One of the building's functions is a replacement for the old management office. This space serves as the new waiting room.

The community room provides a space for both community activities and also an after school program when the school year is in session.

The community center has a full kitchen including cooking facilities. It is fully accessible (at least when someone hasn't stacked water in the knee space).

We attended the site blessing ceremony on Sunday for a house we designed for Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity in Evergreen.

The homeowner has gone through a rigorous selection process and will personally complete 250 hours of sweat equity labor, and purchase the home with an affordable mortgage.  The Sioux Trail House is Blue Spruce’s 27^th house built locally.

Volunteers will break ground within the next couple weeks and EVstudio plans to help out with the construction process as well.

We recently designed a single-family ranch house for Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity.  We came up with the most practical layout for the 3-bedroom/2 bath house, while keeping it within the 1,050 sf requirement.

We left the option for the Master Bath to be finished with a future shower/tub combo, since the Habitat design criteria only allows for 1 full bath for a 3-bedroom house.  We also provided a sliding glass door in the dining room for access to a future rear deck.  We vaulted the living/kitchen area to create a more open feel.  The rest of the house has 9' ceilings, a little more generous than the typical 8'.

The site slopes 5’ from front to back, creating a semi-walkout condition which allows for access to the crawlspace through a small door at the rear of the house.  The mechanical equipment will be placed in the crawlspace to provide more space on the main level.  Originally, there would’ve only been enough room for a 3’ tall access door into the crawlspace, but we pushed the door header up into the floor rim space so that we could fit in a 3’-6” tall door.  Due to the home’s small size and simple rectangular layout, we were also able to downsize the floor joists from 11-7/8” to 9-1/2” TJIs for cost effectiveness.  We also provided Habitat with two options for the dropped beam below, one steel and one wood, to allow them to price both.

Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity is hosting the 3rd annual Habitat Hard Hats & High Heels fundraiser the evening of Saturday, June 12th at a fabulous 6,800 sq. ft. luxury home at Cub Creek Ranch in Evergreen. Donations from the event will help build the next Habitat for Humanity home in Evergreen, which is currently being designed by EVstudio.

Tickets are $50 per person.

The evening will include plentiful appetizers from local restaurants, live music, beautiful local art on display and for sale, and a terrific auction. Buy a commemorative wine glass (with wine!) and be eligible for great prizes. Everyone will receive a Blueprint for Fun and the opportunity to visit Habitat "stations" for more door prizes. Neither hard hats nor high heels are required for the event - just participate for a wonderful evening

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Driving Directions

There are standard guidelines for designing a Habitat for Humanity ‘Base House’ regarding size, floor, wall & roof systems, exterior materials, windows & doors, and heating & ventilation.  The guidelines vary depending on location.  EVstudio has worked on a number of projects with Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity which covers Jefferson, Clear Creek, and Park Counties. these are some of their base house design guidelines.

Each HFH home usually requires 3 bedrooms.  Two and four bedrooms homes are only built under special circumstances and requires approval.  Required program requires a living room, kitchen/dining area, bedrooms, and one or two bathrooms.  Blue Spruce Habitat homes typically do not require garages, carports or storage sheds.  Two & three bedroom homes each need to have one full bath, where a four bedroom home must have two.  All homes need to be provided with a laundry area to accommodate side-by-side washer & dryer units.  The square footage requirements are as follows: two bedroom-900 sf, three bedroom-1050 sf, and four bedroom-1150 sf.

Typical concrete slab foundations and 2x6 wall construction with R-19 fiberglass batt insulation is required.  Roof pitches are to be between 4 and 6:12, and must be asphalt shingles.  Alternative building materials such as straw-bale, rammed-earth, or adobe can be used only on a board-approved basis.  Crawlspaces require R-11 insulation applied to the inside of the foundation walls above grade.  Exterior walls need the standard structural sheathing, with Dow ‘Weather-mate’ house wrap installed on top.  1" Dow Styrofoam then needs to be installed on top of the house wrap.  Fiber-cement lap siding is typically required.  Vinyl and aluminum siding are not allowed.

Window selection is important to passively control heat loss or gain and to provide effective ventilation.  Vinyl, double-glazed, ‘Low-E’, Energy Star rated windows are required for occupant comfort and energy savings.  Exterior doors are to be insulated steel-clad or fiberglass.

Most Habitat homes will be provided with  a radiant floor heating system, if the qualified volunteers are available.  Otherwise, the home will be provided with a forced air heating system.

Interesting to note that Habitat base homes have very specific closet requirements.  All require a front entry closet, bedroom closets, a pantry, and linen closet.  Master bedroom closets need to provide a minimum length of five linear feet, and secondary bedrooms must provide four linear feet, each including one single rod and one twelve inch paint-grade shelf.  The linen and pantry closets need four paint-grade sixteen inch shelves, and the front entry closet needs one rod and twelve inch shelf.

The partner families are allowed to select certain items at no extra cost, such as carpet & vinyl flooring, window blinds, and counter/vanity tops.  The families are also involved in the design process and are allowed to review the designs and make minor adjustments to fit their needs, without altering the specified base home program.

