Vancouver votes to change building codes to tackle climate crisis
Vancouver makes significant changes to building bylaws to address climate crisis
Tiffany Crawford
The Vancouver Sun
Among the changes are that all new multi-family buildings will require cooling systems by 2025 and air filtration to protect residents from intense heat waves and fire smoke pollution.
Vancouver council has voted to make significant changes to building bylaws to address the climate crisis. Photo by DARRYL DYCK /THE CANADIAN PRESS
Vancouver city council has voted to make significant changes to construction bylaws to reduce the use of fossil fuels and require cooling and air filtration in all new large buildings.
The changes are aimed at addressing the climate crisis and meeting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
City staff predict the new bylaws, which council approved last week, will lead to an annual reduction of 50,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in Vancouver, the equivalent of removing 13,000 gasoline-powered cars from the road.
Under the changes, greenhouse gas emissions in all new multi-family and commercial buildings must be 90 per cent less than under the old 2007 rules. That will be accomplished by requiring electric water heaters and either electric heaters or heat pumps n new construction, said Vancouver city spokesman Neal Wells.
All new multi-family buildings will require cooling systems by 2025 and “best practice” (MERV 13) air filtration to protect residents from increasingly common and intense heat waves and fire smoke pollution. MERV 13 captures 85 per cent of fine particulates from vehicle pollution and fire smoke, said Wells.
“I think that the proposals are quite well-crafted in that they strike a good balance between reflecting the urgency of the climate crisis and acknowledging the realities of the property development sector,” said Roberto Pecora, director of programs at the Zero Emissions Building Exchange (Zebx,) a local industry hub that helps developers, builders, architects and designers work toward zero emission buildings.
He said developers and builders working in Vancouver are aware that the city has the most progressive green building regulations in the province and have been able to step up to the requirements as the bylaws are aligned with the plan.
“I don’t see why it would be any different with these upcoming bylaw amendments. We have a very competent development, construction and design community in Metro Vancouver that can adapt to these changes,” said Pecora.
The emissions reduction aspects of the proposed changes target space heating and heating water for non-heating applications like showers and washing machines, said Pecora, adding that the bylaws don’t target gas range cooking.
“Nonetheless, using gas for cooking has some serious consequences for indoor air quality in homes,” he said. “A much more modern, safe and efficient way to cook is with an induction cooktop.”
Chris Hill, president of B Collective, a design, build and consulting firm, thinks gas stoves will be out of vogue soon.
“People feel like they need it right now. It’s such an important part of their lifestyle,” he said. “When we are talking about air quality and air filtration though, people are not going to want to burn gas in their house.”
He said while more developers are looking at building homes with electric induction stoves, most people remain keen on gas stoves.
“But those with a climate conscience understand and, as they explore induction, quite often they are happy with the results.”
Hill also applauded the city’s move to ensure all new buildings have air filtration and cooling systems, which will include low-income housing, as people on fixed incomes can be more vulnerable to heat waves and pollution.
In what the city says is the first in North America, all new builds will require a reduction of 10 to 20 per cent in so-called embodied carbon building materials, which are the emissions associated with building materials such as concrete, steel and foam insulation.
So, for example, Wells said a company could build less underground parking, use different materials or better concrete mixes.
Hill said there is going to be a real push to use less of materials that have a high carbon impact like concrete, replacing them with natural materials like wood, but also taking into account sustainable forestry practice.
Rocky Sethi, COO for Adera Development, agrees but said there needs to be more government support for providing timber as a carbon-sequestering material.
“We would like to see support from the various levels of government, in particular the province, in supporting mass timber construction,” he said.
“We support commercially viable efforts to reduce our industry’s carbon footprint, however with construction costs at an all-time high, supply chain constraints negatively impacting our ability to deliver affordable housing, and a lack of skilled labour in the construction industry, we feel the industry is beyond a tipping point.”
Sethi said adding onto this are increasing delays with obtaining approvals and permits in a timely manner that is driving up the cost of timber, leading to higher housing prices at a time when interest rate pressure and inflation is creating challenges for B.C. households.
As for existing office and retail buildings that are greater than 100,000 square feet, the city now requires all regulated buildings to have zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, and reduce heat energy use by 70 to 90 per cent by 2040.
Pecora said the initial requirements are relatively light to begin with or are phased in to assist with the transition. For example, the proposal to regulate emissions from existing buildings would only become effective in 2026 and only affect about 50 buildings to start.
Reducing heat energy use is cost effective in large office and retail buildings if done when an existing heating system needs replacing and is replaced with some form of heat pump, Wells said. Heating systems are only replaced every 20 to 25 years, and the city estimates that 30 to 40 per cent of large office and retail buildings should make this change by 2030.
Large existing commercial and multi-family buildings will also have to report their annual energy use starting in 2024.
The city is providing $2 million in grants to add heat pumps to existing below-market housing.
In 2021, Zebx did a cost analysis of seven high-performance buildings in B.C., the kind that Vancouver is seeking with its bylaw amendments. Two of the seven came in at 30 per cent under the cost of similar code-minimum buildings being built in the same area at around the same time.
“It’s not a given that high-performance buildings cost more to build,” said Pecora. “I would argue that what’s affecting the cost of new construction more at the moment are labour shortages and supply chain disruptions.”
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