By Kelly O'Connell | Mon, August 26, 24
This post was co-authored with Stefen Samarripas, Senior Local Policy Manager, at ACEEE.
New England features a unique and diverse housing stock, with many types of buildings from smaller rowhouses to tall multifamily buildings. With this unique building stock comes unique challenges. Often, building decarbonization initiatives are targeted towards one sector, such as single-family residences that are typically owner-occupied. These programs typically give less attention to the rental sector, notably because they are not designed with rental properties, owners, and residents in mind. Addressing these issues is of the utmost importance as one in three New England households are renters, more than two million in total. (Based on Census Bureau ACS 2022 one-year estimates). Rental property retrofits are a critical component in any effort to comprehensively decarbonize buildings, and it is essential that these upgrades be done equitably – preserving affordable housing while making renters’ homes healthier and more comfortable.
Given the increased interest from local government leaders in addressing these issues, NEEP is partnering with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to form a learning group of New England local governments to advance equitable rental electrification that preserves and expands housing affordability. Throughout the next year, members will work to develop a set of solutions for addressing the inequities their communities face decarbonizing rental housing.
Partnership with ACEEE’s Energy Equity for Renters
Since 2021, ACEEE has been at the forefront of efforts to advance rental energy efficiency policies and programs through its Energy Equity for Renters initiative. The initiative does this by providing technical assistance to local governments and community-based organizations working to create and implement rental efficiency upgrade programs, tracking and benchmarking policy developments across the country that support rental efficiency and affordability efforts and publishing resources that highlight best practices. This new peer-to-peer learning group will expand on these efforts, exploring what equitable electrification of affordable rental properties can look like across the New England region.
NEEP will conduct outreach to potential learning group members using its established partnerships with local governments. We will also support the learning group by facilitating monthly meetings and ongoing communications between group members. NEEP is excited to establish this initiative to further expand our relationships with the region’s local communities and our understanding of the needs and challenges facing renters. NEEP will apply learnings from this project to other communities across the region as we continue to lead on key regional electrification issues.
Additionally, this project is part of a growing set of NEEP strategies to support equitable building decarbonization in affordable multifamily housing. For example, NEEP is supporting a geothermal heating and cooling pilot for an affordable rental housing community in Connecticut. NEEP also featured multiple multifamily rental housing forums at our 2024 Annual Summit in June. See our Equitable Decarbonization in the Affordable Multifamily Sector post for more about how NEEP is planning to leverage our resources and expertise towards supporting multifamily rental property upgrades.
Learning Group
The learning group, which will start the fall and meet regularly through 2025, will consist of New England local government staff and municipal utility stakeholders who work on rental housing efficiency, electrification, and affordability. Sessions will be held virtually and will allow members to discuss the challenges they have encountered, hear from knowledgeable speakers, share their own expertise with one another, and collaboratively develop new strategies to advance affordable decarbonization of rental housing. NEEP and ACEEE will leverage the results of an interest survey, along with feedback from volunteer co-leads from within the group, to curate the topics for discussion. Hot topics may include housing market analysis, addressing the tenant-landlord split incentive, and stacking and braiding state and federal funding.
Contact Kelly O’Connell for more information on the initiative or to express interest in joining the Equitable Rental Electrification Learning Group.