Ten affordable townhomes in Silver Creek Village earned the highest energy efficiency rating available in the United States, which will save future homeowners on annual utility costs in an effort to lower overall housing costs for low-income families.

Habitat for Humanity of Summit and Wasatch Counties previously built 16 homes in Silver Creek Village, but Executive Director Shellie Barrus said the 10 new units, which will be featured in the Park City Showcase of Homes this weekend, have unique energy conservation capabilities.

“This home is much more energy efficient than a standard new construction, and the home is also emission-free,” said Kevin Emerson, Utah Clean Energy’s director of building efficiency and decarbonization. “There’s zero combustion, so all of the heating, cooking and water heating comes from efficient electric appliances instead of appliances that combust fossil fuels, namely gas.”

Utah Clean Energy, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing energy efficiencies across the state, partnered with Habitat for Humanity to provide guidance on the project’s sustainability efforts, in addition to some financial assistance the organization received from the Utah Clean Air Partnership and the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

“Habitat (for Humanity) makes the homes affordable to buy, but Utah Clean Energy is lucky to be able to make them affordable to live in long term,” Emerson said.

Specifically, the townhomes were designed to meet NextGen standards from Energy Star, which Emerson said has more requirements and is a more rigorous process than other comparable certifications. To meet the standard, Habitat for Humanity built the home with air-source heat pumps and heat pump water heaters instead of gas furnaces and water heaters, and installed electric appliances in the kitchen. 

The garage also has the infrastructure to install an electric vehicle charger, and the roof was built so solar panels could be placed easily.

“In some ways, you could think of it as a home of the future, but the future is actually today because everything that was put in the home uses what I like to call state-of-the-shelf technologies and building practices,” Emerson said. “Much of the reason why we’re so passionate about energy-efficient, all-electric construction is not only because it reduces the home’s impact on climate change, but also because all-electric technologies keep utility bills low month after month.”

Emerson estimated that the townhomes’ owners will save $1,900 on utilities each year, which Barrus said makes it more likely a family will be able to afford the cost of living in Summit County after purchasing the home. She attributed Habitat for Humanity’s ability to install efficient technologies to Utah Clean Energy, saying navigating the NextGen certification process would have been too overwhelming without additional assistance.

“We probably wouldn’t have ventured into this because there’s so much information out there,” Barrus said. “It’s very hard to cull through what needs to happen, so we’ve always appreciated our partnership with Utah Clean Energy, but we wouldn’t have said yes or attempted to do this without their support.”

The energy-efficient homes will provide residents with health benefits, Emerson said, because the lack of gas appliances means the building has better indoor air quality. Cleaner air reduces the risk of asthma attacks and preserves the long-term health of a resident’s lungs.

“The kitchen is often a central gathering place for the family and for the home, and knowing that it’s safer for the families to breathe the air and not have to deal with the emissions that are associated with combustion is a really important part of affordable, efficient and clean homes,” Emerson said.

Emerson said Utah Clean Energy’s calculations showed the 10 townhomes collectively would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 175,000 pounds per year, or the equivalent of not driving approximately 230,000 miles in a standard car.

The townhomes will be on display during the Park City Showcase of Homes, which Barrus called a great opportunity for Habitat for Humanity to educate the community about affordable housing and to promote energy-efficient technology installed in the building.

“We get a chance to not only show them this amazing house we built and how beautiful it is and what a great community it’s in, but we can also dispel a lot of perceptions surrounding affordable housing,” Barrus said. “It really is helpful to talk about why affordable homeownership is important and dispel the myths about what it is and who is living in it. We talk about our families, and many of our families … will be here over the weekend helping take tickets and leading tours.”

Barrus said she’s seen firsthand how homeownership can fundamentally change family dynamics, especially in Summit County where many working parents are commuting from the Salt Lake Valley.

For example, she described a mother who purchased a Habitat for Humanity home a few years ago. The mother worked at a resort in Summit County and enrolled her children in a Wasatch Back daycare, but the family spent more than two hours in the car every day commuting from Salt Lake City.

But once the mother purchased her home, the family’s ability to connect, talk and plan fun activities together increased dramatically, improving their relationships.

“I have always felt like owning a home and the stability of homeownership is so meaningful,” Barrus said. “I grew up in a family of nine children, and we always had a home and a place to be. My dad was a homebuilder, so I was involved in this my whole life, and I know what a difference it makes for kids to have this stability, as well as for parents and the community.”

For information on Habitat for Humanity, including how to volunteer or apply for a home, visit habitat-utah.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the homes were built to Energy Star NextGen standards but have not yet received the certification.

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It’s been 10 years since Habitat for Humanity of Summit and Wasatch Counties built a home in its latter area of service, but the 31-year-old housing nonprofit is hoping to change that. 

Representatives from Habitat for Humanity appeared before the Heber City Council on Tuesday to facilitate conversation and collaboration around affordable housing issues. The organization built six homes in the Heber Valley between 2004 and 2016. Executive Director Shellie Barrus described the barn raising process as finding land and the community raising funds to build the homes one at a time.

The local Habitat for Humanity chapter began to shift its model in 2020 following the board’s strategic planning, which left members asking, “Is one house at a time enough?”

