There have been a lot of claims made by the City about how environmentally responsible the draft 2040 Comprehensive Plan is. But one of the fundamental things about the Plan is that it proposes demolishing existing housing and replacing it with more housing. The argument is that the new housing will be more energy-efficient than the old housing. But a recent study from the National Trust for Historic Preservation debunks this myth. This groundbreaking study concludes that building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction. Moreover, it can take between 10 and 80 years for a new, energy-efficient building to overcome, through more efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts that were created during the
construction process.
This just shows again how important it is to preserve our existing housing stock. Follow the link to read the study.