New Efficient Homes New York: Enhanced Design Support

New Efficient Homes New York: Enhanced Design Support builds on the successful pilot of the Buildings of Excellence Early Design Support Program, providing direct funding to design partners for early-stage clean, resilient, and high-performance design support. The new program launch has an expanded reach that is open to all residential projects, including:

Single family and small homes
Low- to mid-scale multifamily less than 50,000 gross square feet
Large-scale multifamily market sector equal to or greater than 50,000 gross square feet

Key Program Benefits

Reduce market barriers. Providing the technical and financial means to evaluate and deploy the adoption of high-performance residential design.
Increase industry capacity. Advancing technical expertise to successfully design and deliver high-performance residential buildings.
Support workforce development. Encouraging industry knowledge transfer through training, technical resources and peer learning to deliver high-performance residential projects.

Who Can Apply?

This program will support design teams and home builders by providing direct incentives on a square foot or per dwelling unit basis for approved design and market transformation scope activities.

Single Family and Small Home Projects Applicant must be a builder, developer, or design firm
Multifamily Projects Applicant must be a design firm providing architecture or engineering services.

Project Opportunity

New Efficient Homes New York: Enhanced Design Support will consider funding the early-stage design of projects that serve across the housing market sector and involve new construction, gut-rehabilitation, and adaptive re-use projects.

Single Family and Small Homes Projects	Low- and Mid-Scale Multifamily Projects	Large-Scale Multifamily Projects
Single Family and Small Homes Projects may receive up to $5,000 per dwelling unit for enhanced design support, with additional incentives available for eligible professional training and market expansion activities up to $30,000 per project.	Low- and Mid-Scale Multifamily Projects may receive up to $1.50 per square foot.	Large-Scale Multifamily Projects may receive up to $1.30 per square foot, up to $250,000 per Project.

Project Proposals

Direct funding is available for early-stage clean, resilient, and high-performance design across a range of topic areas, including:

High-performance design and research
Energy modeling
Resilience and survivability
Health, comfort, and other co-benefits
Embodied carbon and healthy materials
Cost reduction and business readiness training and professional development
Third-party certification preparation
Integrated project delivery methodology
Knowledge sharing and market expansion efforts

Project Eligibility Requirements

Location: Projects must be in New York State, with no restrictions on utility service territory. Projects in disadvantaged communities as identified by the Climate Justice Working Group are encouraged.
Program Projects: Must be single family or multifamily occupancy as the primary use with non-residential spaces less than 50% of the building.
Project Size: All project sizes are eligible.
Building Type: Projects can be new construction, gut rehabilitation, or adaptive reuse.
Design Stage: Projects must be at the programming, concept, or early design stage at less than 50% design development.
Energy Performance: Participating projects will be required to fully electrify their heating, cooling, and ventilation systems and demonstrate high-performance energy efficiency including equipment selection and sizing through an approved modeling pathway.
- Single Family and Small Homes may use Manual J, Passive House, or another approved methodology.
- Multifamily may use whole-building modeling, including ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G, Passive House, ERI-based compliance, or eQUEST.

Scale High-Performance Housing

Participating in New Efficient Homes New York: Enhanced Design Support helps design firms advance approaches for a zero-emission future for New York’s housing stock while prioritizing occupant health, safety, comfort, resilience, and long-term performance. By supporting enhanced design and technical analysis early in project development, the Program helps reduce technical and financial uncertainty, improve cost predictability and constructability, and lower the risk of evaluating and implementing high-performance solutions.

Key findings from Enhanced Design Support funded case study investigations will be translated into publicly available resources that support broad industry learning and replication. Program participants will develop comprehensive technical resources and actively engage the market through report promotion, presentations, case studies, and collaboration with industry channel partners. These knowledge-sharing activities help building owners, operators, developers, and architecture and engineering teams make the case for technical and financially viable solutions, build industry capacity, and accelerate adoption of clean, resilient, and high-performance buildings across New York State.