Mandatory tiered standards (Toronto, Whitby, Pickering)

• Tiered approach is the leading practice for driving energy, waste and emissions reductions.
• Based on a series of progressive measures updated at specific intervals to mandate higher performance.
• It also encourages the voluntary uptake of higher tiered performance measures through various financial mechanisms or incentives and prepares the market for upcoming higher performance requirements.

Point system, checklist or menu approach (Brampton, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Halton Hills)

• The point system: often selecting the easy points (low hanging fruit), not addressing GHG emissions, challenging for city staff review and verify and lengthy for the applicant.
• Historical evidence suggests that the uptake of non-mandatory standards is low
• Selection of metrics is decided by developers, climate metrics not getting the hoped for uptake (ex. building energy/GHG performance, LID, EV Ready)

Single Tier (Caledon)

• No points or 'levels', just one set of targets for which all requirements must be met.
• Metrics can be prescriptive with specific requirements in each theme or can be designed to provide an overarching target, with flexibility in how that target is achieved or a combination of both.
• Example - Caledon

Benefits of Mandatory Tiered Standards:

• Better at reducing GHG emissions
• Easier to align (metrics) with other GTHA municipalities
• Quantifiable and direct, which is simpler for the applicants and municipal staff to verify
• Increases transparency to development community on where the standards will go over time allowing the industry to build capacity for achievement of upcoming requirements.
• Encourages the voluntary uptake of higher tiered performance measures if there are incentives (doesn't always have to be financial incentives).
• Critical to support an overall industry shift to lower carbon new builds.

Pros and Cons of Offering a Prescriptive Pathway

• Thus far municipalities have been using a performance/objective pathway for the energy and GHGI metrics. Although the leading practice is focused on enhancing performance pathways-believed to boost performance and flexibility-there have been requests from the development community for a more prescriptive pathway. This demand appears to come primarily from low-rise developers rather than those working on high-rise multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs).
• Municipalities have adopted performance pathways to minimize conflicts between the Ontario Building Code (OBC) and the GDS. This approach helps ensure that construction requirements in the OBC are not contradicted, thereby reducing potential discrepancies with the GDS.
• If the OBC update does not incorporate the tiered system from the National Energy Code, it could lessen conflicts between the GDS and the OBC. The current conflicts arise from GDS requirements that may not align with OBC mandates.
• A prescriptive pathway could involve third-party verification systems, such as Energy Star, Passive House, or Net Zero Carbon, which have established processes for validation.
• It might also include general requirements, like achieving at least a 50% or 70% reduction in fossil fuel use for building heating.
• While the objective is to eliminate fossil fuels in new developments, a transitional phase may be necessary to provide flexibility, especially where electrical requirements could lead to higher costs. A hybrid model for low-rise buildings, such as using an air-source heat pump with a fossil fuel furnace backup and an electric water heater, could be a starting point. Additionally, encouraging all-electric scenarios might be beneficial, particularly if developers must cover fossil fuel infrastructure costs. Collecting data on the costs associated with this option could help identify challenges and foster collaboration with stakeholders to address these issues. This could also shed light on how subsidizing fossil fuel infrastructure contributes to its ongoing use for building and water heating.
• For stacked row homes, a prescriptive route might mirror that of low-rise buildings. For high-rise structures (over 100,000 sq. ft.), implementing a geo-exchange system for heating could be considered, although many existing geo-exchange buildings still rely on fossil fuels for water heating.
• Caledon is the first municipality to introduce a prescriptive option within its Part 9 GDS that establishes a minimum standard.