Passive House Design Advances Housing Justice in Baltimore

What if new homes could do more than provide shelter?

South Baltimore’s Curtis Bay neighborhood is surrounded by industry—coal piles, a waste incinerator, and heavy truck traffic.

As a result, residents face serious health challenges, including some of the highest asthma rates in Baltimore City.

But despite these long-standing environmental threats, the community has not been spared from rising housing and energy costs. Like many disinvested neighborhoods across the country, Curtis Bay families are finding it harder to keep up with rent, mortgages, and utility bills.

But what if homes could clean the air, lower energy bills, and make life healthier for the people who live there?

The Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) is helping answer this question by working with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT) on Baltimore’s first affordable homeownership development designed around Passive House principles.

These high-performance, energy-efficient homes will be sold to families earning less than 50% of the Area Median Income and will remain permanently affordable thanks to a Community Land Trust structure, in which SBCLT retains ownership of the land while residents own their homes.

Yet, it’s neighborhoods like Curtis Bay that need developments built on these principles the most.

Passive houses are designed to use less energy and keep indoor air clean, which makes a big difference in neighborhoods where outdoor air is polluted. These homes use special building techniques to reduce drafts, control temperature, and remove harmful pollutants.

Because of their design, they also save families money on heating and cooling. Most affordable housing developments focus on energy-efficient appliances and HVAC systems. In a Passive House, the entire structure is designed to reduce energy needs from the outset and help mitigate future energy consumption and costs.

What is a Passive House?

Passive houses are built to use as little energy as possible, while keeping the air inside fresh and clean.

They’re airtight, highly insulated and all-electric, and use a ventilation system called an ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator) to continuously bring in fresh, filtered air and remove stale air.

Certified Passive Houses are designed to cut energy use by 80 to 90 percent compared to standard construction.

Aziz, Chair of the Department of Architectural Design at MICA, who partnered to help design the Curtis Bay project, emphasized that Passive House design is about adopting a smarter, science-based way of building.

He explained that conventional construction often wastes money in the wrong places, while Passive House redirects those resources to long-term priorities such as energy efficiency and climate resilience. 

“It’s not rocket science,” Aziz added. “It’s just building science.”

Curtis Bay residents envisioned creating health-focused, permanently affordable homes in a neighborhood that has faced decades of environmental harm.

The homes are not certified to the formal Passive House standard, but they apply its core principles—airtight construction, continuous fresh-air ventilation, and deep insulation—to dramatically cut energy use and improve air quality.

A Different Kind of Developer

Dr. Meleny Thomas, SBCLT’s director, doesn’t come from a real estate background. Her roots are in environmental justice and grassroots organizing.

And that’s exactly why the Curtis Bay project stands out. Instead of viewing this project through the lens of profit margins, Thomas imagined a development where healing, not just housing, was at the center.

Goold notes that this different approach from local leaders like Thomas is helping forge a new lane for moving these kinds of projects forward.

“Most people doing housing development are real estate developers, and they’re coming at it from a pretty conservative place,” says Goold. “They’re building their budget and recycling existing housing models, because they’re very predictable. Meleny is unbound from all of those typical constraints. She has a lot of passion and idealism about what her community deserves, and it makes for a really exciting development project.”

The project began after a fire displaced families on Hazel Street, and Thomas and other community members started thinking about what kind of housing should replace what was lost.

NDC stepped in to help lead those early design conversations. Residents, including youth from Benjamin Franklin High School, shared ideas, hopes, and concerns. From those meetings, the idea for an affordable Passive House project began to take shape.

Turning a Big Idea Into Real Homes 

Once the vision was clear, NDC helped connect SBCLT with the right professionals to move the project ahead.

Jason Neal, a Baltimore-based architect who had previously worked with NDC on other design projects, took the lead on the project and assembled a design team that included Aziz and other local partners to bring the project to fruition. Together, they helped shape the technical plans while keeping community needs front and center.

Based on community feedback, the team designed three buildings—two duplexes and a six-plex—with a community park nearby for gathering and green space.

