Gordon Szaszi, Project Manager Housing Development, shares Niagara Regional Housing (NRH) experience creating the business case for a 67-unit affordable housing development for seniors. This modern and welcoming building is a boon to the community, a great example of urban intensification integrating much-needed community housing, and a wonderful new place for seniors to call home.
Other project highlights include:
Triple bottom line benefits: This project contributed an estimated $9 million to the Welland economy; the building achieved a 51% reduction in typical energy consumption, and eliminates 44 tonnes of GHGs annual
Critical partnerships: Achieving LEED Silver certification required strong relationships with designers, consultants, planners, Municipal and Regional departments.
Capacity building: The implementation of this project brought new sustainable knowledge and practices to NRH, the City of Welland, and the Region as a whole.
Stakeholders / Community engagement: The Fitch Street development is an example of sustainable affordable housing providing a high quality of life to local residents.
Speaker
Gordon Szaszi, Project Manager Housing Development at Niagara Regional Housing
Marie-Pierre Paquette discusses how the municipalities of Plessisville, Varennes and Verchères banded together to launch a joint pilot project that would bring energy-efficient home renovations within reach for more homeowners.
The Financement innovateur pour des Municipalités Efficaces (FIME) program (Innovative Financing Mechanism for Efficient Municipalities), supports energy-efficient solutions like heating, lighting and insulation. The pilot program also included personalized coaching services.
The benefits of this pilot program have extended beyond Plessisville, Varennes and Verchères. By the end of the pilot in 2017, plans were set in motion to deploy the program to the rest of the province, with 10 more municipalities joining.
Learn how your municipality can implement a similar model to remove barriers to energy efficiency and lower GHGs
Speaker
Marie-Pierre Paquette, Director, Civic Life Department of the City of Plessisville
Increasing energy efficiency in Canadian homes can go a long way in helping homeowners reduce their GHG emissions, lower operating costs and increase home comfort.
Municipalities can make this easier and more affordable for residents by offering local financing programs for home energy upgrades.
Wondering how to get started in your community? Watch this video to learn:
What home energy upgrade programs are and how they work
The different types of programs you can offer your residents
Ways to secure financing to implement a local program
Our Sustainable Affordable Housing (SAH) initiative supports local affordable housing providers in retrofitting existing units or constructing energy-efficient new builds. The initiative is open to municipalities, not-for-profit organizations and housing cooperatives looking to improve their communities with sustainable affordable housing.
This list of curated resources provides useful information on your affordable housing retrofit or new build. Learn more about:
the most effective and energy-efficient methods to make buildings more energy-efficient
various operations and maintenance recommendations for efficient buildings
the steps required to begin the retrofit of an existing multi-unit residential building
how to select different energy-efficient technologies for your housing project
energy-efficient methods to make buildings more sustainable
and much more
We will continue to update this page with additional resources as they become available.
Note: All files appear in the language in which they were provided and are organized by category: retrofits, new builds or both.
Marie-Pierre Paquette discusses how the municipalities of Plessisville, Varennes and Verchères banded together to launch a joint pilot project that would bring energy-efficient home renovations within reach for more homeowners.
The Financement innovateur pour des Municipalités Efficaces (FIME) program (Innovative Financing Mechanism for Efficient Municipalities), supports energy-efficient solutions like heating, lighting and insulation. The pilot program also included personalized coaching services.
The benefits of this pilot program have extended beyond Plessisville, Varennes and Verchères. By the end of the pilot in 2017, plans were set in motion to deploy the program to the rest of the province, with 10 more municipalities joining.
Learn how your municipality can implement a similar model to remove barriers to energy efficiency and lower GHGs
Speaker
Marie-Pierre Paquette, Director, Civic Life Department of the City of Plessisville
Long term vision is key to building projects that maximize their potential, especially when it comes to climate impacts and emissions. These projects require careful planning and a management approach that can adapt to changing circumstances.
Watch this webinar recording and explore how to build and adapt projects to make them truly sustainable in the long term. The presentations draw on 20 years of GMF-supported initiatives to showcase the possibilities. Plus, you’ll learn from sustainability champions who explain how they overcame changes to staff and systems to maintain their projects over time.
This webinar recording includes how to:
Convert current costs into opportunities for future development
Measure environmental, social and economic benefits
Retain those benefits after project completion
Take advantage of GMF funding and capacity building opportunities
Speakers
Bryan Purcell, The Atmospheric Fund, Toronto Community Housing energy retrofits
Johanne Ouellet, Regional electric car-sharing system implementation (SAUVéR) pilot project
Michael Hay, Hybridizing public transit in the unique Town of Banff
Jim Wren, Advisor, Programs Outreach, Community Efficiency Financing, GMF
For two decades, we’ve led the way in supporting innovative municipal sustainability projects across Canada. Through GMF’s unique mix of training, resources and funding, municipalities have improved their air, water and soil quality, and tackled the impacts of climate change. With our help, municipalities and their partners have brought more than 1,310 sustainable projects to life.
