Brightside Community Homes Foundation NZE Capital Project in East Vancouver

Brightside Community Homes Foundation (BCHF) is one of Vancouver’s largest and longest standing housing societies, providing over 940 homes for over 1,150 across the city. Of those residents, 70% are seniors, 20% live with a disability and the remaining 10% are families. In support of Vancouver’s Grandview-Woodland 2016 Community Plan for increased access of low- and moderate-income seniors and people with disabilities to city services and amenities, BCHF will build two six-storey wood frame apartment buildings in East Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant/Renfrew Heights neighbourhood. The apartment complex will consist of 36% deeply affordable units (i.e. 57 units at 50% of median market rate) for households under the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters (SAFER) program, and 64% market rental units (100), of comparable quality of finishing, to help offset the deeply affordable units.

The project, situated at 1425 and 1451 E. 12th avenue, will pursue Passive House certification through improved thermal envelope performance, with additional site features such as natural shading to reduce the risk of summer overheating. Serving predominantly seniors, the City’s Green Buildings Policy for Rezoning mandates a reduced allowance of 1% overheating risk, effectively limiting building overheating to 20 hours per year. An hourly energy modelling analysis will comply with this requirement. The building will also achieve a low window-to-wall ratio, triple pane non-metal frame glazing, and high efficiency mechanical and electrical systems. The combined measures significantly reduce both the heating and power demands of the project. Based off the energy model, FCM estimates that the building will achieve a 60 kWh/m2 net total energy use intensity (TEUI), which equals a 63% decrease in energy use and 95% decrease in GHG emissions when compared to a conventional building in the same climate zone.

Innovative aspect(s)

• This project will be one of the first Passive House affordable independent seniors’ rental project in Vancouver.
• The project will also be the first Passive House building in BCHF’s portfolio.

Replicability

• The organization will record the different stages of the projects’ construction, sharing the progress with the wider community. In addition to featuring results online, BCHF will share the project results with their funding partners and the larger sector through the Housing Central Conference and other speaking events.
• Throughout the redevelopment process, BCHF engaged neighbours and the wider community on the project and will continue to do so throughout construction and at completion via tenant and community surveys and interviews.
• The progress and outcomes of this capital project will help inform further initiatives with BCHF, as the latter has other energy efficient new build projects in development.

Affordability

• Strong commitment to deep affordability and accessibility for seniors under the SAFER program.
• Combining deep affordability with market rental to improve the long-term sustainability of the initiative.
• Given that utility bills are the highest monthly expenditure after housing for low-income seniors, this redevelopment will target Passive House to pass along savings to future tenants.