Image by James Sanna | Banker & Tradesman Staff
Evan Smith is trying to bring high-efficiency green homes to ordinary Bostonians with his latest project in Fort Hill, overlooking Nubian Square.
Smith, himself a Fort Hill resident, is building nine Passive House condominiums on a 3,295-square-foot lot at the corner of Dudley and Kenilworth streets, with delivery expected this fall. His goal, he said, is to bring as many of the units as possible in at middle-market prices, or between $400,000 and $700,000 in a neighborhood that’s a short bus ride away from the thousands of nurse, custodian and technician jobs at Longwood Medical Center.
“In Roxbury, specifically, there’s a ton of housing that’s being built that’s deed-restricted affordable housing,” he said. “This can be entry-level housing for people that are making too much money to qualify for affordable housing, but at a pricepoint that’s reasonable and in line with what they might pay for a rental unit.”
At this point, Smith said, building Passive House adds only minimal cost to a smaller stick-frame project like his – between 2 percent and 3 percent of the budget, in this case – once the development team and the contractor knows what to do. And given the big jump in quality of life Passive House delivers, with lower noise, lower utility bills and fewer health problems, Smith said, many Passive House units recoup that cost easily at time of sale.
“I’ve been building Passive House for about 17 years, I don’t view it as rocket science,” Smith said of the high-efficiency construction technique. “That’s basically what you need in a Passive House: insulation, air-sealing and good windows.”
Passive House techniques are catching on among smaller developers in Boston, in part due to regulatory changes at the state and city levels and in part due to a culture change in the design and real estate industries.
The biggest difference in the structure are much thicker roof joists and an extra layer of insulation between the frame and the brick cladding, in this case a product made in Maine from recycled wood chips. In addition to reducing how much electricity the building uses in operation, Smith said, he wanted to reduce the building structure’s carbon footprint with materials that didn’t need to be trucked in from far away.
Like many other Passive House homes, each unit’s air-handling equipment works a bit differently. Its job is largely to take stale air out of the kitchens and bathrooms, remove any latent heat it holds, and replace it with fresh air from outside. Smith calls such units the “magic box” that makes tightly-sealed Passive House units work.
The building may only be three-and-a-half stories due to neighbors’ concerns about height, but Smith worked in a compromise that also helps make the building pencil: Some top-floor units will have super-tall ceilings and lofted space under the sloping, skylight-studded roof, generating extra value along with the extra living space.
