In 1991, Noel Khalil, a New Yorker born to Jamaican immigrants, founded a company called Columbia Residential in Atlanta. Khalil had a mission: build affordable housing for working families like his.
“Noel felt that just because a person is low income, it doesn't mean they don’t deserve quality housing,” said Robert Barfield, vice president of construction at Columbia Residential. “He always said that we were building cathedrals for God's children.”
In the span of 30 years, until his passing in 2021, Khalil raised the company from a kitchen-table business to one of the Southeast’s leaders in multifamily affordable housing. Columbia Residential, which owns and manages the homes it builds, has developed more than 10,000 units in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Tennessee.
“I’m a little biased,” said Barfield, “but I feel like the quality of the housing we've provided over the years is above and beyond.”
What Khalil wanted was to raise the quality of life for his residents. He knew how difficult it can be for families with lower incomes to pay their utility bills. That’s why he was among the first to equip his homes with Energy Star appliances.
This focus on resident financial wellbeing prepared Columbia Residential for a major change in the affordable housing sector that occurred in the early 2000s: the introduction of green building certifications.
Sustainability Enters the Equation
At the turn of the millennium, a new question emerged in the development sector: could you build properties that were both sustainable and affordable?
“At that time, the green building movement was nascent. There wasn't any widely adopted pathway or guidance about how to build a green home, let alone a green multifamily building,” explained Krista Egger, vice president of Building Resilient Futures at Enterprise.
To address the question, Enterprise gathered a team of construction experts, developers, and scientists to explore the feasibility of developing a set of criteria to build healthy, energy-efficient, and climate-resilient affordable homes.
In 2004, Enterprise released the first version of its Green Communities criteria, the first certification program created with and for the affordable housing sector.
The next step entailed convincing the states’ housing finance agencies (HFAs) to embrace the criteria. These agencies, which provide financing for housing and community development services, allocate the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits that fund the vast majority of affordable housing in the United States. The Housing Credit has supported the construction or rehabilitation of nearly three million units since its creation in 1986.
If the HFAs agreed to favor affordable housing developments that were validated by green building certification, they could potentially – and profoundly – transform the sector.
“Our goal was to make healthy and energy-efficient building the norm instead of the best practice,” said Egger.
Incentivizing Green Building
Enterprise launched an education campaign and soon, the first group of states started including sustainability standards with their Housing Credits. The victory marked a huge step forward for stakeholders. From now on, affordable housing developers competing for federal tax credits in those states would be required to work with one of the certification entities to be considered for financing.
Today, 31 states require or incentivize certification to nationally recognized sustainability standards such as Enterprise Green Communities, LEED, or the National Green Building Standard (NGBS Green).
“The green building certification guarantees that the states are getting the best value for their taxpayer dollars,” said Michelle Diller, senior program director at Enterprise. “Thanks to this third-party verification, the housing agencies know that a development was built according to the standards.”
The state of Georgia was one of the early adopters. Its Department of Community Affairs started awarding points to developments that included a green certification in 2009.
Columbia Residential’s founder Noel Khalil welcomed the change. “When what you’ve been building is quality, to go for a certification is not such a big leap,” said Barfield. “The standards give us a script of what we need to do to reach the next level of quality for our customers.”
A Win-Win Strategy
Living in a Green Communities-certified multifamily home offers multiple benefits. The standard guarantees that the building’s envelope is sealed, mechanical systems and appliances are high performance, and the lighting comes from LED bulbs. All of that makes for a highly energy-efficient building.
For residents, that means cost savings through lower utility bills, which can be a lifeline for residents with limited resources.
“Reduced utilities help people to stay housed,” said Claire Parisa, director of acquisitions, Housing Credit Investments, at Enterprise. “Sometimes, residents face evictions for a few hundred dollars in electricity bills. Dramatically lowering those bills also means more flexibility to afford childcare, doctor's visits, medicines, and other important expenses.”
The Green Communities standard is also designed to make affordable housing healthier.
“We have mandatory requirements for indoor air quality, healthy building materials, products used for maintenance, low- VOC paints, etcetera,” says Egger. “Health is integrated across all eight categories of the Green Communities standard.”
Strategies to make buildings healthier range from promoting active living, to using insulation products with no added formaldehyde, a chemical that can cause cancer and asthma.
To solidify the health and wellness aspects of Green Communities, in 2020 Enterprise and the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) collaborated to allow developers meeting Green Communities to earn dual certification to IWBI’s WELL Building Standard, making the criteria a best-in-class certification pathway.
Resident benefits include common areas and hallways that maximize sight lines, biophilic design features that mirror natural elements and textures, and outdoor areas that provide space to walk, gather, and enjoy solitary time.
Resilient, Affordable Homes
Green certification also enhances durability. For example, criteria related to roofing, building materials, and flooring requirements help to increase the lifespan of a building. For developers like Columbia Residential, this resilience is crucial.
“We're long-term holders of properties. So we need these standards to be sure that our projects will stand the test of time.”
Robert Barfield, Columbia Residential
Indeed, Columbia Residential’s properties have been severely tested multiple times. In Louisiana, for example, where the company built affordable housing after Hurricane Katrina, their Columbia Parc homes subsequently withstood two major hurricanes, including fearsome Ida in 2021, with only minor damage.
Columbia Canopy at Grove Park in Atlanta achieved Green Communities certification and embodies the commitment to quality and community that Noel Khalil stood for. Its stylish architecture, built around a picturesque park, offers residents amenities such as a fitness room, a business center, a gym, and a community garden.
“It's just a beautiful project that fits really well in the neighborhood,” said Barfield, noting that it was one of the last developments started before Khalil passed. “In one of the last conversations we had, he told me, ‘Make sure that this one is a good one.’ And it turned out well. I am very proud of it.”
Sebastian Escalón is a journalist, audio producer, and science writer based in Massachusetts. Read his article on Fábrica Lofts, a Green Communities-certified development in Lawrence, Massachusetts.