Canadian communities face twin challenges of declining infrastructure quality and diminishing health and resilience of many ecosystems. Natural assets such as forests, foreshores and riparian areas can provide many vital services to local governments including stormwater management and drinking water filtration. However, few local governments measure natural resources and ecosystems, and there are many who need assistance to better manage and understand these assets beyond providing a range of ‘green’ amenities.

To address this issue, the Natural Asset Initiative (NAI), funded by FCM’s Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program’s Climate Adaptation Partner Grants initiative, provided a methodology, hands on support, training and peer learning opportunities for six communities in three provinces to help them integrate natural assets into core asset management and financial processes to address this challenge. Participating local governments learned about the value of and how to manage natural assets to meet service levels (e.g. localized or downstream flood management). The approach also prepared municipalities for how those services may be affected by climate change.

Participating communities:

• City of Courteney, BC
• City of Oshawa, ON
• Southeast Regional Service Commission (Town of Riverview, NB, Village of Riverside-Albert, NB)
• Western Valley Regional Service Commission (Town of Florenceville-Bristol, NB)
• District of Sparwood, BC

About integrating natural assets into core municipal processes

Participating communities learned about the value of its natural assets, how to integrate them into the strategic level of local government decision-making and how to test and refine new approaches to sustainable service delivery.

In each community, the assessment results demonstrated that conservation and proper management of natural assets would help the local governments deliver core services to their residents. Communities saw tangible benefits, one example is with stormwater conveyance, drinking water supply and water treatment, where a natural asset approach reduced cost, compared to traditional engineered or grey infrastructure assets.

"FCM’s funding has helped NAI bring to a number of completed natural asset management projects in communities across Canada. The evidence and experience we gathered from all each projects is available for any local government to access as they make informed decisions about sustainable service delivery." 

– Roy Brooke, NAI Executive Director

Protecting the ecosystem

Municipalities can use the data from these projects to identify and account for the natural assets in their communities, place a value on the services they’re providing, determine how they compare or work with engineered assets and make informed planning decisions for current and future climate scenarios.

Additional resource

Read more about this initiative to learn how it supports participating municipalities and find strategies for integrating natural assets into your community’s decision-making processes.  

Contact

Roy Brooke
Executive Director

This resource was developed by the Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program (2017-2022). This program was delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada.

Climate change is significantly impacting communities across Canada. Recognizing that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are driving these climate disruptions, municipalities are leading the way in developing ambitious plans to reduce emissions.

Unfortunately, reducing the GHGs emitted from homes is not only difficult and expensive, but also requires the participation of many homeowners to complete energy efficiency retrofit projects. To help municipalities reach emissions reduction targets, Clean Air Partnership, with funding from FCM’s Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program’s Transition 2050 initiative, developed the Local Improvement Charge Financing for Retrofits Toolkit with support from participating municipalities. This toolkit will help municipalities design residential energy efficiency retrofit programs, like local improvement charge (LIC) financing, also known as property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing.

About the Local Improvement Charge Financing for Retrofits Toolkit

To create the toolkit, CAP hosted monthly webinars and worked with a group of nine municipalities in Ontario:

• Burlington
• Guelph
• Halton Hills
• London
• Newmarket
• Peterborough
• Toronto
• Vaughan
• Whitby

This toolkit focuses on single-family home residential buildings, which includes townhouses, condominiums, and single detached homes. This toolkit aims to help municipalities reach their climate goals though local improvement charge (LIC) financing, also known as property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing.

"The high upfront cost of home energy efficiency retrofits is often a significant barrier to implementation. With LIC/PACE programs, these costs are covered by the loans and repaid over 5-20 years. This can make whole home retrofits affordable to a larger population of homeowners."

– Vanessa Cipriani, Program Manager, Clean Air Partnership

Reduce GHG emissions in your community

Use the toolkit to:

• Design residential energy efficiency retrofit programs in your community to achieve deep GHG reductions from homes
• Learn how retrofits programs can benefit homeowners, the environment and the economy
• Understand the benefits and potential challenges of these programs
• Discover key program design elements and internal operational process flows
• Access templates for LIC bylaws and sample marketing materials for home energy retrofit programs.

Use the toolkit to learn how to get started on creating meaningful residential energy efficiency retrofit programs for your citizens.

Who is this toolkit for?

Municipal practitioners working in your community’s climate change, environment, energy and sustainability departments will find the toolkit most useful.

Measuring the success of an LIC/PACE program

An accompanying monitoring and evaluation framework was created to support municipalities in understanding the success and improving the delivery of their single family home LIC pilot programs. The framework can also aid in reporting results to Council and program funders. 

