In recent years, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has implemented numerous changes to optimize the sustainability, resilience, and accessibility of its projects. Section 30002 of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), entitled “Improving Energy Efficiency or Water Efficiency or Climate Resilience of Affordable Housing,” provided funds for HUD to implement a new program that promoted those values.
Issued on January 8, 2023, the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) strives to improve the housing quality in existing HUD-assisted multifamily properties by investing in energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, renewable energy generation, green and healthy housing, and hazard resilience strategies. It enables investments in affordable housing communities that serve low-income families in alignment with the White House’s Justice40 Initiative.
The three goals of the GRRP are:
- To reduce energy and water use in HUD-assisted multifamily properties.
- To make HUD-assisted multifamily properties more resilient to extreme weather events and natural disasters.
- To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from HUD-assisted multifamily properties, both directly and indirectly by using materials with less embodied carbon.
To fulfill these goals and designate funds, HUD has grouped projects into three cohorts: Elements, Leading Edge, and Comprehensive.
The Elements cohort provides awards designed to add proven and highly impactful climate resilience and carbon reduction measures to the construction scopes of in-progress recapitalization transactions. The Leading Edge cohort provides funding to owners aiming to quickly meet ambitious carbon reduction, renewable energy generation, use of building materials with lower embodied carbon, and resilience goals without requiring extensive technical assistance from HUD. The Comprehensive cohort provides funding to initiate recapitalization investments designed from inception around deep retrofits, focused on innovative energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, green and healthy housing measures, renewable energy generation, use of building materials with lower embodied carbon, and climate resilience investments.
Within each cohort, green infrastructure is utilized in order to maximize the benefits of GRRP renovations. Green infrastructure, as defined by the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act, is “the range of measures that use plant or soil systems, permeable pavement or other permeable surfaces or substrates, stormwater harvest and reuse, or landscaping to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to sewer systems or to surface waters.” It serves as the intersection between nature-based solutions and new technologies, providing innovative strategies to combat risks while benefiting both communities and the environment.
Green infrastructure is incredibly adaptable and accessible, as it can easily be scaled to any project size and location. A variety of strategies maximize the wide range of benefits that green infrastructure can provide beyond stormwater management. Households can install rain barrels to collect and reuse stormwater, or even green roofs to absorb rain while reducing indoor temperature demands and energy costs. The collection, redirection, and reuse of stormwater can be expanded community-wide in the form of permeable streets, or naturally by increasing green spaces in the form of parks, rain gardens, and tree planting.
Forest and wetland protection also helps to naturally uptake stormwater and reduce flood risks while maintaining safe habitats for wildlife. In fact, plants naturally reduce the impacts of the urban heat island effect in a process called evapotranspiration. The utilization of native plants within these improvements makes substantial differences in management efficiency and promotes biodiversity. By incorporating green infrastructure within HUD-assisted projects, communities are not only becoming more resilient to climate related hazards, but they are also provided with cleaner air and water, lower energy and utility costs, and beautiful green spaces.
Through Cloudburst’s work with environmental compliance and climate resiliency we continue to uphold HUD’s strategic goal that focuses on advancing sustainable communities. The GRRP program is one example of the cutting-edge work HUD is promoting to further sustainability goals.
Additional Resources:
GRRP Revised Notice (January 2024): https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Housing/documents/Revised_GRRP_Notice-Jan2024.pdf
FY 2023 Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) Comprehensive: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/spm/gmomgmt/grantsinfo/fundingopps/fy2023_grrp_comprehensive#:~:text=The%20Green%20and%20Resilient%20Retrofit,seeks%20to%20amplify%20recent%20technological
Green Infrastructure for Climate Resiliency (EPA): https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure/green-infrastructure-climate-resiliency
EPA’s Soak Up the Rain Project:https://www.epa.gov/soakuptherain