Green Housing Construction

From the Saturday, November 24, 2007, Toronto Star, New in Homes section, pages H, and H16, an article about green housing construction:

ECO-CONSTRUCTION
Lowrise bar hits new heights

Environmentalists argue there's still a long way to go, but a pair of subdivisions are on new turf for green building

Tracy Hanes
Toronto Star

The green building bar for lowrise subdivisions has just been raised.

Rodeo Fine Homes, a small custom builder, and Monarch, a division of the world's largest building company, have thrown down the green gauntlet with two projects in the GTA that they claim will represent firsts in Canada.

Rodeo's is the 34-house EcoLogic enclave in Newmarket and it aims to be the first all-LEED Platinum lowrise development. Monarch's is called Evergreen, a 196-unit LEED-H project on a former Scarborough brownfield.

Rodeo calls EcoLogic the "greenest housing development in Canada," while Monarch calls Evergreen "Canada's largest lowrise green residential community."

Both projects have also been developed in partnership - Rodeo with the Town of Newmarket and Monarch with the Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) - as leading edge examples of green building for other builders and municipalities to follow.

And while such claims are often derided as more image than substance, at least one leader of a prominent eco-conscious group has some nice things to say about these "green" housing projects - even if it's somewhat qualified.

"On the whole, (developments like these) are good, but we get into quibbles," says Chris Winter, executive director of the Conservation Council of Ontario - a province-wide association of groups and individuals dedicated to a healthy environment.

"One major issue is if you're talking about climate change an energy efficiency as priorities, the housing industry is still building sprawl, putting houses where you have to drive to get a bag of milk. They haven't got the full concept yet."

Residents of Rodeo and Monarch's new subdivisions are unlikely to go on foot for much of their shopping, but both projects score better than most new lowrise sub-divisions in terms of transportation. A bus route passes the entrance of the EcoLogic development and major recreation facilities and green space are close by. Evergreen will be a fairly easy walk from the Scarborough GO station, a bus to the subway and within an existing neighbourhood.

So while some will argue that the green bar must be raised further still, there can be some agreement that these projects are part of a new era, a change in direction.

"The whole green industry is new and everyone is trying to stake out their turf," says Vincent Santamaura of RN Design, lead architect the EcoLogic project. "What is green anyway? What brand is the market going to recognize? For us, it's a whole new journey."

"There is too much information, too many programs and it is creating a tremendous amount of confusion," says Brad Carr, Monarch Corp's senior vice-president, low-rise. "But that doesn't discount the need to push the envelope," he says.

Santamaura adds that one of the key challenges will be convincing homebuyers that by spending a little more upfront for a LEED house, they are buying a portion of all the energy they are going to use over 20 years at current prices.

"You're pre-buying energy at today's dollar . . . that's a fundamental concept that's hard to get through everyone's head," Santamaura says.

He says over the 70-year life cycle of a building, the capital cost - the purchase price - typically represents only 5 per cent of what it will cost to operate the building.

"But people don't spend 70 years in a home - they are going to have to see that in 10 years they will have added value to their home," Santamaura says.

Lenard Hart, a consultant on EcoLogic and co-creator of the Energy Starfor Houses in Ontario program during his former job as business development manager for the EnerQuality Corp., says LEED offers better choices for consumers.

"For me, this LEED platinum project is so far beyond anything I have ever been involved with, R2000 or Energy Star, but it feels like we are truly beginning to transform the way homes are built," he says.

"LEED looks at more than just insulation levels and furnace efficiency. It changes the way you build, promotes recycling on site, soil erosion controls, recycled materials, advanced framing and many other environmental advances that other programs do not cover."

He says while public education is important, the EcoLogic site "is such a leadership project that we are really appealing to an elite segment of very green consumers who are already quite well informed."

One hurdle is distribution of the materials needed for LEED homes.

"The products are out there, but it's the channels and pricing that are the challenge," Hart says. "We had to develope new channels. Builders have a fairly small circle of suppliers and we went to them first and made them part of the process, but asked them to bring in what we needed. That's part ofthe social transformation."

EdoLogic project hopes to achieve LEED platinum status by reducing household water draw by 25 per cent and reducing water discharge (effluent and storm water runoff), solid waste, greenhouse gas produciton and energy consumption by 60 per cent over conventionally built homes.

