Initially, five homes will be retrofitted in a partnership between the HPD--where Donovan was commissioner before being tapped by the Obama administration--Restored Homes Housing Development Fund Corp. and Enterprise Community Partners. An HPD spokesman did not respond by deadline to GlobeSt.com's inquiries regarding the locations of the properties, the cost of the pilot program or the number of foreclosed homes that could eventually be retrofitted to green standards.

The green pilot program is an offshoot of the Real Estate Owned Program that HPD and Restored Homes created, and which itself a component of the Bloomberg administration's $7.5-billion New Housing Marketplace Plan to create and preserve affordable housing for 500,000 New Yorkers. HPD's REO program uses a $24-million HUD grant awarded in January, and will acquire, rehabilitate and sell bank-foreclosed one to four-family homes in New York City to qualified low and moderate-income families, according to a release.

Enterprise's Green Communities initiative is the basis for the HPD/Restored Homes pilot program. This initiative, according to a release, is intended to create safe and healthy living environments. It goes about achieving this goal by using "non-toxic construction materials, [reducing] the amount of construction debris going into landfills by employing highly efficient waste management and recycling techniques for construction and demolition waste, and significantly increase the energy efficiency of homes, which will, in turn, reduce energy and maintenance costs, thereby making homeownership more financially sustainable for homeowners," the release states.