Contact

Vanessa Cipriani
Project Coordinator
vcipriani@cleanairpartnership.org

Kevin Behan
Deputy Director
kbehan@cleanairpartnership.org

Read the transcript

Summary

A municipally-owned social housing provider transforms a failing 50 year-old apartment tower with 146 units of affordable housing into a landmark building with state-of-the-art performance in energy, health, comfort and accessibility.

Context

The City of Hamilton’s waitlist for community housing includes more than 6,000 households (10,000 people). CityHousing Hamilton (CHH) manages nearly 7,000 units in a total of 1,265 properties, housing approximately 13,000 residents. The 18-storey Ken Soble Tower, built in 1967, is the oldest high-rise building in CHH’s portfolio and a landmark on Hamilton’s West Harbour waterfront. Deferred maintenance, however, has resulted in disrepair and contributes to capital deficit.

Major considerations for CHH include:

• Renewal of existing affordable housing units;
• Ensuring quality living standards for tenants; and
• Astute management of capital and assets, particularly over the long term
   

Approach

Ken Soble Tower is one of two major CHH properties located in a Hamilton neighbourhood under redevelopment. CHH commissioned Deloitte to analyze the properties and to consider various options, such as renovation, or sale and replacement. After reviewing the Deloitte study and potential funding programs, CHH worked with ERA Architects to design a plan to renovate Ken Soble Tower to best-in-class standards for accessibility, energy efficiency and quality of life.

CHH chose to retrofit the Tower to meet EnerPHit Certification, a branch of the Passive House (Passivhaus) performance-based standard designed specifically for building retrofits. The project will provide residents with improved comfort, health and greater control over their indoor environments, and dramatically reduce the building’s environmental impacts.

In addition, the project will help to meet projected long-term growth in demand for affordable seniors’ housing by incorporating accessibility and aging-in-place principles. By establishing new community spaces and proposed partnerships with social service agencies, the project aims to support tenants, along with the surrounding neighbourhood.

The project also showcases an approach to retrofitting the thousands of apartment towers across Canada and around the world facing similar problems.

The project includes a significant research component. CHH, in partnership with CMHC, is documenting the energy and non-energy benefits of the project’s holistic approach. Other research partners include: The Tower Renewal Partnership; The Atmospheric Fund; University of Toronto; Transsolar; and Pembina Institute.

"Old buildings can be great places to showcase the value of new ideas."
– Sean Botham, CityHousing Hamilton Corporation

Health, Energy and Environmental Measures

Along with new plumbing and electrical systems, the project will install heat-recovery systems and direct ducting of fresh air into all units. Other retrofit tasks include:

• Apply air barrier to exterior brick topped by mineral wool
• Remove balconies to eliminate thermal bridging and reduce maintenance
• Seal fire-separation breaks found throughout all units

The project aims to decrease overall energy intensity by at least 70%, significantly reduce energy and maintenance costs, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 90%. Once construction is complete, the total energy required to heat or cool each unit will be equal to the energy required to run 3 incandescent light bulbs (100W). The project will qualify as one of only 10 high-rise retrofits registered with International PH Certification in the world – and the first in North America – and ties in strongly with Hamilton’s goals of design excellence, and financial and environmental sustainability.

Challenges

Building condition worse than anticipated

Despite the analysis conducted during the feasibility stage and subsequent investigations, the start of construction revealed additional areas of building deterioration. These included extensive mould growth, breaks in the fire separation between units and inadequate plumbing. Addressing these previously concealed problems added to the scope of work and to project costs.

Rising construction costs

Between design completion and start of construction, construction costs in the Hamilton region escalated at approximately one percent per month, an unprecedented rate. The addition of a sprinkler system, along with air conditioning (to adapt to climate change, and improve the health and comfort of residents), also increased costs, although to a much lesser extent. The project is now expected to cost significantly more than the initial estimate of $16 million. To cover the cost increases, CHH secured an additional grant and loans from funders.

Expected Results

The project will provide residents with improved comfort and control of their indoor environments, and the ability to withstand future extreme climate events. It also aims to support Canada’s climate change targets and to demonstrate the long-term financial advantages of reducing operational and maintenance costs.

Key Statistics: Before and After Construction

Lessons Learned

Balance assessment considerations and funding program deadlines.
Completing more thorough assessment of the building’s condition might have provided a more accurate understanding of project scope, but the time needed would have caused the project to miss the deadlines of funding programs. As a result, the project would not have proceeded.

Support for sustainability can inspire transformational change.
While it can be expensive to bring a building back online, the additional costs of incorporating features that improve energy performance and promote sustainability are relatively small, and can generate long-term savings on utilities and operations. Grants that cover the additional cost of high-performance enable transformative jumps rather than incremental change.

Contact

Sean Botham
Senior Development Project Manager
CityHousing Hamilton
(905) 546-2424 ext. 7620
sean.botham@hamilton.ca

Summary

Long-term savings in utility costs fund the major energy-efficiency retrofit of seven community-housing buildings, improving indoor air quality and comfort for 1,500 residents.

