Zero Emission Affordable Housing Design: Palm City Transit Village
National Community Renaissance
Recipient
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Recipient Location
29th
Senate District
50th
Assembly District
Active
Project Status
Project Update
National CORE and Studio E Architects, in collaboration with numerous technical professionals, completed the design of Palm City Transit Village – Building A in late 2025. The complete Building Submittal included over a dozen advanced technologies and measures that go beyond California's standard building energy requirements, aiming to reduce energy consumption, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. Under the guidance of carbon strategists and architects at Atelier Ten, Studio E produced a Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment, a critical piece to monitoring the success of this and future projects. The team at USC kicked-off formal research activities and finalized their Equity-Focused Analysis and Resident Engagement Plan. Arup continues to provide critical technical guidance to all project partners, and Momentum provides ongoing compliance and grant management support.
The Issue
California must simultaneously address a housing crisis and a climate crisis. Yet as developers and builders rush to add high-quality housing units, the adoption of high-energy efficiency design strategies, all-electric builds, and clean energy technology in multifamily housing has lagged. While the anticipated decarbonization benefits of these approaches are evident, a post-COVID economy with high material and labor costs, coupled with a lack of sector knowledge, has heightened a sense of risk for new approaches. These sensitivities are especially acute in affordable housing developments. Demonstration of successful projects and practical knowledge are needed to catalyze implementation at scale, and drive deep decarbonization in multifamily housing, ultimately fostering more sustainable and cost-effective housing across California.
Project Innovation
Palm City Transit Village will be a new, mixed-use, fully affordable, all-electric community in San Diego aimed at revolutionizing housing in the face of California's climate and housing challenges. Featuring 288 units, the project will integrate cutting-edge, low-carbon technologies and advanced materials to advance building decarbonization and accelerate progress in the state's housing sector. The project aims to establish and validate the cost-effectiveness of integrating advanced energy technologies within the standard design and engineering framework for a new-construction, multifamily housing development. This involves the practical application of high-efficiency design strategies and all-electric, grid-responsive technologies expected to replace conventional fossil-fuel dependent systems in affordable housing. The project will focus on the operational phase post-construction to confirm the anticipated cost an energy savings for both property management and residents, thus providing a robust case for the financial viability of such sustainable building practices. Project knowledge will be transferred to policy makers, academics, builders, developers, property managers, and other stakeholders advance lower costs, replicability, and a deeper understanding of building decarbonization address California’s parallel housing and climate crises. The team behind the Palm City Transit Village development boasts extensive combined experience building 100 percent affordable, all-electric, zero net energy mixed-use projects.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
The proposed design will make Palm City Transit Village carbon-free by utilizing cutting-edge energy technologies and design approaches, underpinned by comprehensive resident engagement. This building project will demonstrate scalable decarbonization strategies and model the future of housing in California.
Reliability
The project will result in the ratepayer benefits of greater electricity reliability, lower costs, and increased safety. PCTV will enhance reliability by being highly energy efficient, thus reducing load compared to a similar-sized building. It will utilize rooftop PV and energy storage to reduce grid energy usage, especially during peak periods, and ensure a minimum level of electricity access.
Safety
Residents will be safer thanks to an in-building microgrid with islanding capability, to offer emergency power during outages, resilience for when power is restored, and space conditioned areas of refuge during heat events. Because there is no on-site combustion of natural gas, interior air quality will be higher.
Affordability
Residents will enjoy lower direct energy costs thanks to high efficiency lighting, space conditioning, and appliances - especially demand-response based, load shifting water heating. Because the building is fully electric, residents will have no gas bill. High efficiency is of particular importance as San Diego County has the highest electricity rates in the continental US, and by far the highest in California.
Consumer Appeal
The project will lead to technological advancement and breakthroughs to overcome barriers to the achievement of California's statutory energy goals by demonstrating and validating cutting-edge clean energy technologies and design methodologies in a multifamily mixed-use development. The public interest investment will produce data on feasibility and cost-effectiveness, performance of high energy efficiency design, and all-electric infrastructure.
Key Project Members
