The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON)<\/a><\/span> is preparing a challenge to Toronto\u2019s Green Standard for new construction which lacks legal authority and undermines the provincial and national building codes, says RESCON President Richard Lyall.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re looking at a legal challenge on this,\u201d Lyall told Ontario Construction News. He said RESCON’s boutside counsel are preparing a claim to be filed in provincial court \u201cin another number of weeks. We haven\u2019t got an exact date, but we do plan to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lawyer for the outside firm did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have to pick a particular municipality,\u201d among the urban and rural districts in Ontario that have adopted or are developing green standards for new buildings, Lyall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is we\u2019re looking at Toronto. My understanding is that it is a novel argument but were trying to make a point.\u201d The Ontario Building Code Act is a predictable and uniform law \u201cthat must be followed.\u201d<\/p>\n
A city spokesperson said officials \u201care not aware of any legal action against the City of Toronto regarding the Green Standard,\u201d declining further comment.<\/p>\n
Lyall said RESCON, whose membership includes most of the province\u2019s residential; builders, questions whether individual municipalities have the legislative authority to affect higher than code conditions for building permit approval. \u201cWe\u2019d either like to see the building code enforced or the law changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got different municipalities going off in different directions and a lot of this stuff doesn\u2019t take into consideration our housing supply deficit and the effect it has on what we can produce.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that Green Standard provisions requiring developers to use certain vendors limits competition, impedes building and inflates development costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean to say we do nothing, but we\u2019ve got to prioritize some things here right now,\u201d Lyall said, suggesting as well that municipalities have set unrealistic timelines and are rushing implementation of green development standards.<\/p>\n
RESCON in a statement last year said the provincial building code takes precedence over all other legislation affecting the built form and technical construction details, \u201cincluding bylaws that are set by municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Planning Act and site plan control can be used by municipalities to regulate the look and character of a building, but they cannot be used to establish requirements for the physical construction of a building or materials.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is clear in the site plan control guide of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
National and provincial building codes are already working to make homes greener and more energy efficient, the statement said, noting that the federal Emissions Reduction Plan requires residential buildings to use 61 per cent less energy by 2025, and 65 per cent less by 2030.<\/p>\n
RESCON\u2019s potential challenge to Toronto\u2019s Green Standard comes as city council\u2019s infrastructure and environment committee late last month confirmed its support for a \u201crenewed focus and coordinated approach to climate resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee considered an update report on progress toward its Net Zero by 2040 target, one of North America\u2019s most ambitious, that showed emissions for 2021 were 41 per cent below 1990 levels.<\/p>\n
The council has set a goal of a 45 per cent reduction by 2025 and 65 per cent by 2030. The report shows city emissions tracking above all scenarios needed to reach the goals, leaving an \u201cemissions gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city\u2019s goal of net zero is at risk unless the city, other levels of government, residents and business support and invest in transformative actions,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
It notes that natural gas to heat buildings accounts for more than half of the city\u2019s GHG emissions and says accelerated timeliness now require any new building development application to be net zero by 2028.<\/p>\n
City owned developments are already required to meet net zero requirements.<\/p>\n
The TGS has been in force since 2010 with the latest version setting out an energy and emissions cap for new buildings 25 per cent to 30 per cent above the minimum requirements of the Ontario Building Code.<\/p>\n
Developers who build to the higher standards are eligible for partial rebates of development charges.<\/p>\n
The report says the uptake of rebates has dropped off partly due to market conditions and as a response it has initiated a 2024 study to review TGS buildings energy and emissions targets and construction costs.<\/p>\n
Toronto says its Green Standard is helping new developments reduce emissions by 15,000 CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) per year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Lewis Special to Ontario Construction Report The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) is preparing a challenge to Toronto\u2019s Green Standard for new construction which lacks legal authority and undermines the provincial and national building codes, says RESCON President Richard Lyall. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at a legal challenge on this,\u201d Lyall told Ontario Construction News. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,111,42,89],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-around-the-province","8":"category-contractors","9":"category-featured","10":"category-projectsopportunities"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13401,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394\/revisions\/13401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ontarioconstructionreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}