KATHY BROWN
‘A really important issue’

The city of Boston has adopted design guidelines that are expected to help families living in affordable housing breathe easier.

The Department of Neighborhood Development has implemented several construction standards for newly built single-family homes and condominiums that are aimed at reducing the presence of mold, dust mites, mice and other household pests that can trigger and exacerbate asthma and other respiratory conditions.

The guidelines were developed by the Boston Urban Asthma Coalition, a Dorchester-based citywide advocacy organization, and the Asthma Regional Council of New England. Those organizations worked closely with DND officials to ensure that affordable housing receiving city funding or built on city-owned land will be built according to healthy housing design and construction practices.

Dust mites and roaches, and other housing conditions, can cause children and adults to develop asthma, according to Jean Zotter, executive director and co-founder of the asthma coalition, or BUAC. “Our goal is that all affordable housing that exists and that’s built will be healthy,” said Zotter.

Some of the design standards implemented by DND apply to a home’s interior while others concern the exterior or structural components.

For example, the city is trying to cut back on the use of carpeting in newly built affordable housing units. The city is requiring at least one carpet-free bedroom in each new unit and wood-laminate flooring to be installed in each unit’s entryway and living and dining rooms. Carpeting, particularly if it is old and worn, is known to harbor dust mites and mold. Any carpeting that is used in newly constructed units, according to the city’s standards, must be level-loop carpeting, which is easier to clean than other types of carpeting.

The city also is asking builders to avoid installing plumbing on exterior walls, making it easier to detect and repair water leaks and thus minimizing the chances of mold developing.

Drainage and grading issues also are addressed in the design guidelines. The area around the foundation should be graded away from foundations and compacted to ensure proper drainage, according to the DND design standards, and subsurface drainage in basements or crawl spaces should include a continuing footing drain connected to a city-approved drainage system.

In addition, DND is requiring gutters in all residential buildings to reduce water on exterior surfaces and improved venting in bathrooms and kitchens.

The changes are aimed at reducing moisture and the use of carpeting. “What we heard from the folks who have been involved in reducing asthma in our communities is that those are the two triggers that needed to be addressed,” said Sheila Dillon, deputy director of DND.

The efforts come as public health officials and city leaders are taking notice of the impact of asthma across the region. Massachusetts and the city of Boston have higher asthma rates than those of other states and metropolitan areas, according to a research report released by the BUAC this past June.

The report revealed that nearly 15 percent of adults living in the Bay State have been diagnosed with asthma, compared to a national average of 13 percent. Children in the state also are struggling, with 14.6 percent of children in Massachusetts living with asthma, compared to 12 percent nationwide, according to the report.

In Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, the asthma rates were 50 percent higher than those in the rest of the state, the report found.

Much of the city-owned land that is available for development is located in the northern section of Dorchester and in Roxbury – another city neighborhood with one of the highest asthma rates in the state – because of disinvestment in those two neighborhoods over the years, according to Dillon.

“When BUAC came to us, they had very compelling evidence. We felt, as we were investing in these neighborhoods, that it was in the best interest of the residents who live in those neighborhoods to build this type of [healthy] housing,” she said.

‘Perfect Sense’
Cost has been a significant challenge in getting developers to embrace some healthy housing construction standards, according to experts.

Laurie Stillman, executive director of the Asthma Regional Council, said the upfront costs associated with building healthy homes can be a big issue. But Stillman said most of the healthy home guidelines ultimately help improve energy costs and make a residence “more durable and less susceptible to deterioration.”

“It all makes perfect financial and health sense,” she said.

While at least 30 other cities across the country have embraced “green” building standards to make sure their housing is energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, not all of those cities have been as focused on ensuring that the housing is also healthy, according to Ellen Tohn, senior advisor to the Asthma Regional Council, or ARC.

“Boston has done a great job of really focusing on the goal of building healthy housing. They have explicitly tried to ensure that the construction standards at DND help to create healthier housing,” said Tohn, an expert on housing-based environmental health threats who runs a consulting business, ERT Assoc., in Wayland. “The city of Boston has focused on building green and healthy housing.”

ARC has worked with state housing finance authorities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine to help them modify their construction and design standards to improve health conditions. The introduction of green and healthy building standards in those states over the past couple of years will affect the construction of more than 2,000 units annually, according to Tohn.

Organizations like the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition in Dorchester and the Boston Tenant Coalition, which advocates for healthy and affordable housing throughout the city, have supported the efforts of ARC and BUAC.

The Boston Tenant Coalition hosted a series of roundtable discussions with community-based organizations to educate the public about the high asthma rates in low-income communities and to discuss strategies for developing housing that eliminates asthma triggers.

“This is a really important issue that we all need to address,” said Kathy Brown of the Boston Tenant Coalition.

During workshops organized by the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition to discuss asthma, it became clear that residents in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury were very concerned about healthy housing, according to Marvin Martin, the coalition’s director.

Many residents complained about having sinus or other breathing problems, noted Martin, who along with other community leaders is hoping that the new city guidelines have a significant impact.

“The city still has a lot of properties out there. If they’re going to ask developers to do this, that’s going to create a whole lot of units that will at least be respiratory-friendly,” he said. “This will help decrease the high incidence of asthma we have in the city.”

Martin said he is particularly pleased that the city is now requiring at least one carpet-free bedroom and is planning to prod city officials to use even less carpeting. “We hope to get to a point where it will be more than one bedroom [without carpeting],” he said.

In addition to trying to create new healthy affordable homes, BUAC is working with the city to promote healthy living conditions in existing housing.

Zotter, of BUAC, said the organization has been working with doctors at Children’s Hospital and the Boston Medical Center, as well as the city’s Inspectional Services Department, to try to identify housing that is making children sick.

As part of the effort, doctors who treat children whose housing conditions are making them ill subsequently contact city inspectors trained in identifying asthma triggers and ask them to check out the property.

The inspectors can then provide guidance on modifications to improve the housing conditions, said Zotter.