Neighborhood Notes

On five acres in Northeast Portland, school is in session. No classrooms. No desks. No textbooks. Just a building team that’s figuring out how to create an affordable green housing project in an on-the-job learning lab.

As infrastructure construction wraps at Host Development’s Helensview project and home construction begins, the team’s learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work in creating environmentally sensitive and still-affordable homes. And those lessons are ones developers of price-sensitive spaces across Portland have studied up on as well.

“One of the key ways affordable housing can go green is to do things that make common sense,” said Laurel Lyon, spokeswoman for Reach Community Development.

South-facing windows. Buildings oriented to maximize heating and cooling efficiency. More insulation. Specifying small-cost, big energy-saving swaps for lighting and plumbing. Easy to do – as long as the whole team is thinking about building better homes from the beginning.

Read the full story at the Daily Journal of Commerce, Station Place is mentioned.