Check out this great Urban Land Online article featuring the Via Verde development in New York City–one of the Terwilliger Center’s 2012 Jack Kemp Housing Models of Excellence Award winners. The award recognizes exemplary developments that meet workforce housing needs in the local community. To learn more about the Jack Kemp Awards and to view this year’s winners and finalists, please click here.

Way Green: Via Verde Affordable Housing

by Ron Nyren

Six years ago, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects held a competition. The goal: to set the standard for affordable housing by integrating sustainability, design excellence, and the promotion of healthy living. The prize: a long, narrow, triangular lot in the south Bronx, the city’s most economically disadvantaged community. The result, dubbed Via Verde, officially opened in June, incorporating green design strategies that run the gamut from low to high tech.

The team of Dattner Architects, Grimshaw Architects, developer Jonathan Rose Companies, and not-for-profit affordable housing developer Phipps Houses, all based in New York City, won with a design that organized a 20-story tower, a mid-rise building, and townhouses around a central court­­­yard. Via Verde—which translates to “green way”—includes 150 apartments renting to households earning between 30 and 90 percent of area median income (AMI) and 71 for-sale units available to households earning 110 percent of AMI. >>> READ MORE