Making our Properties Safe, Healthy, and Beautiful

This spring, we are “digging” in to make improvements to our buildings and land — as well as creating a long term plan for keeping our properties in great shape through a Capital Needs Assessment.

Over the last several weeks, we visited all 32 homes in our 11 buildings with a specialist, BC Stewart and Associates, to understand what improvements are needed. BC Stewart will now turn this assessment into a 20 year plan, noting year by year what repairs and improvements are recommended for that year. This gives us a tool to proactively address the property needs as we go. 

Meanwhile, we are also excited to improve the yards and landscaping of our 11 buildings, so that our BNCLT residents have an outdoor place to enjoy their homes. We visited all of our properties with Parterre Garden to begin envisioning ways to improve our properties, considering indigenous plants, spots for gardens, areas for outdoor seating, rain spouts, etc.  We will be inviting our BNCLT residents to work with this team over the next few weeks to help design and plan their yards. The company will be partnering with PowerCorpsBOS, a 10-month Green Industry Workforce Development Program that provides young adults with training, career readiness support, and connections to employers in the green industry. An “earn and learn” program, PowerCorpsBOS pays members to participate in hands-on training that prepares them for a living-wage career.

Beginning to plan for landscaping

Finally, energy efficiency and climate resilience! After finishing our energy retrofit at 14 Leroy last year, we are eager to extend our energy-forward practices across all of our buildings in upcoming years. This means paying attention to the building envelopes: siding, windows, roofs, doors... so that if and when we are able to change out heating systems, or add solar, our buildings are in the right shape to hold in the heat in the winter, and cool air in the summer.