The renovation of Colonial II, an affordable residential tower on the edge of a scenic wetland in Rome, New York, created an opportunity for the Rome Housing Authority (RHA) to demonstrate the possibility of achieving the sustainability goal of net zero in a fifty-year-old building, repositioning the building toward the future while also improving the lives of residents today.
AN EVER-PRESENT PAST
Rome is a small central New York city situated around the Fort Stanwix National Monument. The city, like the fort before it, was built on the historic path of the Oneida Carrying Place, named by the Six Nations (Iroquois) who used it to carry goods between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek, which connect to the Hudson and Lake Ontario, respectively. Later, European settlers also valued the path, and the area became the site of fierce fighting during decades of colonial settlement, the French and Indian War, and the Revolutionary War.
During the Industrial Revolution, Rome – then known as the “Copper City” – became a manufacturing capital, and during World War II, Griffiss Air Force Base was built on its eastern border. The base closed in 1995 and copper no longer dominates its economy, but reminders of both industries are visible in every corner of town.
The city is now home to diverse employers in defense, healthcare, manufacturing, technology, and other industries. A need for low-income housing has been persistent, and the RHA was founded in the 1940s to meet that need. Today, it serves 385 public housing households and more than 600 Housing Choice Voucher Program participants living in private accommodations.
RENOVATING FOR TODAY'S LIFE
Originally completed in 1971, Colonial II is an affordable residential tower that offers preferential access to seniors and people with disabilities. Thanks to HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, in 2017 the RHA was able to convert the building from conventional public housing to the Section 8 platform. This will preserve these homes in perpetuity as affordable housing.
Colonial II sits on a small lake and picturesque wetlands alongside Colonial I, a twin tower renovated under RAD a few years before. Staggering the two renovations created an opportunity to learn from the first project to benefit the second property and reduced disruption to residents, many of whom were able to stay onsite as new homes were built.
Updating the building to meet the needs of today’s residents was a top priority, and the housing authority received permission from HUD to reduce the number of homes, to increase their size.
RHA Executive Director and CEO Maureen Birmingham explains, “To put it bluntly, the tenants have to have the room to live. The old units were tiny. There was no storage, and if you had a family of six that wanted to come and visit their parents or grandparents, they weren't able to do it a lot. [Now] everything is just up to standards. You can now have that same family of six [come over to visit], and those apartments are going to be big enough that everybody is going to fit.” It's important to design for the future, she says. "If you're not going to increase the size of it, don't waste your money. You can't compete with brand-new properties out there. You… want to have something that's going to be able to sustain itself after ten years. And the hope is by making them bigger, by offering what is being offered 25 years from now, it's still going to be going strong."
“It is great,” said resident Patricia Catello. “I honestly didn't think the living area would be as big as it is. So… it's like really wow, you know?” A resident of the building before its renovation, she praised amenities like larger ovens. “The one I had was a lot smaller, and I like to bake cookies in the wintertime for Christmas …for my family and friends. And it was rough, too, because my cookie sheets did not fit.”
RETHINKING ENERGY
A lot of what the RHA learned from the renovation of Colonial I had to do with energy and its cost to both residents and the housing authority — and their ability to shift the thinking on the financial and economic impacts of energy use. Both buildings are wrapped in three inches of insulation to help reduce the need for heating and cooling, but for Colonial II, the RHA went a step further by purchasing a piece of land adjacent to Colonial I and tapping the natural geothermal heat of the earth. The land now features twenty-six 499-foot-deep wells that are connected to individual ground-source heat pumps in the building. In addition, individual energy recovery ventilators provide fresh air and exhaust stale air, and feature central heat-pump hot water heaters with a recirculation loop.
The RHA also took advantage of the same small piece of land to install an array of photovoltaic solar panels above the geothermal wells, avoiding the often insurmountable logistical difficulties that accompany rooftop installation. The electricity generated from the panels is sold back to the local power company and is estimated to have the capacity to offset 98 percent of Colonial II’s electricity use once construction is complete and the building is fully occupied. The combination of solar and geothermal technology should bring the building within arm’s reach of net zero.
