Author(s): Fleet Howard, Peyton Catarelli & Jayden Huang
As cities encourage increased housing development, it is critical that they implement effective strategies for reusing materials in order to reduce embodied carbon. Cities across America are creating policies to enable expanded housing construction. A notable example is New York City, which in December 2024 passed City of Yes for Housing Opportunity (CHO), a series of updates to the city’s building code aimed at easing the way for the construction of new housing. It is estimated that CHO updates will enable the construction of up to 80,000 new residential units. Components of CHO such as ‘Town Center Zoning’ (TCZ) and ‘Transit-Oriented Development’ (TOD) may have a considerable impact on urban development in less dense areas of New York City. CHO allows for lots currently containing single story commercial buildings in TCZ and TOD zones to add up to four stories of residential units. CHO has the potential to produce a tremendous amount of landfill material, presenting both an opportunity and a challenge from an embodied carbon perspective. Presented here is a method of evaluating building lots for redevelopment by considering embodied carbon in existing materials, potential savings through reuse, expected carbon impact of new development, and potential number of residential units. Students used accepted industry practices and software and worked with officials from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) as well as the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) throughout the project in order to maintain accuracy in the model presented below. Employing a neighborhood-wide survey of existing buildings and potential redevelopment enabled by CHO, this project situates material and carbon considerations as equally important as the urgent need for additional housing.
Volume Editors
Reed Kroloff & Francisco J. RodrÃguez-Suárez
ISBN
978-1-944214-52-4