficiency and decrease the overall environmental impact of building without substantially increasing the total monthly cost of housing. Total cost of housing is inclusive of mortgage and/or rent payment plus utilities.
CSBR primary contribution to the project was to identify, evalute, and make recommendations of strategies to meet the project goals. Strategies were evaluated based on first and operational cost; potential energy and water conservation; and improvement of indoor environmental quality.
| Project: | Sustainable Initiatives: Nicollet Meadows Townhomes |
| Principal Investigator: | John Carmody, Director, CSBR |
| Researcher: | William Weber, Research Fellow, CSBR |
| Project Partners: | Community Eco-design Network Greater Minnesota Housing Fund Todd Rhodes, Cermak-Rhodes Architects Roald Gundersen, Ecome Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership |
| Sponsor: | Greater Minnesota Housing Fund |
| Status: | Complete |
