NEWS HEADLINES

LISC Launches Green Development Center

By Bendix Anderson

In March, Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) opened its Green Development Center, a new effort to put green design, construction, and management principles to work in the neighborhood revitalization projects in which it invests.

"Lowered operating costs, increased household income, and the improved health of children, these are direct results of green-focused development," said Greg Maher, LISC's senior vice president for lending.

The center will be led by Madeline Fraser Cook, who recently served as vice president of New Ecology, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based organization that provides technical assistance on green and sustainable design techniques to community-based organizations and affordable housing developers.

Until now, LISC has pursued a more decentralized strategy to supporting green building. Since 2004, LISC has provided its community development partners with grants and technical assistance through a variety of programs to design and build energy-efficient and resource-efficient buildings with healthier indoor air.

LISC’s local efforts have included its Green Connection program to educate new affordable housing developers in the San Francisco Bay Area about green principles and its green screen assessment tool to help Boston-area developers identify opportunities to green their properties. LISC has also invested in green projects in Duluth, Minn.; Hartford, Conn.; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Fla.; Milwaukee; Minneapolis/St. Paul; Philadelphia; Virginia; Washington, D.C., and a number of rural areas.