A Government Accountability Office report recommended Housing and Urban Development use new energy-friendly policies. The report said that HUD should complete a regulation requiring energy efficient products and appliances in public housing, work to implement updates to its building code for manufactured housing and consider developing a utility benchmarking tool for multi-family properties.
According to Barbara Bozon, executive director of the Central Texas Housing Consortium, the consortium has been looking at green alternatives for facilities on its own as a money-saving strategy. Temple and Belton Housing authorities make up the consortium.
“Although we don’t have direct financial incentives for all of this, we do have capital funding finances for buying Energy Star appliances,” she said. “It’s allowed with capital funding.”
She said the green approach is more of an internal policy for the consortium, which, in addition to working energy saving appliances into its housing units, is also utilizing energy saving construction in renovation projects.
Ms. Bozon said current work on exterior brick facing of Frances Graham Hall in Temple will include replacing windows and patio doors with improved, energy-efficient glass.
Renovation work being done on Raintree Apartments in Temple will also include energy efficient lighting and water saving devices, she said. The next round of renovations is scheduled in Belton during 2009 and will also include energy saving practices.
She added that the consortium is working toward getting energy saving fluorescent bulbs in all of the housing units over the next two years.
“It’s the environmentally friendly thing to do and we hope it will help residents save on bills,” Ms. Bozon said.
She said the housing authorities calculate an energy subsidy they receive from HUD on a rolling, three-year base.
If energy usage is lower in any year than the three-year base, the authorities can get a higher subsidy from HUD. But, she said, the housing authorities could be penalized if usage is higher than the base.
The green changes help the housing authorities save on its bills since they pay some of their units’ bills and subsidize some others, she said.
“In our public housing we do pay a majority of the utilities and anything we can do to make a unit more energy efficient does help us,” she said.
Ms. Bozon said Housing and Urban Development also mandates an energy audit every five years. Although HUD doesn’t follow up on the audit, she said, the housing authorities use the report to determine cost and efficiency of energy in their units.
The consortium also uses its newsletter to help educate its residents on energy saving tips, Ms. Bozon said.
The GAO report said HUD has not begun requiring energy efficient products and appliances in its public housing properties and has not implemented updates to its building code for manufactured housing in more than a decade.
Rising energy costs and concern for the environment prompted the GAO study, according to the report.
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