Webinar recording: Take your project from study to capital
Learn how to take your study or pilot to the next level
How does a feasibility study or pilot project pave the way to a capital project? Watch this webinar recording and discover how others have successfully converted studies into a capital project that provides social, economic and environmental benefits. You’ll learn about sustainable initiatives that have made the transition at various stages in the process, how each stage fits in the big picture, and the types of support GMF can provide from start to finish.
This webinar recording includes how to:
Convert a planning or feasibility study into a capital project
Prioritize the right solutions for your municipality
Take advantage of GMF funding and capacity building opportunities
Speakers
Glenda Holmes, City of Yorkton’s water treatment plant
Marie-Pierre Paquette, innovative financing for efficient municipalities
Megan (Walsh) Lohmann, Head of Community Energy Management of the Regional District of of East Kootenay
For two decades, we’ve led the way in supporting innovative municipal sustainability projects across Canada. Through GMF’s unique mix of training, resources and funding, municipalities have improved their air, water and soil quality, and tackled the impacts of climate change. With our help, municipalities and their partners have brought more than 1,310 sustainable projects to life.
Webinar recording: The 5 keys to a green municipal project business case
Learn how to create a compelling business case for green municipal projects
Before you can start a new project, you first need to get buy-in from your municipal council or other city staff. Set yourself up for success by building a strong business case for your proposed sustainability initiative.
Watch this webinar recording and discover the five critical focus areas you need to address to get your project started, from financing and partnerships to integrating a triple-bottom-line approach. With presentations from municipal champions who have successfully launched green initiatives, you’ll gain valuable insights on how to bring your project to life.
This webinar recording includes how to:
Finance your project and ensure long-term financial viability – and how GMF can help.
Forge long-term partnerships with firms, agencies and contractors.
Include capacity building in your strategy.
Integrate social, climate and economic benefits into your plan.
Engage with your community and other key stakeholders at every stage of the project.
Speakers
Kevin Boutilier, Solar City Halifax
Gordon Szaszi, Niagara Region's 1st Social Housing LEED Building
Amy Elgersma, City of Iqaluit's new LEED Silver Aquatic Centre
For two decades, we’ve led the way in supporting innovative municipal sustainability projects across Canada. Through GMF’s unique mix of training, resources and funding, municipalities have improved their air, water and soil quality, and tackled the impacts of climate change. With our help, municipalities and their partners have brought more than 1,310 sustainable projects to life.
Introducing GMF’s Community Buildings Retrofit initiative
Discover our new Community Building Retrofit initiative
From libraries and recreation centres to arenas and swimming pools, community buildings support vibrant, healthy communities and provide residents with access to important social services. The challenge is that these facilities also use a lot of energy and can stress municipal operating budgets. Optimizing the performance of existing community buildings can help your municipality lower energy costs, and improve the delivery of community services, while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
To help you get started with your next community building upgrade project, the Green Municipal Fund (GMF) has launched a new $167 million Community Buildings Retrofit (CBR) initiative. This initiative helps municipal governments and non-profit organizations that own and operate community recreational and cultural facilities to implement retrofits that will save money and reduce GHG emissions over the full lifespan of the buildings.
In this webinar recording, you will:
Explore the benefits of retrofitting community buildings, including success stories from municipalities who have completed similar projects.
Discover how GMF can support your community building retrofits, from funding for energy monitoring, building commissioning, studies and capital projects to capacity-building activities and resources.
Identify next steps to begin work in your community.
In this impressive retrofit initiative, we learn how The Atmospheric Fund, in partnership with Toronto Community Housing achieved impressive environmental benefits. The project saw GHG emissions by the equivalent of 963 tons of CO2 and creating over $450,000 in annual utility cost savings. Through the project, however, they realized that they could achieve so much more. Their resident-engagement program uncovered important resident perceptions of the health and comfort conditions in their homes.
By partnering with Building Up, a non-profit organization that trains people facing employment barriers, the project hired 12 community members on a short-term basis and 90% of them have since gone on to apprenticeships or careers in the trades – often with other contractors who worked on the project.
The project’s innovative financing model, a form of non-debt financing, has carved the way for new thinking in project financing.
Speaker
Bryan Purcell, Vice-President of Policy and Programs at The Atmospheric Fund
This video is extracted from the webinar "How to adapt green municipal projects to stand the test of time" presented on March, 30 , 2021. Watch the full webinar.
