Municipal Tools for Catalyzing Net-Zero Energy Development

The City of London, in partnership with the Cities of Kingston, Kitchener, and Waterloo will conduct a study to determine the technical, financial and policy feasibility of net-zero energy-smart community developments. Cities across Canada are looking for developers and builders to design and construct in more sustainable ways, yet this is a complex process for municipalities and developers alike. Net-zero community developments are more practical than they have ever been, but developers receive little incentive from municipalities for undertaking these initiatives, which often involve technical and financial complexities that can cause delays with municipal approvals processes, and which thus become dis-incentives against pursuing more sustainable construction. As a feasibility study, this project will explore issues that are technological, financial, and policy related. This study will identify challenges and opportunities, it will describe their context, and put forward strategies for their mitigation that are case sensitive. Specifically, this study will look at different technologies used in advanced energy-efficient buildings, and will assess which are feasible for widespread use today, what types of projects each technology is best suited for, and what technologies can best be used to help each of several building types to achieve net-zero energy performance. This study will also consider different funding and incentive models that can be used to offset the costs of including advanced technologies that will help attain net-zero energy on the community scale. Finally, this initiative will involve shadow-permitting discussions, where each participating municipality will contribute their understanding of what would be required in order for them to issue construction approvals for the projects they are studying. These discussions will be used to identify policy challenges and, as much as possible, proactive means by which those challenges may be resolved. The final report will include technical pre-designs, financial metrics and feasibility considerations for each of the eight sites, and municipal support tools and incentives to support their implementation. The greatest strength in this project is the partnership having multiple cities with two complimentary sites each, representing a variety of land types municipalities see in their projects: small and large (7 to 150 acres), a variety of uses, greenfield, brownfield, re-urbanization, and downtown infill. The project benefits from having a greatly increased pool of experience and resources within the project team, and the diversity of the project sites will greatly expand the impact of the results of this study. The pool of case studies that will be developed will be generally representative of most of the development scenarios that municipalities will typically experience, and will therefore provide a highly transferable and repeatable set of results. This study has potential to enable municipalities to catalytically transform the way development is done across Canada, by effectively enabling builders and developers to construct net-zero energy communities. The Cities of London, Kingston, Kitchener, and Waterloo each have distinct but complimentary energy objectives that will benefit from this collaborative project. Specifically, the City of London is guided through its “London Plan” and “Community Energy Action Plan”, Kingston with its "Kingston Climate Action Plan", and Kitchener and Waterloo with the “Climate Action Plan for Waterloo Region”. This project is tied to the West 5 project in London, which is presently being watched globally as the first example of a fully integrated net-zero community. (Project description from original funding application)