July 10, 2008

Miller says Toronto will move ahead with more LEED-H building

IAN HARVEY

correspondent

Moments after he dug the first ceremonial shovelful on Canada’s “largest green low-rise residential development” Toronto Mayor David Miller took a dig at the province for not moving quickly enough to incorporate LEED standards into the Ontario Building Code.

Setting LEED-H (for homes) “as a minimum requirement for any development in the city of Toronto is certainly something we’d like to do and want to so,” Miller told reporters as he and other politicians and developers participated in the launch of the $100-million Evergreen project, a mix of 206 low- rise townhouses and single family homes at Midland Avenue and St. Clair Ave. E. in Scarborough.

While he hoped the province would move faster to incorporate higher green standards into the Ontario Building Code, he said the city is prepared to go it alone if necessary.

“I would like to see them move faster, but we are exploring what we can do ourselves in the city,” said Miller, noting the announcement was timed to coincide with a high-profile Canada Green Building Council summit in the city.

“There are a couple of things to work out, but we’re moving forward.”

While Evergreen, a modest development across from Scarborough GO Station isn’t technically advanced or innovative in terms of energy efficiency, it is a huge step forward for residential construction, which has lagged LEED certification in the institutional, commercial and industrial sectors.

However, those 206 units will effectively double the number of LEED-H homes in Canada, says Miller, noting Evergreen is at the forefront of change. Buyers of the homes that range from $370,000 to $500,000 will save up to $900 a year in heating and cooling costs compared with similar lower-efficiency homes.

In fact, kick-starting the idea of an energy-efficient development was the dealmaker for the site, most of which had languished on Monarch Corporation’s books since 1997.

With the city of Toronto owning the adjoining parcels as part of its holdings from the now defunct Scarborough Expressway, there was some leverage for the city to push a green development.

With the city, through the Toronto Economic Development Corporation, on board, Monarch crunched the numbers to make the concept work on all the lands at the site.

“It isn’t a matter of just putting in better windows and tightening up on drywall,” says Brian Johnston, president of Monarch Corporation.

“We had to build a couple of homes in Kitchener to figure out how to do it and make it work. Now the trades are training their people on how to do this.”

Creating a knowledgeable pool of skilled trades is just as critical to the future of LEED-H as picking EnergyStar windows and appliances, low-flush toilets and high-efficiency furnaces, says Johnston. Monarch has also pledged to cut waste sent to landfill by 50 per cent.

Like the ICI sector, LEED-H awards points for each energy-efficient feature of the development, including cutting down waste of materials on site.

The Phase One development should be ready for occupancy by 2011 and by then, says Kevin O’Shea, Monarch project manager, green technologies such as solar panels may be more affordable for home buyers to add on as upgrade items.

From the outset, says O’Shea, the plan was to build homes with higher insulation values such as R25, plus one-inch exterior polystyrene foam with a masonry finish and higher air tightness for the building envelope.

Low-emission paints will be used along with a tankless water system, O’Shea says, adding he thinks this is the cutting edge of what consumers will demand as standard features going forward.

The details are just the start, agrees Johnston. “What’s also important is that this is repeatable. This is not being subsidized with public money.”

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