Truly ‘triple bottom line’ urban village coming to the Bronx

One of the most concrete ways of providing sustainable/green, affordable living in NYC is to develop such a benchmark community for others to be inspired by. That’s certainly the case with the New Housing NY Legacy Project Competition that sought triple bottom line development team to build such a place on a 40,000 s.f. site in the South Bronx.

The sustainable, affordable development competition is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace plan to build/preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years (the City is selling the Bronx site to the development team for $1).

The winning team, including nationally-renowned green developer Jonathan Rose Companies, provided a vision of an urban village, called Via Verde (the Green Way) designed around rooftop community gardens parks (pictured). Of the 202 units, 139 are rental apartments for families earning between 40% and 90% of area median income (AMI) and 63 co-ops are for buyers earning up to 130% of AMI. The sustainable/green/healthy living elements are impressive:

– Community gardens that grow fruits and vegetables,
– A health education and wellness center (Montefiore Medical)
– Fitness center
– Bicycle storage space
– Rainwater collection system
– Low-tech systems: Cross ventilation in all apartments, solar shading, planted green roofs to provide insulation and control storm water
– High-tech systems: High-efficiency mechanical systems, energy-conserving appliances, solar voltaic canopies
– Smart materials: Non-toxic paints, rapidly renewable wood products

Click here to download the Via Verde presentation.

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