LEVERAGING SUSTAINABILITY: A Tax Incentive Framework to Reduce Consumption of Resources for Transforming Buildings Into Ecological and Affordable Housing 

Leveraging Sustainability envisions a tax incentive framework for renovating, expanding and adapting existing buildings in a more environmentally and socially responsible manner. The incentives are addressing three major aspects when it comes the sustainable use of resources, namely reducing consumption of energy, materials, and space. Fostering designs, layouts, technologies, and building elements that can achieve these aims, the incentive framework gives housing developers and owners the possibility to save taxes when they include renewable energy, use recycled, re-used or carbon neutral materials, as well as adequately reduce area consumption per person while simultaneously providing more collective spaces. On the other side of the spectrum, additional taxes will be collected if developers do not subscribe to reducing resource consumption. The project Leveraging Sustainability shows how a recently renovated residential building in Koreatown could have been remodelled when applying design principles that allow to collect all of the introduced tax incentives.