The homes draw on Passive House principles, prioritizing energy efficiency, air quality, and long-term affordability.

Getting the project off the ground came with challenges. The team needed special approval from the city to change how the land would be used, which included consolidating multiple sites to create a denser footprint — a move that brought both spatial and economic advantages. Getting permits took longer than expected. And finding funding was initially a challenge. Many lenders were unsure that a small community group could complete such a complex design.

“Some of the biggest hurdles faced have been disbelief that community members can do development,” said Thomas. “We never gave up. We received many NOs but kept on knocking until we were able to get the YES we needed.”

To overcome those barriers, SBCLT became part of the coalition that helped create Baltimore’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which now supports projects like theirs and creates other housing opportunities across the city.

Making Affordability Permanent

SBCLT adopted a Community Land Trust (CLT) model to ensure these homes remained affordable over the long term.

This approach separates the ownership of land and home: the land trust keeps ownership of the land, and homeowners own the buildings on top of it.

Families enter into 99-year renewable leases, which keep prices low and help prevent displacement. Homeowners also purchase with the stipulation that they sell to families earning less than 50% of the Area Median Income, keeping the homes affordable for future buyers. 

“We have heard often, ‘What you’re doing is great, but why this community?’” says Thomas. “My response always is, because we deserve it! A person’s income or social status should not dictate the quality and level of housing they can access.”

A Blueprint for the Future

Baltimore’s Curtis Bay project is part of a broader effort to prove that high-quality, energy-efficient housing can be both affordable and community-driven.

The design team has fostered working relationships with groups in Pennsylvania specializing in Passive House to expand their knowledge in Baltimore. According to Neal, states like Pennsylvania have already demonstrated that Passive House construction can be cost-competitive, especially when backed by smart policies and public investment.

The development in South Baltimore hopes to expand that model, showing how sustainability, equity, and affordability can come together at the neighborhood level.

Still, building homes like these takes more than good intentions.

It requires specialized knowledge, skilled labor, and a shift in how we think about housing. The project includes a partnership with Carver Vocational-Technical High School, where students learn to renovate homes using Passive House techniques, develop hands-on skills in energy-efficient construction, and prepare for careers in a growing field.

“We’re trying to build capacity,” Jason Neal said. “There’s no way to scale this kind of housing without training people to do it well.”

That kind of forward-looking investment is essential for creating lasting pathways to stability and opportunity.

As Meleny and the SBCLT team worked with state leaders to pass new legislation enabling Community Land Trusts to develop multifamily housing, they laid the groundwork for even more innovation in the years ahead.

Of course, innovation comes with challenges. Passive House design principles are still unfamiliar in many cities, and early projects can appear more expensive simply because the local industry isn’t yet built to support them. But as Aziz pointed out, that’s already changing.

“Passive House design doesn’t belong to the rich,” Aziz said. “It just looks expensive when a city isn’t prepared for it. But as it becomes standard, it’s been shown to be very competitive with regular construction.”

Jason Neal echoed that sentiment, urging communities to see beyond the price tag and recognize the deeper benefits. Passive House buildings drastically reduce energy bills, require minimal maintenance, and are designed to last more than a century. But more than that, they can offer a peace of mind that’s harder to quantify.

Neal continues: “You might spend more upfront, but you’re eliminating maintenance costs, eliminating energy bills—and creating a place that gives people stability, protection, and peace.”

Yet even with the data, proven models, and community-led design, there’s still a gap between what’s possible and what’s prioritized.

As Goold noted, the affordable housing sector isn’t often given room to innovate.

“This space doesn’t usually get this kind of innovation,” Goold said. “Affordable housing is often built fast and at scale, so the outcomes are really generic. A lot of exciting ideas from communities never get fully realized, because the funding just isn’t there.”

That’s what makes the Curtis Bay project so important in challenging assumptions, setting new standards, and showing what’s possible when structural support aligns with community vision.

“Never stop believing that your communities deserve good things,” said Thomas, continuing her sentiment:

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