The Making Green Accessible project team participated in The Next EPIC Challenge: Reimagining Affordable Mixed-Use Development in a Carbon-Constrained Future, an Electric Program Investment Charge-funded design-build competition. This solicitation challenged multi-disciplinary project teams to design and build a mixed-use development—using cutting-edge energy technologies, tools, and construction practices—that is affordable, equitable, emissions-free, and resilient to climate change impacts and extreme weather events.
The design grant allowed the Making Green Accessible project team to incorporate proven and emerging green technologies into a ground-up development. Located on church-owned land, the project was designed to be a mixed-use affordable housing complex situated in Compton, California: one of the most notoriously underprivileged communities in the United States. The proposed development is composed of 73 affordable rental units, 10 for-sale affordable townhomes, 10 affordable accessory dwelling units, and a state-of-the-art 10,190-square-foot resilience hub. In times of extreme weather events or other catastrophic scenarios, the entire resilience hub is designed for short-term emergency response. Equipped with a grid-interactive microgrid, photovoltaic solar, and batteries, the community could achieve net zero energy and operational greenhouse gas emissions while being able to island from Southern California Edison’s grid for up to 72 hours during power outages.
Furthermore, SoLa Impact’s innovative Pathways to Homeownership Program breaks down barriers to acquiring intergenerational wealth by encouraging SoLa Impact’s current residents to become homeowners through a five-year financial literacy, monthly saving, and down payment matching program. Once complete, these current SoLa Impact renters (future homeowners) will have saved $40,000 in one-third of the time it would have taken them otherwise while retaining the first right-of-refusal to purchase the for-sale townhomes built on this site.
Author(s)
Nicholas Caton, SoLa Impact Ekta Naik, SoLa Impact April Sandifer, SoLa Impact
