The draft standards identify five impact categories that include a whole host of performance requirements. Pictured: Mayor Andrea Horwath. Photo Credit: Andrea Horwath/Facebook.
The City of Hamilton just wrapped up consultation on introducing Green Building Standards and are set to review and report back to Council in the coming weeks before drafting their final recommendations and guidebook this summer.
The City says that they are developing Green Building Standards in order “to meet the City’s climate change and sustainability objectives, including the target of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”
The standards will reportedly be a set of both “voluntary and mandatory measures for new development.”
The standards would not apply to renovations or retrofits.
The City notes that some features of the Green Building Standards include energy efficiency, bird friendly design, green spaces, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, parking spaces for bicycles, and requirements for the planting of native species.
A draft of the standards, a 30-page document, details what is being considered and is published on the City of Hamilton website. The document can be found here.
It states that the Green Building Standards are “intended to apply to all site plan applications (SPA) and plan of subdivisions within the City of Hamilton urban area” and that “compliance with [the standards] is expected for all new residential, institutional, commercial, and industrial uses.”
The draft identifies five impact categories that include a whole host of performance requirements.
The five categories are Energy and Carbon, Ecology and Biodiversity, Water, Waste Management and Materials, and Community and Urban Design.
Various performance measures include that developments should promote public and active transportation, ensure services are within walking distance, include urban agriculture, celebrate heritage and culture, and engage in “community sustainability outreach.”
Those measures follow a previous report from 2022 which states that all developments should contribute to social well-being through “public art, culture, equity and inclusion and safety.”
However, Green Standards in other cities in Ontario have already become a subject of contention with Toronto’s Green Standards already reportedly set to be challenged in court, according to a recent article from Ontario Construction News.
The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), which represents most of the residential builders in the province, will reportedly be challenging whether or not municipalities even have the legislative authority to impose conditions on building permit approvals.
Construction is already governed provincially by the Ontario Building Code.
Richard Lyall, the President of RESCON, also takes issue with the measures themselves and issued a recent press release against “undue energy conservation measures.”
“As codes and standards are updated, we should not be adding more costs to housing without due consideration as to whether they really make sense,” he said.
“Through our current provincial building code, new home builders are already leaders and a decade ahead of other provinces when it comes to energy-efficient practices.”
“Developers, builders, and consumers are facing crippling taxes, fees, and development charges that add as much as 31 per cent to the cost of a new home. Any steps to impose drastic energy-efficiency measures without a full cost-benefit analysis are a recipe for disaster.”
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