Context

Most of Toronto’s 2,200 community-housing buildings, built in the 1950s and 1960s, are in dire need of renovations.

To minimize energy consumption and environmental impacts, and to improve resident comfort and indoor-air quality, Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCH) partnered with The Atmospheric Fund (TAF), a regional climate agency that invests in low-carbon solutions. During a multi-year project, the partners retrofitted seven social housing buildings, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent and utility costs by 20 per cent. The project is part of the City of Toronto’s larger Tower Renewal strategy to revitalize aging postwar apartment buildings.

Approach

TAF and TCH signed an Energy Savings Performance Agreement™ to finance and implement comprehensive energy retrofits in seven TCH buildings. Verifiable long-term savings in utility costs finance the retrofits. TAF developed and posted a request for proposals that included design, implementation and verification of results. Montréal based Ecosystem Energy won the contract.

Design charrettes involved tenants, project partners, stakeholders and industry experts from the Tower Renewal Partnership, University of Toronto and National Research Council Canada. Significant research, including tenant surveys and on-site testing, informed the project. Tests revealed that inadequate ventilation systems produced airflows more than 40% below current building-code requirements. Uncomfortably warm indoor temperatures due to oversized and poorly controlled boilers caused tenants to leave windows open during winter, wasting energy.

The team installed energy-efficient equipment and monitoring technology, including smart thermostats and properly sized boilers. The retrofit doubled the volume of fresh air in the buildings, providing an immediate and noticeable improvement for residents. The replacement of leaky toilets also generated significant additional savings, while lighting retrofits improved public safety and wayfinding.

A resident-engagement program informed tenants about the project’s progress and taught them to properly operate thermostats. TCH plans further tenant engagement to showcase and celebrate energy-saving behaviour.

Through a partnership with Building Up, a non-profit organization that trains people facing employment barriers, the project hired 12 community members on a short-term basis. The workers assisted with installation and trained residents in proper thermostat use.

By integrating design and implementation, this project cost-effectively reduced energy consumption and GHG emissions, while improving tenant comfort and air quality."
– Bryan Purcell, The Atmospheric Fund

Transcript

Environmental Measures

High-efficiency boilers, motors and lighting

• Heat-recovery ventilation
• Low-flow faucets and toilets
• In-suite air-quality monitors and thermostats
• Gas-absorption heat pumps (for one building’s hot-water system)

Results

The project reduces utility costs by more than $500,000 per year and GHG emissions by the equivalent of 963 tonnes of CO2, and is expected to yield a 364% return on investment during the 10-year partnership. Supply of fresh air has increased by 75–100%.

Energy Savings by Building

Revised baselines and projections were adjusted for weather normalization of base year and operational changes (e.g. changes to thermostat settings, and in numbers of installed lighting and plumping fixtures, etc.).

Source: 2018 Environmental Results Report submitted to FCM pursuant to funding agreement

Lessons Learned

Finance retrofits by leveraging savings in long-term utility costs.
The 10-year agreement gave all three parties an ongoing stake in the project’s success. All three parties are motivated to solve any problems that arise.

Integrate project design and implementation.
A more typical approach to project design and implementation involves dozens of requests for proposals and contracts with numerous parties. This complicates contract management and accountability. Although integration requires additional time and effort during design and planning, it produces superior results.

Collect and analyze data before and after retrofit.
Preliminary research informed multiple aspects of the project. The fact that overheating resulted in the wastage of 20% of heat energy helped to make the case for installing in-suite heating controls, for instance. And the finding that leaky toilets accounted for 20% of total water consumption informed the decision to install ultra-low flow, leak-resistant toilets and fixtures. Continuous measurement and verification contribute to ongoing efficiency and potential improvements.

Engage with tenants before, during and after implementation.
Tenants represent an invaluable source of intelligence. Consulting with them during the design and planning stages helps identify what needs to be done and builds the goodwill needed to ensure the project’s successful implementation and ongoing operation.

Take advantage of economies of scale.
Aggregating multiple measures in seven buildings enabled the project to realize economies of scale for both professional services (design, commissioning, etc.) and construction (e.g. reduced contractor-mobilization costs). While some buildings were unlikely to generate the post-retrofit savings needed to justify the investment, bundling them together achieved the overall targeted return on investment.

Prioritize resident comfort and health.
Research conducted prior to the project revealed that rather than complain about high indoor temperatures, many residents simply open their windows, exacerbating temperature-control issues. Installing in-suite heating controls helps to maximize both comfort and energy savings.

Contact

Bryan Purcell
Vice President of Policy and Programs
The Atmospheric Fund
416-393-6358
bpurcell@taf.ca