“We really saw that we wanted to be a bigger part of the solution,” explained Barrus.

The nonprofit has been targeting multi-unit projects to provide more affordable housing in one fell swoop because partnering with developers is an easier process than Habitat for Humanity going through the development process on its own.

A recent example can be found in Silver Creek Village near Interstate 80 and U.S. 40, where Habitat for Humanity is facilitating 26 affordable units on the 1,300-unit property, including a new 10-plex of townhomes coming this year.

The Silver Creek Village project has taken much of Habitat for Humanity’s focus, Barrus said, but progress on the Summit County project has freed up resources to focus on Heber City.

Barrus said that two factors have made it difficult to build homes in the rapidly growing municipality: rising land prices and zoning. 

Zoning requirements in Heber City have become increasingly restrictive, requiring larger homes and stricter rules around infrastructure and architecture. This has made building the ideal Habitat for Humanity home — a single-story, 1,100- or 1,200-square-foot home with a carport instead of a garage — impossible. 

“When we built several homes in Heber, you had to have a detached, two-car garage,” Barrus explained. “That’s just more expensive to build and takes up a lot more land.”

She said it’s become more difficult for the nonprofit to target small lots to build many units on because of concerns around density. 

“We’re used to single-family lots with lots of space between us and our neighbors and big yards. It’s just a model that we’ve gotten really used to and that we’ve lived amongst, so all of a sudden, it does feel maybe worrisome to have more people in a smaller space,” she said.

Time and time again, Barrus has seen the parking and traffic concerns of community members and elected officials stonewall high-density developments.

As an example, Wasatch County-based developer Garbett Homes proposed a community of 40 townhomes on its 3.19-acre lot at 830 E. Center St. in November. The current zoning in the area allows up to six townhomes. 

The initial proposal included five units priced between $470,000 and $485,000 to be affordable to those making 80% of the area median income, which is $109,120 for a family of four in Wasatch County.

But rounds of feedback cut the number of units to 26 priced around $500,000 each. There were no designated affordable units because the developer could not feasibly include them with the reduction in density. 

Residents still voiced concerns about the development at a Jan. 20 City Council meeting, particularly around potential parking and traffic effects in the surrounding neighborhood. This led officials to ask Garbett Homes to reduce the number of units further, which could result in price increases.

“It might make better sense as six to eight pretty expensive, single-family homes that aren’t affordable. But maybe somebody wants to spend $750,000 to live two blocks from the (Heber Valley) Temple,” City Councilor Aaron Cheatwood suggested.

Barrus believed affordable housing negotiations between developers and Heber City leaders would go more smoothly with a trusted third party like Habitat for Humanity involved.

She told Jacob Ballsteadt, the representative for Garbett Homes, “Anytime you’re looking for density and trying to do affordability, the (City) Council is going to listen to it in a different way than just, ‘We’re trying to make money.’”

She said that comes from the fact that Habitat for Humanity, which is funded by donations, grants and its ReStore thrift store in Park City, isn’t seeking profit — only to cover its costs.

City Councilor Yvonne Barney, who has said repeatedly that she struggles to accept high-density developments, referred to Habitat for Humanity’s negotiations with developers as the ability to “be the mouse that talks to the elephant.”

For example, the nonprofit’s outreach in Heber City could be in an advisory capacity during City Council and Planning Commission meetings. Barrus said Habitat for Humanity has kept an eye on meeting agendas and sat in on affordable housing discussions. 

Habitat for Humanity also hopes to help city leaders identify long-term goals around affordable housing, such as how to provide housing for essential workers, and may partner with developers to pay for or manage affordable housing units. 

“There are some of those City Council members who are really adamant about the 60, 70, 80% AMI. And I think, from an analytical perspective, if a developer were to go in with an approach from the beginning, like with us, and say, ‘If you want us to do 15% affordable (units) in this project, we could bring in Habitat or someone like them to do 5 to 7 or 8% of that 15% to reach that lower AMI,’” said Michael Plowman, development director of Habitat for Humanity of Summit and Wasatch Counties.

The nonprofit serves families earning between 30 and 80% AMI, which is between $40,920 and $109,120 for a family of four in Wasatch County.

Barrus said the big difference between Summit and Wasatch counties is that the former has had an ongoing culture around affordable housing solutions. But Wasatch County’s housing affordability issues are more recent.

“It felt so much faster for Wasatch County,” Barrus said. “It has always kind of been an issue for Park City and Summit County. It’s been happening longer, that sort of influx of people moving here, and then it just overflowed into Wasatch County.”

But Barrus has been impressed by Heber City leaders’ willingness to tackle affordable housing issues. 

One example is in the city’s adoption of the downtown Central Heber Overlay Zone in September. The zone allows for infill, the development of small lots of underutilized land — a tactic Habitat employed in its past homebuilding projects in Heber City. The zone also allows property owners to build additional residential units on their properties, such as accessory dwelling units, duplex and twin homes, flag lots and mansion-style apartments.

Both Barrus and the City Council were excited by the prospect of further partnership.

“Some cities ignore and don’t address (affordable housing) until much farther down the path. So, I’ve felt really inspired by the kind of effort that Heber City has put in,” Barrus said. “I really appreciate their efforts to not put their heads in the sand and to really try to address it.”

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