As inestimably large as the implications of this work are, they can also be seen on the small scale of Colonial II’s residential homes. Neighboring Colonial I’s apartments are heated and cooled much like they were over the buildings’ first 50 years — with radiators and window-mounted air conditioners. In Colonial II, says Birmingham, “everyone will have the availability for central air. No more excessive utility charges because it's all part of our system.” And with the new heating and cooling system everything should be so energy efficient that it'll literally save thousands of dollars” for the housing authority, while providing a better quality of life for residents. Catello agrees. Before, “people just felt kind of down,” she says. “Because, you know, you couldn't control your own heat, and then you had to get an air conditioner and some people can't afford that. So with this, it's kind of like I think people are just going to be happier.”
Cutting-edge heating and cooling offer current and future benefits. The housing authority chose in-unit systems with a modular, swappable design that lets the maintenance staff make any repair instantly from the resident’s perspective. “If something were to break on the unit itself,” explains building architect Dominic Rigosu of RIDA Architecture, PLLC, “you slide out the cassette, which is kind of the whole guts of the unit. You slide [a functional one] in, and the unit’s back up and working in a matter of minutes. And then they take that unit that's broken and send it out to get repaired. That's a wonderful feature.”
About the project as a whole, Rigosu says, “It was just forward thinking here by the developer at the time. I don't know what caught their eye with this building, but they came to the plate and said, ‘okay, this is what we're doing, and let's figure out how we're going to do it.’”
Will this become the norm for affordable residential construction and renovation? “I don’t know if [the affordable housing industry] will catch up fast… because this building is a little bit more innovative, because we're taking it down to almost net zero and using every resource we can to heat and cool and reduce the energy usage.” On the other hand, Rigosu says, a lot of things “we did five years ago we thought were cutting edge, and nowadays it's just standard practice. So, I would say [the industry] will catch up.”
Communicating with the Residents
No matter how beneficial building improvements may be, housing authorities must always carefully communicate with residents about changes that will affect their lives. Sarah Bowers, the RHA’s Housing Assistant, uses every resource she has. “I like to be very open and honest with all the tenants — that's my number one. I call. I will email you; I will hunt you down and find you in the hallways.” For the Colonial II renovation, she says, “we initially sent out tenant letters just to let everybody know what was going to happen. And then we had tenant briefings... We started, I want to say, about a year beforehand, just to get rid of any fears that they may have had about what was going on and be able to talk to them to see what might be changes that they wanted on the property, just so we can work together. But really the big thing, I mean, it’s constant meetings, constant mailings, phone calls, everything.”
Resident Patricia Catello recalls, “they had meetings to inform us of what was happening and what would be coming and all that. They’ve been very good. They've kept everybody informed... Sarah, Maureen, there’s an office over there, [someone] over there that can answer questions. So, very accessible.”
Catello’s neighbor Nancy Cramer agrees that communication is critical. When construction began on neighboring Colonial I, she became convinced that any change would be for the better. “It was always the plan,” she says of the renovations and Executive Director Maureen Birmingham. “She's fought tooth and nail to get this done. She really has.” Ultimately, Nancy joined the resident board where she helps connect the residents to the staff. “If it's a complaint, I tell them you have to take it to the office… [but] if you need me to go for you or go with you, I can go with you. I can do that.” When asked if she had advice for housing authorities thinking of converting properties through RAD, she says, “I would tell them expect a lot of questions, whether you're doing the right thing or not, but in the end you are. And it's totally amazing what they've done. It's so upbeat. I don't know how to explain it. It's indescribable.”
“And when you see the faces on these tenants, it's going to be worth everything to them. Be patient — it's well worth it.”
Cramer feels the same way about the environmentally conscious approach the housing authority took with her building. “I'm ecstatic over that,” she says, “because I have grandchildren. I'm going to have great grandchildren, and I want them to be able to breathe and live.”
The buildings’ relationship with nature benefits not only the future, but also the now as well. “A lot of people use the trail,” she says. “We can walk all the way around the spillway… it’s absolutely gorgeous. We have ducks, we have geese, we have parks, we have deer, we have skunks, we have eagles. They come down, they swoop the fish out of the pond, and they eat it next to the shore. And turtles … you know, it's fantastic.”
What is RAD?
The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) is a program of the Office of Recapitalization in the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs at HUD. Authorized in 2011, RAD allows public housing agencies and owners of other HUD-assisted properties to convert units from their original sources of HUD financing to project-based Section 8 contracts. These new contracts provide a more reliable source of operating subsidy that enables property owners to leverage private and public capital, such as debt and equity, to finance new construction and/or rehabilitation of rental housing. Meanwhile, residents benefit from consultation prior to conversion, have a right to return after any construction, and maintain ongoing rights guaranteeing the affordability of the housing.