Green Building Standards Unaffected by Controversial Provincial Legislation, Toronto Says
The Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act was rushed through to approval June 3 without the typical public hearings and standing committee review. It drew opposition for provisions that some organizations said would strip municipalities of their power to enforce green building standards-rules requiring developers to design buildings in ways that conserve water and energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions, for example.
Cities like Toronto have relied on the Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act to support standards like its Toronto Green Standard (TGS). But that authority was based on a "grey area" of the provincial Building Code Act that was "generally interpreted to mean that if a building code requirement actively conflicts with a municipal bylaw, then the building code requirement takes precedence," Bryan Purcell, vice-president of policy and programs at The Atmospheric Fund (TAF), told The Energy Mix in May.
Organizations like TAF warned that Bill 17 risked undermining that authority by clarifying the grey area. With the new legislation, the Building Code Act now states that "certain sections of the Municipal Act, 2001 and the City of Toronto Act, 2006 do not authorize a municipality to pass by-laws respecting the construction or demolition of buildings."
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Alexandra Sanita, a spokesperson for Ontario's municipal affairs and housing minister Rob Flack, said in a statement to The Narwhal that the legislation "standardizes construction requirements and provides consistency, clarifying that no municipality has the authority to enforce a by-law that supersedes the Ontario Building Code."
"Through these changes, the City of Toronto's Tier 1 of the Green Building Standard would not be allowed as they mandate requirements for new development planning applications that go beyond the Ontario building code."
Tier 1 is a list of mandatory green building requirements. Other tiers, which set incentives but are not mandatory, would still be allowed.
But Toronto city staff later released an assessment of the Act's impacts. They determined that "there is no impact to the City's ability to continue to apply the TGS to new development."
When asked how the Act's impacts on other legislation, like the Municipal Act, might affect the TGS, the City told The Energy Mix it "cannot provide further comment on the topic at this time" because of legal action against the TGS filed last year.
Comments submitted to the legislature by the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) state that the new amendment does not change the legislative powers of the province to set construction standards, and that municipalities can pass by-laws in pursuit of economic, social, and environmental, including for climate change.
"Municipal action in pursuit of those listed goals, as long as they do not require specific construction standards, will not conflict or overlap with provincial authority," says CELA.
However, CELA criticizes other parts of the Act that limit cities' access to information about new buildings.
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