The site was part of the 36-hectare Stickwood-Walker farm, purchased by the Town of Newmarket in January 2003. The town developed a land-use plan that included the Magna Centre recreation complex, green space and heritage reserves and 160 residential lots, says Jason Unger, assistant director of planning.

Of the 160 lots, Menkes bought 124 for $16.1 million in August 2005: the town set two lots aside for Habitat for Humanity homes and slated another 34 lots for an environmentally progressive subdivision, based on public consultantion. Menkes offered to buy the 34 lots for $3.7 million if a suitable environmental developer did not come forward.

But Rodeo responded to the town's request for proposals and in January 2006, bought the 34 lots for $3.2 million with the condition that the developer had to achieve the stringent water use, waste reduction and energy-saving goals set by the town.

Two model homes, which should be completed next spring, will be learning vehicles for trades and building inspectors about LEED. Prices have not yet been determined for the detached homes.

Santamaura says a company like Rodeo is perfectly suited to tackle such a project. For one, it is a small, custom home builder that has had experience "tinkering" with new products that custom homeowners want. As well, a small builder can easily educate staff and quickly make changes.

Santamaura says that in three decades of green building, "it has taken 15 years for us to understand the building envelope, then 15 years working on mechanical systems and HRVs (heat recovery ventilators) and knowing how to design them for the right type of space. The final step is LED lighting, which we are just understanding now.

"For all us diehard advocates (of green building) we've been quietly trying to apply them for years and it's really great to be able to put all the stuff we've learned into a development," says Santamaura, who started his green building career in the 1970s, designing a super-insulated custom home for a Newmarket client.

The $100-million Evergreen development in the Midland and St. Clair Aves. area, to consist of 196 brick old Ontario-style singles, semis and townshouses, will be built to LEED-H, or basic, certification. All homes will meet Energy Star standards, construction waste will be reduced significantly and rainwater collectors will recycle runoff. The homes are to be ready for first occupancy in late 2008.

The goal is to demonstrate a green residential community can be economically viable and marketable, Carr says.

Monarch had owned five hectares of the site since the late 1990s and the City of Toronto oowned much of the land surrounding it. Carr says it was virtually impossible to get approvals as a result, but then the land reverted to TEDCO, the city's principal redevelopment corporation.

TEDCO operates at arm's length from the city, its sole shareholder, and has a mandate to pursue opportunities with a variety of public- and private-sector partners to restore derelict and vacant lands. It agreed to sell five hectares to Monarch, with the condition it build an innovative green community, makring the first time TEDCO has worked with a residential builder.

TEDCO CEO Jeffrey Steiner says fair market value was received for the land and TEDCO did its due diligence by obtaining two value appraisals and testing the market by tendering other lands nearby by confirming prices.

He says as the two properties were intermingled, it made sense to sell to Monarch and to share services such as roads, storm water management ponds and more. These economy-of-scale savings will be reinvested in the green aspects of the development.

Carr says Monarch is striving for basic LEED certification, not silver, gold or platinum, because the builder feels it is more effective to "reduce energy use by 15 per cent on thousands of homes," rather than achieving more dramatic reducctions on a small number.

He says it's important that Evergreen not be a "one-off" but something that's economically viable and repeatable" that could be built without government subsidies.

"LEED is very paper-driven and is a prove-to-me auditable process," Steiner says. "It's not just about how you build, but what you put in and about leaving the smallest possible footprint."

Steiner says the Evergreen site will triple the number of LEED lowrise homes in North America and the projet's results and know-how will be shared with the housing industry, including the GTA's BILD (Building Industry and Land Development Association).

Carr says part of the mandate was to keep the homes affordable. He says that's why, for example, the homes will use conventional natural gas heating, cutting energy consumption with efficient two-stage furnaces and extra insulation.

Priced from the mid $300,000s to $500,000s, Carr admitsthat "clearly not everyone can afford that, but in the City of Toronto, unfortunately that's where affordability is."

The Conservation Council of Ontario's Winter says there will be a market for the EcoLogic and Evergreen homes, as a recent poll shows homeowners are investing their own money in conservation practices. Some of them will want turn-key energy-efficient houses and "LEED is a very reputable standard and it's doing a tremendous job putting forth standards the building industry can work with."

He says one of the difficulties in bringing LEED standards to entire develpments is that it will require changes to planning standards that have been around for 50 years.