New York Developer Adapts a European Template for Deep Energy Retrofits
An innovative approach to upgrading the energy performance of multifamily housing first promoted by the Dutch government a decade ago, has taken its first, tentative steps into the U.S. affordable housing market. In New York City, the RiseBoro Community Partnership is rehabilitating nine apartment buildings it owns in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn in a project called Casa Pasiva. The $20 million overhaul will bring the apartments up to Passive House standards and sharply reduce their energy consumption and carbon emissions. Patterned after the “Energiesprong” retrofits developed in the Netherlands, the upgrades will give the apartment buildings new facades up…