Climate change and new builds

The City of Penticton is jumping on board a climate change plan to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from almost all new buildings being constructed in city limits.

Sue Kirschmann, director with First Things First Okanagan, made a presentation to members of Penticton council outlining the organization’s goal of having the City adopt policies to accelerate sustainable building policies and reduce municipal GHG emissions.

The City of Penticton “has a good climate action plan with a vision for the future” with specific steps identified to drastically reduce GHG emissions, said Kirschmann.

“The vision for Penticton’s buildings is they will be exceptionally energy efficient and powered, heated and cooled with 100 percent renewable energy,” she said.

Just under one-third, 32 percent, of the city’s GHG emissions come from buildings and 90 percent of that comes from the use of natural gas, she said.

This number won’t be reduced until the city further commits to using renewable energy sources rather than natural gas on buildings it approves for construction in the future, she said.

A Kelowna contractor that recently built the multi-level residential Skaha Shores development on South Main Street in Penticton has shown that it doesn’t cost more to build and heat all units with renewable energy, she said.

“They’ve been able to build near zero, multi-unit residential buildings at less than the cost of a standard building,” she said.

Just last month, the provincial government introduced a new program called Zero Carbon Step Code, which introduces new regulations to the established step code used by developers and builders across the province over the past several years.

“While the existing code addresses energy efficiency in existing buildings, the zero carbon step code is their carbon performance,” she said. “Carbon performance is essentially how much greenhouse gas a building emits in its day-to-day operations.”

The new code applies only to new buildings, both single family and multi--family residences.

This new code is available to communities effective May 1 and is optional at this point, although it’s expected to become mandatory in the near future, said Kirschmann.

“The province has mandated zero carbon performance by 2030,” she said. “But it hasn’t yet identified the steps to get there. There will be an announcement once they do so.”

The new step code will help with identifying the most efficient heating systems in new buildings, she said.

Penticton is presently in a building boom with 1,500 new residential units approved to begin construction and another 650 units in the planning stages, so instituting the new code will help reduce emissions in this structures, she said.

“If we take a bite out of Penticton’s emissions now, while we’re in a building boom, we can avoid costs down the road,” she said.

The benefits are lower heating costs for renters and higher home values for homeowners, she said.

Penticton would join 16 other B.C. municipalities that have adopted this new step code plan through adopting a supportive bylaw, she said.

Blake Laven, the city’s director of development services, said Penticton is a leader in the implementation of programs to reduce carbon emissions over the past several years and he expects that will continue.