By Myles Brown
It’s no secret that building affordable housing comes at a premium. In the Northeast, where I work, and across the country, development costs for affordable units typically run 20 percent to 30 percent higher than those for market-rate apartments. Why? The answer lies in a combination of factors, but the primary reason is that complex funding structures often bring specific regulations, design requirements and labor mandates that drive up both soft and hard costs.
Yet, in our experience designing multifamily projects, affordability doesn’t have to come at the expense of quality and aesthetics. With creative design thinking and an understanding of the many small decisions that influence a project’s budget, architects can unlock meaningful savings while still meeting the rigorous demands of today’s affordable housing landscape.
Below are several strategies developers and their design partners can use to deliver high-performance, cost-effective housing without compromising livability or long-term value.
Think Efficiently from the Inside Out and the Ground Up
If allowed by zoning and land costs are reasonable, four stories is typically the most cost-effective height for multifamily buildings. It’s the tallest a building can be while still using conventional wood-frame construction under building codes. Staying at or below this height enables developers to avoid the higher labor costs associated with commercial wage rates, which can add 25 to 35 percent to construction costs.
While four stories may seem out of scale in some communities, thoughtful façade articulation — such as defining a clear base and top — can help reduce perceived scale and allow new development to blend into lower-density neighborhoods.
Inside the building, efficient unit layouts are essential. Affordable housing guidelines often call for more generous space allocations for furniture, storage and accessibility than market-rate housing. Without careful planning, these requirements can lead to larger units and higher construction costs.
One effective strategy for keeping square footage in check is to use open-plan, eat-in kitchens that combine the dining area with the kitchen footprint, creating flexibility without sacrificing livability. Another is to place mechanical and hot water closets along the building corridor, allowing maintenance staff to access systems without entering residents’ units. This approach saves space, as well as simplifying servicing and reducing disruption for tenants.
Design for Constructability and Long-Term Value
Material choices and construction methods play a major role in project economics. Prefinished siding materials, such as fiber cement panels, offer a smart combination of durability, low maintenance and labor savings by minimizing on-site finishing. These materials hold up well over time and help keep the building’s exterior looking fresh and attractive.
Similarly, designing for prefabrication can yield substantial cost and schedule benefits. Repeating unit layouts and standardizing façade elements can make it easier to prefabricate interior and exterior wall assemblies off-site. This strategy reduces on-site labor, shortens construction timelines and often improves overall quality control.
Integrate Sustainability and Location into the Cost Equation
Sustainability is essential in affordable housing, particularly for projects funded through 9 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) programs, which often require buildings to meet high-performance or net-zero-ready standards.
If pursued piecemeal, these goals can drive up costs. But when approached holistically — by designing efficient building envelopes with high-performing walls, roofs and windows — it becomes possible to downsize mechanical systems, balancing initial investments and reducing long-term energy costs.
These sustainability strategies can also unlock significant incentives. In Connecticut, programs like Energize CT offer up to $600,000 in rebates for all-electric, high-efficiency buildings — an amount that can meaningfully impact a 75-unit development’s bottom line.
Meanwhile, location-based decisions offer another important opportunity for savings. Transit-oriented sites can support reduced parking ratios, allowing developers to allocate more of their budget to livable space and less to costly infrastructure.
While suburban sites may require 1.5 to two spaces per unit, urban or transit-accessible sites can often justify fewer than one — sometimes even zero — parking spaces per unit. With structured parking costing $25,000 to $50,000 per space, that reduction can translate to major savings.
Maximize the Full Funding Toolkit
Designers working in the affordable housing space must navigate a complex matrix of funding sources including low-income housing tax credits, low-income loans, development grants, energy rebates/incentives, Brownfield grants and others. Each source comes with specific design requirements and opportunities for financial support.
Aligning design decisions with these requirements is critical. The right configuration, system selection, or energy strategy can open the door to grants, tax credits or performance incentives that make the project viable.
In the end, designing affordable housing is never about finding one big cost-saving idea — it’s about making hundreds of smart, informed decisions across every phase of the project. By staying focused on both cost and quality at every step, architects can help create homes that are not only financially feasible, but also beautiful, efficient and built to last.
Myles Brown (AIA) serves as a principal-in-charge of Amenta Emma’s Community Studio where he specializes in senior living and multifamily projects. He is also the firm’s chief marketing officer.