Construction is underway in St. Paul, Minnesota, on a major affordable housing development that will combine solar, geothermal and all-electric appliances to create one of the region’s largest net-zero communities.
Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity broke ground in June on a four-block, 147-unit project on the site of a former golf course that’s being redeveloped by the city and its port authority, which made the decision to forgo gas hookups.
Affordable housing and Habitat for Humanity builds in particular have become a front line in the fight over the future of gas. The organization has faced criticism in other communities for accepting fossil fuel industry money and partnering with utilities on “net-zero” homes that include gas appliances. It’s also built several all-electric projects using advanced sustainable construction methods and materials.
The scale of the Twin Cities project is what makes it exciting, according to St. Paul’s chief resilience officer Russ Stark.
“We’ve had plenty of motivated folks build their own all-electric homes, but they’re one-offs,” he said. “There haven’t been many, if any, at scale.”
Stark added that the project, known as The Heights, was made possible by the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
“I think it’s fair to say that those pieces couldn’t have all come together without either a much bigger public investment or the Inflation Reduction Act, which ended up being that big public investment,” he said.
A vision emerges
Port Authority President and CEO Todd Hurley said his organization bought the property in 2019 from the Steamfitters Pipefitters Local 455, which maintained it as a golf course until 2017. When no private buyers expressed interest in the property, the Port Authority bought it for $10 million.
Hurley said the Port Authority saw potential for light industrial development and had the experience necessary to deal with mercury pollution from a fungicide the golf course staff sprayed to kill weeds.
“We are a land developer, a brownfield land developer, and one of our missions is to add jobs and tax base around the creation of light industrial jobs,” Hurley said.
The Port Authority worked with the city’s planning department on a master plan that included housing, and it solicited developers to build a mix of market-rate, affordable and low-income units. The housing parcels were eventually sold for $20 million to a private developer, Sherman Associates, which partnered with Habitat and JO Companies, a Black-owned affordable and multi-family housing developer.
“Early on, we identified a very high goal of (becoming) a net zero community,” Hurley said. “Everything we have been working on has been steering towards getting to net zero.”
Twin Cities Habitat President and former St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman said the project met his organization’s strategic plan, which calls for building bigger developments instead of its traditional practice of infilling smaller lots with single-family homes and duplexes. The project will be the largest the organization has ever built in the Twin Cities.
Coleman said the Heights offered an opportunity to fill a need in one of St. Paul’s most diverse and economically challenged neighborhoods and “be part of the biggest investment in the East Side in over 100 years.”
The requirement for all-electric homes merged with Habitat’s goal of constructing more efficient and sustainable homes to drive down utility costs for homeowners, he said. Habitat built solar-ready homes and sees the solar shingles on its homes in The Heights as a potential avenue to producing onsite clean energy.
Zeroing in on net zero
Mike Robertson, a Habitat program manager working on the project, said the organization worked with teams from the Minneapolis-based Center for Energy and Environment on energy modeling.
“The Heights is the first time that we’ve dived into doing an all-electric at scale,” Roberston said. “We have confidence that these houses will perform how they were modeled.”
Habitat plans to build the development to meet the Zero Energy Ready Home Program standards developed by the U.S. Department of Energy. Habitat will use Xcel Energy’s utility rebate and efficiency programs to achieve the highest efficiency and go above and beyond Habitat’s typical home standards.
The improved construction only adds a few thousand dollars to the overall costs and unlocks federal government incentives to help pay for upgrades, he said.
The nonprofit will receive free or reduced-cost products from Andersen Windows & Doors and other manufacturers. GAF Energy LLC, a solar roofing company, will donate solar shingles for over 40 homes and roofing materials. On-site solar will help bring down energy bills for homeowners, he said.
Chad Dipman, Habitat land development director, said the solar shingles should cover between half and 60% of the electricity the homes need. Habitat plans to use Xcel Energy incentive programs to help pay for additional solar shingles needed beyond those donated.
Habitat will install electric resistance heating technology into air handlers to serve as backup heat for extremely cold days. Dipman said that the air source heat pumps will also provide air conditioning, a feature not available in most Habitat properties in Minnesota.
Phil Anderson, new homes manager at the Center for Energy and Environment, has worked with Habitat on the project. He said the key to reducing the cost of heating and cooling electric homes is a well-insulated, tight envelope and high-performance windows. Habitat will build on its experience with constructing tight homes over the past decade, he said.
“Overall, the houses that we’ve been part of over the last almost ten years have been very tight homes,” Anderson said. “There’s just not a lot of air escaping.”
Habitat’s national office selected The Heights as this year’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, named after the former president and his wife, two of Habitat’s most famous supporters. The work project begins September 29th and will receive as visitors Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who now host the Carters’ program.
Robertson said thousands of volunteers from around the country and the world will help put up the homes. The Heights project “raises a lot of awareness for Habitat and specifically for this development and the decarbonization efforts that we’re putting into it,” he said.
The Heights’s two other housing developers continue raising capital for their projects and hope to break ground by next summer. Habitat believes the project will meet its 2030 completion deadline.