The event was complete and included:

• Informative lectures on techniques for speaking to legislators and representatives.
• Talking points for outlining Colorado’s need for affordable housing.
• How to rally support and votes among community leaders.
• The pressing Housing Bills, Propositions and Proposed Amendments currently on the table for Colorado representatives.

(And of course great food provided for all!)

My main take-way was the question “What kind of Colorado do we want?” Many Coloradans have a very high quality of life; access to great water, plenty of quality recreation, a growing transportation system, good food and many social networking spaces. Many of us however, have taken this for granted and have become too far removed from the policies and decisions which make this happen. The Day Under the Dome event is a call for action and a call to help us realize that our government is created by us and to serve us. Affordable housing is at the epicenter of this discussion because housing develops communities which supply the workforce, schools, and support the economy. Ensuring that Coloradans have access to housing is ensuring Colorado maintains a high quality of life.

The event created a very positive environment to meet and greet legislators from all over the state and see that they were really listening to our concerns for affordable housing! Partisan politics never entered the room. It was evident that our legislators are concerned for Colorado’s well being particularly at a time when they have to make tough decisions for the allocation of the little money Colorado does have.

I encourage all to find out who their local representative are and set up a meeting with them to talk about what is important to you and your community. Got to www.votesmart.org type in your zip code and find out who your local representatives are, how they have voted in the past and how to contact them.

Housing Colorado has information on how to prepare for a meeting with a legislator or how to host a legislator at a community or non-profit meeting. At the event they even had a role playing game to walk you through how you may approach your representative!

Regarding current legislative issues, Housing Colorado does a great job at “translating” and prioritizing the House Bills, Propositions and Proposed Amendments.

At the close of the day, event attendees had an opportunity to sit in on the Senate committee hearing and vote of HB10-1017. At the hearing community members have a chance to provide testimony and state their support or opposition to the issue. Housing Colorado and its many partners are in support of the House Bill and provided many testimonials which helped the Senators understand how much support there was for this issue. In the end the HB10-1017 passed and can now move on in the process of becoming a law!

Housing Colorado did a great job with this years Day Under the Dome event and I look forward to many more!

The first grant is "The Affordable Housing Initiative" offered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) through a grant from the Home Depot Foundation and is intended to developers achieve LEED for Homes (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification of their affordable housing projects by helping to cover the costs of the certification process including registration, verification and certification costs.

The second source is the Green Communities Program through Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. and includes grant opportunities specifically for Green Affordable Housing projects including:

• Charrettes Grants which provide up to $5,000 in funding "to assist housing developers with integrating green building systems in their developments and engage in a serious discussion of green design possibilities".
• Planning & Construction Grants of up to $75,000 to cover the increases in planning & construction expenses that may be attributable to upgrading the design and performance of the project for sustainability.
• Sustainability Training Grants of up to $5,000 for affordable housing developers to cover the costs of designing and implementing a comprehensive training curriculum and operations & maintenance manual supporting the long-term operations and maintenance of the properties after construction is complete.

Green Communities offers these grants and provide a range of loan products and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Equity assistance to affordable housing projects that adhere to the Green Communities Criteria, which is similar to the LEED for Homes Certification Criteria.

Bringing well thought out green design to affordable housing projects adds another level of true sustainability to the project and to the community in which it is built by increasing the efficiency of the project and reducing the long-term operations and maintenance costs of the building. Projects may apply for and qualify for any combination of these special funding opportunities available specifically for green development. They can be added to the Pro Forma along with the other affordable housing funding opportunities that may be available.

On October 4, 2009 we introduced our readers to our "Eco-Craft" series of homes.  These homes were designed with Central Texas home builder Dustin Dewald, president and founder of DPD Custom Homes.  Dustin Dewald and Gene Dane, principal in charge of our Texas office, collaborated in a a true Design / Build approach to develop the design of the first 5 homes in this series.

The design intent behind the "Eco-Craft" series of homes was to produce a "Green Built" home for the average home buyer.  The target price of these homes was set at $199,999 or as Realtors like to say, "Below $200,000".

Every home in the "Eco-Craft" series has been sold before construction has been completed at exactly the target price point.  In a market that has speculative homes being completed and sitting on the market for sale for six month or more we consider this a spectacular success.

Each home in the "Eco-Craft" series has achieved the highest level of green buding standards in the Central Texas Home Builders Association Green Building Program.  All five homes qualified for "5+ Stars" in the Energy Star program and posted HERS Ratings of 60.

The pictures below are examples of the style and quality of the "Eco-Craft" series of homes currently on the market.  We would like to think that these are examples of homes that can be constructed to meet the most stringent requirements of green building, sustainable design, and affordability while being timeless in design style and attractive in the very competitive market of affordable homes.

