Homebuilders and representatives from the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) are about to take the first steps toward healthier housing guidelines.
On September 16, GVRD and CMHC officials will tout the benefits of “green” housing during a Greater Vancouver Homebuilders Association board meeting. Eventually, the meeting could lead to new environmentally friendly – or so-called green – housing standards.
“We’re planning for future generations in a way that we expect to be living right now,” said Helen Goodland, a senior adviser with the GVRD’s green building program in the authority’s demand-side management division.
Stressing that the plans are in the early stages, Goodland said the GVRD and CMHC want to determine builders’ market demands and concerns while also encouraging them to adopt more sustainable practices. No timeline has been set for introducing new guidelines, but it would be “nice to have something to show” for the 2010 Winter Olympics and other major events coming to Vancouver in the next few years, said Goodland.
Builders are concerned that new green housing guidelines will boost their construction costs and lower their profits. Goodland said the groups will address those concerns.
“There’s the environmental and social objectives, but you can’t do anything unless you have the economic objective first,” she said.
Initially, the groups hope to identify best practices that will allow them to act in everyone’s interests.
“What we don’t want to have happen is a number of different programs hit the marketplace at the same time,” Goodland added. “It’s confusing and it’s very difficult to navigate.”
The GVRD is examining how Seattle and Portland, Ore. – two cities with similar climates – deal with green housing, while also looking at green building programs in Calgary, Toronto and elsewhere.
“We like to think that other communities are modeling themselves after us,” said Goodland, an architect by profession.
Peter Simpson, chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association, said his board will likely endorse the GVRD’s and CMHC’s plans.
“The time has come to do it, and we just want to have something that would be welcomed by the industry – not rejected,” said Simpson, who has already met with Goodland and a CMHC official.
Young architects and engineers who were part of the “blue box generation” want more environmentally friendly standards, said Simpson, but new rules must still help a builder’s bottom line.
If the builders’ board agrees to work with the GVRD and CMHC, the next step will be to hold focus groups for builders.
