June 12, 2008

Green Building

Toronto’s green development policies earn passing grade

SAUL CHERNOS

correspondent

Toronto’s green development standard is slowly taking flight, construction advocates and city officials say.

It’s been two years since city council adopted policies and standards aimed at promoting green construction. In February 2006, council enacted a green-roof strategy that included a plan to develop Web-based educational materials, divert $200,000 from city water revenues to finance a one-year rebate pilot program, and look into incorporating green roofs into the approval process for zoning and official plan amendments.

Several months later, council followed up with the green development standard to include a green-roof policy and add larger-scale measures such as green buildings, stormwater retention, rainwater harvesting, salvaging of demolition waste for recycling and reuse, and planning and design work that promotes eco-friendly behaviour.

“Toronto has made good progress in getting its own house in order,” Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) president Steven Peck says, praising an informational Web site, a new procurement policy, and activity on the part of Toronto Community Housing, the Toronto Transit Commission and other municipal organizations.

He’s doubly pleased the city has agreed to co-sponsor, with GRHC, the 2009 World Green Infrastructure Conference in October 2009, which will address a range of building issues and cast a spotlight on Toronto.

However, Peck says the city needs to do more. GRHC, a Toronto-based, North American-wide industry association, determined that, with more than 83,000 square feet of new green roofing installed in 2007, Toronto was tops in Canada, followed by Calgary and Quebec City. Still, Toronto finished seventh in North America, well behind first-place Chicago’s 500,000 square feet.

“Toronto needs to do quite a lot of work if it hopes to keep up with cities like Chicago, which has about 4.5 million square feet in the pipe and a variety of incentives to encourage private building owners to green their rooftops,” Peck said.

“In a city of our size, with all the development going on and a commitment to greening, we can do a lot better.”

Peck says the city awarded approximately $200,000 to 16 projects in 2007 through the water-revenue-based pilot. While the city renewed this for a second year, he thinks incentives need to be expanded in a serious way.

“We need a multi-million-dollar program supported by the Ontario government to implement green roofs across the province,” Peck said.

Jane Welsh, the city’s acting project manager for environmental planning, says the city has made steady progress. The green development standard has been or will be applied to new city-owned facilities such as the Dufferin Personnel Building, anaerobic digestion facilities on Disco Road, the podium at Nathan Phillips Square, and six new community centres.

Private developers are also coming on board. Roughly 60 per cent of developers presented with a green features checklist that now accompanies site plan, official plan, zoning bylaw and subdivision applications considered them in the first year, and this has since risen to 95 per cent.

“We have achieved our initial intent of introducing the idea of green, sustainable development to the development community,” Welsh says. “We will be reporting . . . again in July with results on our cost-benefit analysis of the green development standard and our legal ability to require it.”

John Mollenhauer, president of the Toronto Construction Association, says Toronto is scratching the surface in terms of green projects.

“It’s a process, not an event. You’re going to see people adopt that culture and move in that direction. For contractors that means bringing people on staff who understand all things green, including the various rating systems and the city’s guidelines.”

Mollenhauer says he hopes the city maintains its education and voluntary approach. “The industry is embracing it. We’re just trying to absorb the implications and prepare.”

Toronto mayor David Miller says the standard has proven successful and the city is now looking to integrate measures into the planning process. He added that he expects this to evolve over the next 12 months.

“Judging by the development applications, the industry is very, very receptive,” Miller says. “I think it’s clear now that it works, and we need to move beyond voluntary and make the standard a required part of our planning process. The industry is ready, and in fact some developers are actually ahead of it.”

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