Kitchener joins elite group of Canadian cities in setting higher environmental standard for future buildings

KITCHENER - During its meeting last evening, city council took another major step forward in fostering a greener community by voting in favour of setting a LEED Gold standard for the construction of all future municipal buildings larger than 5,332 square feet.

The move by city council to raise the standard from staff's recommendation of silver to gold puts Kitchener is a very select group of Canadian communities.

"With this new environmental standard council is literally going for gold," said Councillor Berry Vrbanovic, who moved the motion to increase the standard from silver to gold. "From this day forward as we build new city facilities to meet the demands of our citizens we will also be keeping our eyes squarely on the environment we are creating for future generations."

Vrbanovic, who is also co-chair of the city's environmental advisory committee, recently returned from the GLOBE environmental conference, where green building was a topic of discussion and where last week the report of the Commission for Environmental Co-operation advisory group on green building was presented. The report called on the public and private sectors to make significant advances in green building as one of the quickest and cheapest ways to address climate change and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

LEED - or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - is the most recognized and accepted North American standard for rating the environmental friendliness of the design, construction, operation and sustainability of buildings. In the past year, the city has endorsed LEED certification on three major construction projects including: the Activa Group Sportsplex, the Consolidated Maintenance Facility and the Kingsdale Community Centre.

In addition to the LEED policy for new buildings, similar sustainable design and construction standards for renovation and retrofit projects in existing city facilities will be implemented on a case-by-case basis.

New city facilities will also be targeted for a 30 per cent reduction in energy usage on an annual basis.

The minimum sustainable standard will contribute towards lower demand for large-scale infrastructure such as waste transfer facilities, water supply and treatment infrastructure and their related development and operational costs. It will also contribute towards reduction in transportation development and maintenance and increased economic performance of transit systems.

Going forward, the city will also review its green building design and construction standards on an annual basis to ensure environmental consideration continues to factor into the planning of all future city-owned buildings.

An analysis was done to identify how many and which types of facilities would fall in this category at the City of Kitchener.

It was discovered that 42 of 143 -- or almost 30 per cent -- of the city's facilities have gross floor areas of more than 5,332 square feet. These include fire halls, community centres, pools, arenas, club houses, and operations facilities along with major facilities such as City Hall and the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex.

Background

Earlier this month, the city's finance and corporate services committee endorsed staff's recommendation to build all future city-owned and operated facilities of a certain size or larger to a LEED silver standard.

Since then, council weighed the benefits of increasing its policy from silver to gold and decided the move was feasible.

The list of new city initiatives comes in direct response to the feedback the city received in its Community Strategic Plan entitled A Plan for a Healthy Kitchener (2007-2027) as well as the recommendations put for by the city's environment committee in its report entitled Air Quality in Kitchener - 2006.

One of the action items in the environment committee's report directed staff to look into the implementation of LEED principles in the design and construction of future city facilities and into the retrofitting of its existing buildings.