There are many aspects that must be integrated in order to develop a successful affordable housing cooperative. Often cooperative housing developments form a type of corporation, similar to a business, but this corporation only generates money that goes directly into operating and maintaining the building. In this way, the corporation is like that of a non-profit, however is not incorporated as a 501 (c) (3). Once this corporation is set up there are various policies that need to be adopted to ensure the corporation continues to provide affordable housing. These policies vary between co-ops because they are democratically run and every community has different definitions of affordability, priorities and values.

The following is a list of items integral for co-op developments. These elements have been adapted from “The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board” (UHAB) and more information can be found at www.uhab.org

• Understanding the initial definition of affordability, (i.e. what population will this corporation serve?)
• Outlining the qualifications of those seeking the housing, (i.e. income and asset restrictions)
• Setting the initial sales price for the shares of the corporation
• Adopting a resale price cap
• Allocating a “flip tax” to financially assist the co-op during sales
• Waiting list for purchasers internal and external
• Establishing Resale procedures
• Setting up Regulatory Agreements and by-laws for residents
• Monitoring and enforcing all policies
• Initial and ongoing education for those entering the co-op lifestyle and understanding ownership responsibilities

Defining Affordability, Income restrictions & Initial Sales Price:

One way to define affordability is to use the Federal Government’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) categories of income levels as follows:

This method may work for identifying what type of income levels you want the co-op to serve. The policy for the co-op can stipulate that it will house people of “low incomes” which would be 80% of the defined area medium income (AMI).

Often times however, the defined AMI will be much higher then you would expect because it includes the larger metropolitan area. The metropolitan area will include households with higher incomes and therefore skew the “medium income.” For example, if the AMI is $100,000 then a family is considered “low income” if making 80% or $80,000. This may not be the “low income” population your co-op was hoping to serve. (This is not always the case, but it is a good idea to check with the US Census Bureau to see what is considered the AMI.)

As an alternative look at the neighborhood level, the school district or the local census track to get a more accurate and local medium income level. The Center for Urban Pedagogy put together a great toolkit to help visualize what the median income is based on their neighborhood vs. the AMI. An interactive map can also be found at http://envisioningdevelopment.net/ to better understand what is actually considered affordable in a neighborhood. (Sorry Denver this is just in NYC for now.)

It is also important to consider that the cost of purchasing shares of this co-op may require the purchaser to take a loan. So on top of the monthly co-op maintenance fee the resident has an individual mortgage. Many affordable housing advocates support that residents should only pay 30% to 35% of their monthly income on their cost of housing.

Taking all this into consideration the co-op can develop its policies around the type of people they want to provide housing for and how much they will charge incoming residents.

Resale Price Cap, “Flip Tax,” Waiting List, and Resale Procedures:

There is no official legislation, federal or state, around affordable cooperative housing and therefore, in order to sustain a co-op as an affordable housing method resale policies have to be adopted by the shareholders.

The co-op sustains itself financially through the monthly maintenance fees and the sale of shares. Resale caps have to be carefully thought out, taking into consideration that the co-op makes money off of the sale (flip tax, which will generally go into a reserve fund) and the individual shareholder makes money off the sale (their reasonable profit). Resale caps can increase over time to compensate for inflation rates and can take into consideration any major capital improvements the building has received.

It is important for shareholders to understand that they are a part of something that initially allowed them to have housing at an affordable rate and that they should ensure that they provide that same opportunity to the next shareholder. The financial equity a shareholder builds in an affordable housing co-op is limited. However there are many qualitative benefits a shareholder gains by being a part of this type of community. Having stable housing is the first step toward gaining things like a stable job, higher education and social networks. These factors all have to be a part of defining a resale price.

Regulatory Agreement, Enforcement and Continual Education:

Regulatory agreements can outline the requirements that help make a co-op function. Many times lenders will require a regulatory agreement be in place and will add their own terms to the agreement, like an income limit. Establishing regulatory agreements and by-laws also helps the residents understand their rights and responsibilities as a co-op owner. No two co-op agreements will ever be a like because the shareholders democratically govern their co-op and all that define it.

Aspects of Regulatory Agreements often include:

• Income Restrictions
• Resale Prices
• Procedures
• Resale Policy
• Annual Elections
• Budgeting and Monthly Charges
• Subletting
• Financial Statements and Audits
• Insurances
• Physical Conditions and Inspections
• Commercial Spaces and Leasing
• Reserves
• Taxes

Finally, the most important aspect of successful affordable housing cooperatives is on-going training and education. Often times those who are a part of affordable co-ops are not accustom to being an owner of property. The more the shareholder understands that they are responsible for minor repairs and improvements the more they will care for the property. New homeowners need to be educated not only about physical up keep of the property but also the political up keep of the corporation. Residents of co-ops must be active in co-op board elections and be aware of any changes to their regulatory agreements.

Though cooperative living is not for everyone, it can provide sustained affordable housing to those who are engaged in their communities.

Here are some other great resources for understanding the limit equity co-op option!

National Association of Housing Cooperatives: www.coophousing.org

The Boulder Housing Coalition: www.boulderhousingcoalition.org

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) www.uhab.org and www.uhab.coop

Cooperative Housing Coalition: www.coopsdc.com