In East Boston, close to the Maverick T station on Broder Street, there used to be an abandoned steel factory. Now, the site is a newly built, beautiful two-tower midrise with a restaurant on the ground floor and affordable income apartments above.
While the modern spin on a brick exterior is attractive, the comprehensive green building, energy conservation, and renewable energy planning is the real star. Due to its location on the Boston Harbor, the building was designed with a focus on climate resilience. The floor elevations are above Boston’s current Flood Elevation levels and flood relief vents.
Behind this project is Kimberley Vemeer, founder and CEO of Urban Habitat Initiatives, a sustainability consulting firm that is working to make green building and climate resilience a reality.
When Kimberley Vermeer was in her twenties, she left her job to travel for a year. Vermeer’s time in the South Pacific islands was especially consequential, “What really struck me there was how these tiny islands were trying to live like Americans and Australians and New Zealanders.” She recalled that in emulating the Western lifestyle, there was a surge in used car imports leading to infrastructure problems like air pollution and traffic jams in on small islands like Fiji and Tahiti.
When Vermeer came back to the United States in the 1990s, informed by her experiences while traveling, she knew that she wanted to do work with an environmental focus. “At that time, there were no Environmental Studies majors. There were no programs, there weren’t really even job descriptions. And so to do what I wanted to do, I said, ‘Okay, well, I’m just going to try to do it on my own.’” Vermeer decided to work independently and founded Urban Habitat Initiatives in 1997 to ensure that green building, health, and sustainability are integral to the planning and realization of development projects and communities. Nowadays, her company is one of the preeminent sustainability consulting firms in New England. That climate-ready building on Border Street is just one of their many projects.
Vermeer’s experience and education prepared her well to launch her business. She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s in Arts and Design, she served in the Peace Corps as an architect in the Kingdom of Tonga, and she has a Master’s degree in policy and planning from the Harvard Kennedy School. Before founding Urban Habitat Initiatives, Vermeer worked in affordable housing finance, first at the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation and later at a small consulting firm.
One of the current trends in green housing, Vermeer explains, is that US policymakers have gone from just pushing for energy efficiency to focusing on electrifying buildings. On one level this makes sense. An building that depends only on electricity, not fossil fuels, can be fully powered with renewable energy systems. The burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heating is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Electrifying buildings can help shift to cleaner energy sources, such as renewables (solar, wind, hydro), which produce electricity with lower or zero emissions.
In Boston, there’s a strong commitment to net zero carbon by 2050. So to receive funding to build any type of affordable housing in the city, that building is required to be ready to be at net zero carbon emissions. While this move can help the environment, Vermeer points out some aspects to consider, “The concern that I have is that it’s pushing the mandate to the individual buildings and the individual developers and it’s pushing everyone to the only solution they can afford, which is to do an air source heat pumps.”
Air source heat pumps offer energy-efficient heating and cooling by extracting warmth from the ambient air. They are suitable for various climates, lower utility bills, and enhance energy sustainability. Although they are a good solution, Vermeer knows of better one: a geothermal district heating system.
A geothermal district heating system is considered one of the best renewable energy options because it provides reliable energy by harnessing the Earth’s natural heat. However, Vermeer emphasizes that a shared geothermal network offers efficiency through centralized generation, reducing energy waste and optimizing resource utilization. “We’re not building or even really thinking about building out any sort of shared solution.” It offers a model for community-level sustainability, which is something the U.S. needs.
The shift towards all-electric buildings is leading to new learning experiences for affordable housing designers, installers, and maintenance teams. Electrification involves the adoption of air-source heat pumps for heating and cooling, heat-pump water heaters for hot water generation, electric cooking, and the inclusion of electric vehicle charging stations in new construction. While positive, these changes will result in greater electrical demands. That requires larger electrical panels and, in some cases, larger transformers.
In an article Vermeer recently wrote for Shelterforce, she emphasizes that the financial implications of electrification raise important equity concerns. Clean-energy conversions can reduce carbon emissions, but may increase energy costs, as electricity is more expensive than natural gas in many markets. In the article, Andre Jones, Nuestra Comunidad’s senior real estate project manager, says that “In Boston, electricity costs are higher than natural gas prices.” In response, affordable housing providers are reevaluating how utility costs are allocated and structured.
Kimberley Vermeer’s journey work reminds us that sustainability is a process that requires adaptability, innovation, and a commitment to creating greener and more equitable communities for all. As the affordable housing sector navigates this transition, it becomes clear that a balance must be struck between environmental responsibility and financial sustainability. Despite these challenges, Vermeer emphasizes that greening affordable housing is a necessity, “If we are trying to be more equitable in the world of sustainability…then making sure that affordable housing is built to green standards is an important way to be delivering on equity goals.”