2023 Summer Issue of Urban Land - 59

Cherise Burda, Krista Egger, Lauralyn Johnston, Joy Sinderbrand
Safe, Affordable, Attainable: Policies and
Strategies to Address the Housing and
Climate Crises
uli's fourTh AnnuAl Resilience
Summit, held in conjunction with ULI's
Spring Meeting in Toronto, featured a
panel of affordable housing and climate
crisis experts who addressed solutions
to the climate and housing crises in the
face of sobering odds. The session was
moderated by Cherise Burda, executive
director of City Building Toronto Metropolitan
University.
Krista Egger, vice president of building
resilient futures at Enterprise Community
Partners, said more than 45 million
homes were at risk last year, with 18 climate
disasters that each cost more than
$1 billion, and in total caused more than
$165 billion in damages.
" These climate events and the rising
cost of insurance and the rising rates of
folks who are uninsured are just exacerbating
risks altogether, " she said.
Enterprise's three strategic priorities
to tackle the issue are: 1) increase the
supply of affordable housing; 2) advance
racial equity and housing programs and
practices; and 3) build resilience in an
affordable housing development community.
The U.S.-based national nonprofit
organization focuses on all things
related to affordable housing, ranging
from finance management and program
development to policy advocacy across
the country.
" One of the phrases that we like to
lead with is that 'when we build a resilient
home, we build a better future for
everyone,' " Egger said.
She pointed to a recent report that
put the U.S. per-hour housing wage-the
amount someone would need to earn
per hour to pay a third of his or her
income for housing-at $25.82.
" Some of the solutions we're working
on are pairing mitigation practices with
adaptation " to make sure that homes
that are built do not contribute to climate
change, and are prepared to withstand
the impact of climate change for
the people living there, Egger said.
Tower Renewal
Lauralyn Johnston is manager of Tower
Renewal, a Toronto program that helps
residents and owners of older apartment
towers make improvements that
increase energy efficiency and reduce
CO2 emissions while en-hancing tenant
comfort. That mission is being undertaken
against the backdrop of a city
with an affordable housing crisis that in
May resulted in city councilors declaring
a homelessness emergency.
Nearly a half million Torontonians
live in towers built before 1986 before
modern code. These towers stand over
seven stories tall, average 240 units
per building, and represent some of
the most affordable housing in the city.
" Most lack air conditioning, " Johnston
said. Resilience becomes a central concern
as people experience longer and
hotter, drier heating periods coupled
with " the vulnerable populations of
seniors, newcomers, [and] people who
aren't climate adapted, " she said.
The current program originated in
2008. " It had a broad environmental
focus, social focus, and basically, it
was bringing together lots of different
partners to take a look at these towers
and improve them very much environmentally, "
Johnston said. " And as we
progressed, we realized the social pieces
and social determinants of health/food/
justice, and so we brought together a
whole bunch of those different things in
the years coming back to council. "
Because of the age of the buildings,
which have lower rents and cap rates,
building operators could not afford to
finance needed retrofits to make the
properties safe.
In 2018, a fire in St. James Town displaced
all the building's tenants, " which
ended up being not only expensive to
the building owners, and to the residents
who were displaced, but also to
the city itself as we dealt with that
emergency as a human emergency. The
fire was caused by flooding. "
As it works to create more resilient
buildings while keeping them affordable,
the program is intended to bring all the
properties to net zero by 2040. By that
year, 80 percent of the buildings that
existed will still exist, " which means that
we need to look at how do we retrofit
things sustainably, " Johnston said. From
that, the finance program was created.
New York City Housing Authority
Joy Sinderbrand is senior vice president
for capital programs at the New York
City Housing Authority, North America's
largest housing authority, which owns
2,500 multifamily buildings with a stated
physical need of upgrades valued at
about $40 billion as of 2017. " Public
housing is for very low or low-income
[people]. It is in a state of significant disrepair, "
she said.
The multifamily buildings do not
experience much turnover and are
considered the housing of last resort
for frontline workers. The city's climate
adaptation program covers 35 developments.
The housing projects were built
in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, long
before disasters like Hurricane Sandy
and the advent of modern code. Work
is done with tenants in place, if possible.
" Most of our buildings are going to
be the buildings that people will be living
in. Climate change gets worse and
worse. And so, we need to be able to
figure out how to adapt, " Sinderbrand
said, noting that adaptations include
modificatons to withstand storm surge
and power outages.
SIBLEY FLEMING is editor in chief of Urban Land magazine.
SUMMER 2023
URBAN LAND
59
ULI MEETING COVERAGE
2023 Summer Issue of Urban Land

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2023 Summer Issue of Urban Land
