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Habitat New York City and Westchester County will create 16 green affordable houses by transforming 13 NYCHA homes using eco-friendly standards.

Habitat New York City and Westchester County will create 16 green affordable houses by transforming 13 NYCHA homes using eco-friendly standards.

“Habitat Net Zero,” a construction project announced last week, will transform 13 houses previously owned by the New York City Housing Authority into 16 affordable homes in Rochdale, according to Mayor Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica).

“The start of ... Habitat Net Zero,” the speaker said in a statement, allows our communities to see “investments and improvements that we have always deserved.”

The purpose of the project is to tackle the housing shortage in Southeast Queens while creating green sustainable low-cost homes, according to the mayor and the speaker, who both grew up in the region.

“This community represented the promise of a better life for my family and I am going to keep that promise for generations of New Yorkers,” the mayor said in a statement.

The community partner for the project is Habitat New York City and Westchester County, a branch of Habitat for Humanity, the international nonprofit that builds affordable homes, according to the mayor’s Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz.

“We are strengthening our promise to provide families not just homes they can afford but homes they can be proud of,” Katz said in a statement. “By using every tool available and leaning on great partners — including Habitat for Humanity, which will change the lives of 16 families through their work here — once again, Queens and New York City will be a place where you can raise your family, regardless of income.”

The 16 homes will have two to three bedrooms and a mix of one, two and one and a half baths, according to a spokesman for Habitat NYC. The homes also will have a backyard space, parking, basement and attic.

Ten of the dilapidated houses will be transformed into 13 new homes via modular construction and three other houses will be gut rehabilitations on existing structures, Matthew Dunbar, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of Habitat NYC, told the Chronicle.

A modular home or prefabricated home is a house that is 80 to 90 percent completed in a factory then transported to a property to be finished following local, state and regional codes, according to nextmodular.com, a modular home business website.

Habitat NYC has been applying a net-zero approach to building homes since the 1980s, using Passive House standards, which keep the environment in mind, according to the nonprofit’s spokesman. The principles include superinsulation and airtight construction, continuous mechanical ventilation of fresh filtered air and a comprehensive system to modeling, design and construction that produces resilient homes.

The Habitat NYC homes also follow Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, which include low-flow water fixtures and the installation of EnergyStar appliances and low-energy LED light to ensure healthy materials and paint are used in all properties.

Living in net-zero houses that reduce carbon emissions, homeowners will save on energy costs while protecting the environment through energy and water conservation, added the spokesman.

Habitat NYC doesn’t have plans for building more homes in Queens in the pipeline yet, but it is always looking for more opportunities to serve families in the World’s Borough.

“We’ve been building and rehabbing houses in Queens for decades,” said the spokesman. “Habitat Net Zero is actually the third phase of our partnership with NYCHA turning vacant properties in Queens into affordable homeownership.”

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