At this year’s Utah Housing Matters Conference in Park City Utah, Rocky Mountain Power presented the Wattsmart Affordable Housing Multifamily Partner of the Year 2019 to Danville Development Corporation. The Award, now in its second year, recognizes an organization in the multifamily industry that has made a significant impact within the Rocky Mountain Power service area.
Danville Development Corp focuses on meeting the growing needs of the senior, mentally ill, and chronically homeless populations of Utah, and is committed to doing so by utilizing Rocky Mountain Power and ICAST as partners to reduce their energy needs.
Danville Development Corporation, was founded in 1979 by Art Woolston, who saw a growing need for affordable senior housing along the Wasatch Front. Today, Danville is run by Art’s daughter Lisa Jones and they manage 24 residential properties across 12 cities, from their offices in Midvale, Utah. Besides affordable senior housing, Danville also works closely with partner agencies to find homes for the chronically homeless and people with mental illness.
Their first energy efficiency project with RMP was for their 160-unit, Wasatch Manor property, which provided almost 3 Million kWh in energy savings, which I know means nothing to you, so translating it into your lingo, equates to $240,000 in lifetime utility cost savings, assuming 8 cents/kWh, all achieved with a project cost of just under $75,000. They are also piloting some cutting-edge efficiency solutions such as cold climate heat pumps for heating and cooling. These solutions are 250% more efficient than their current systems and will reduce costs significantly. Pilot solutions have been installed at 4 other properties.
Danville is committed to greening their portfolio as evidenced by their membership in the US Dept. of Energy and US Housing and Urban Development’s Better Building Challenge (also called the BBC). This is a voluntary program and they have committed to reducing their energy consumption by 20% across their portfolio. We are currently doing energy assessments on all of their properties and are developing energy saving plans that will help them meet their BBC goals. We expect these actions will result in millions of dollars of cost savings and millions of kWh of energy savings