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The sleek new house unveiled Thursday in Salt Lake City's Poplar Grove neighborhood is more than a future home to a family of four.

When Mayor Jackie Biskupski snipped the blue ribbon draped across the door at 381 S. Emery St. (1170 West), she began a new phase in attempts to ease the city's affordable-housing crunch — with an eye on energy efficiency and adding choices for moderate-income families that stretch beyond apartments.

Designed and constructed with public funds, the two-floor, 2,100-square-foot dwelling on the city's west side is meant as a model of smart and contemporary design, one the mayor said "anyone would be proud to own."

"This home certainly defeats any stereotype that affordable housing must be built steep and cheap," Biskupski said as the city opened the Emery Passive House.

City officials intend the four-bedroom home and its energy-saving features to showcase how innovative design and quality construction can help lower homeownership costs.

City Councilman Andrew Johnston, who lives nearby, called the project "a wonderful culmination" of efforts to design an affordable home that is "beautiful in its form and efficient in its function."

Johnston and other officials want Utah's homebuilding industry to take note.

By its own estimates, Salt Lake City is running a deficit of nearly 7,500 dwellings for moderate- and low-income households.

Affordable housing has become a top priority — as it has in most major U.S. cities,.

The Emery Passive House marks the launch of a new Housing Innovation Lab within the city's division of Housing and Neighborhood Development, or HAND. Similar to a program started last year in Boston, the lab is a kind of public clearinghouse for the latest concepts in affordable-housing design, construction and financing.

To further spur ideas, the city has announced a public home-innovation contest and is seeking submissions of new affordable-housing designs by Sept. 23. It then will pick two teams to design and build single-family homes on city-owned properties at 1763 W. 900 South and 315 S. Post St.

As part of these broader strategies to promote affordable housing, HAND Director Mike Akerlow said the city hopes developers will incorporate construction methods, systems and other elements used in the Emery Passive House into future projects.

The model home deploys a host of energy-saving concepts and technologies, some drawn from a European-led movement in architectural design known as passive building. Strategically placed windows, ramped-up insulation and energy-recovery systems for heating and cooling all combine to alternately exploit and avoid solar energy passively — dramatically reducing the environmental footprint.

Officials estimate the house will run on about a sixth of the energy needed to heat an average home.

With a price tag of $270,000, financed with a low-interest loan, Akerlow called it "a perfect home" affordable to a family of four earning $55,000 a year.

In addition to helping cost-burdened residents with lower utility bills, the energy savings dovetail with the city's new goals on cutting its carbon emissions and improving air quality, Biskupski said.

"Energy-efficient homes are essential," the mayor said, "to cleaning up the air we breathe."

tsemerad@sltrib.com

Twitter: @TonySemerad