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In March 2009, the federal government introduced the $4-billion Infrastructure Stimulus Fund (ISF) to jump-start the economy following the global financial recession. Through the program, municipalities, provinces and territories, and the private sector can receive funding from the Government of Canada to help cover the costs of building new assets or renewing existing ones. Water and wastewater systems, roads and highways, and community services are some of the categories of infrastructure eligible for funding.

The government sought to select projects which were ready for construction and which would lengthen the life of existing assets. Consequently, stimulus funding serves to both revive the economy and renew public infrastructure. The federal government is committing up to 50 per cent of funding for provincial, territorial, and non-profit private sector assets and up to 33 per cent for municipal projects, most of which are funded by a joint agreement between the federal government, province or territory, and municipality.

Some projects have already been finished, while others are just getting started, yet they must be completed before the March 31, 2011 deadline to ensure receipt of all federal funds.

Federal Stimulus Funding by Province. Click for larger view.

Overall, this snapshot of only a handful of projects reveals how stimulus funding is benefiting communities and contractors alike from coast to coast. The ever-present question is, of course, what happens next? Click on the provinces below for a detailed profile of one stimulus-funded project.

• Alberta
• British Columbia
• Manitoba
• New Brunswick
• Northwest Territories
• Nova Scotia
• Nunavut
• Ontario
• Quebec
• Saskatchewan

Richard Joy with the Toronto Board of Trade (not pictured) rounds out the left side of our “roundtable,” next to (from left) Chartis’ Kellie Trotman, Giffels Constructors’ Ken Burns, Trow Global’s Graham Lancaster (obscured), Genivar’s Angela Iannuzziello, Dessau’s Terry Martins, and our presenter, Norm Anderson. Credit: Kerry Freek

“My intention is not to bore, but to provoke,” said Anderson in his introductory remarks. Our roundtable of heavy hitters was definitely not bored—they were fired up enough to question some of Anderson’s numbers. When RBC Capital Markets’ Duncan McCallum asked how he arrived at numbers showing increased infrastructure investment in the United States up to 2030 (he sees the percentage of GDP invested rising to three per cent), Anderson said his “hopeful” estimates are based on uptake of federal programs like TIGER and TIFICA, as well as Buy America Bonds and stimulus funding—not to mention what he considers to be an indisputable fact: “you can’t not provide people with reliable transit and clean water.”

Infrastructure spending declined since the 1980s in the United States from three per cent of GDP to just over one per cent. Even so, Anderson is convinced that infrastructure is the coming market—“I know why everyone’s trying to buy my business right now,” he said.

In terms of demand, China is the biggest infrastructure market in the world. There are also unlimited possibilities for Latin America—a space in which Canadian companies are already engaged. “You guys basically built Rio,” said Anderson.

The public sector is broke

Anderson went on to talk about the shifting roles of the private and public sectors. From the 1960s to 1990s, state investment was the main driver of infrastructure development. In the 1990s, privatization became more popular. From 2000-2009, public-private partnerships (P3s) picked up momentum in North America. In 2010, Anderson sees public, not private, leadership driving infrastructure development.

The public sector is once again providing a lot of the financing for projects—it’s also the sector with long-term vision, according to Anderson. Surprisingly, none of the mostly private-sector attendees took issue with that statement.

In addition to the public sector, Anderson said long-term vision is coming from engineers—they’re the ones who need to assure an asset is going to stand the test of time. “The engineering community has been shy about how to take a leadership role—50 or 60 years ago, they had much more influence.”

Carl Bodimeade with Hatch Mott MacDonald, self-described “money guy” CIBC’s Cliff Inskip, Morrison Hershfield’s Jim Lew, and Chris Tully, associate publisher of ReNew Canada

Financing models

Anderson said he sees the most underinvestment in the water/wastewater sector. “There’s an increased need for infrastructure, but no evidence of a funding source. The industry is looking for a new financing model,” he said.

WeirFoulds’ Brad McLellan, in a discussion about Canada’s increasing experience with P3s, asked “How do we get the public sector to better understand the private sector’s risk concerns, and vice versa?” He pointed out that contracts are now so airtight that there can be too much risk transfer to the private sector, making it a hard sell.

Ken Burns, with Giffels Constructors, said, “The public sector does not totally trust the private sector. The perception is that they’re making too much money.”

Even so, RBC’s McCallum said, “The more I look around the world, the more I realize we’re doing it pretty well here.”

From left : SNC-Lavalin’s Marni Dicker, Terry Martin with Dessau, and Norm Anderson.

Chartis’ Kellie Trotman said part of Canada’s success is the insurance solution to the risk. “We can assign a cost to the risk and then take that risk off the table.”

But Jim Lew with Morrison Hershfield said, “We’re talking nuts and bolts here, but the macro-issues are much more interesting. There’s a risk you wouldn’t insure, and that’s the risk to the engineering companies, financiers, et cetera, that put time and resources into a project only to see it cancelled.”

The new economy

We’re moving from a liquid to an electron economy and that, said Anderson, means massive opportunity for innovation. “We’re in for an increase in innovation like we haven’t seen for the last 50 years,” he said. He asked the group members how they think their businesses will change with the injection of knowledge into infrastructure.

Hatch Mott McDonald’s Carl Bodimeade said, “In Ontario, we’ve seen so many approvals under the feed-in tariff (FIT) program that it’s unbelievable. In fact, it’s been so successful that [the OPA] has had to lower rates. That’s one area where tech is being driven by leadership.”

Before committing to a full-scale soil recycling facility, Waterfront Toronto has awarded a contract for a smaller-scale recycling pilot facility. The goals of the pilot are to identify the range of treatment options and costs of remediating soil; to confirm that impacted soil can be treated to environmental standards set by the Ministry of the Environment; and to showcase treatment technologies. The chosen soil washing technology—which has been successful outside of Canada—will be applied by private Belgian company, Dredging Environmental and Marine Engineering (DEME), and primary bidder Tetra Tech Construction Canada.

Both companies are employing local resources to get the work done. The actual equipment, however, has been shipped in from overseas. Tetra Tech’s equipment arrived this month from Miami in neat, modular containers. DEME is using the same equipment it used to remediate the soil for the London Olympics site.

“It’s actually very cool,” says Waterfront Toronto’s David Kusturin.

Not so cool: the back and forth the organization has had with would-be technology vendor on this project, CleanEarth Technologies. The Halifax-based company was perplexed by promotional materials released by Waterfront Toronto stating, “This will be the only known soil washing-based pilot plant currently operating in Canada.”

Scott Conrod, VP at CleanEarth, says, “The biggest problem is they keep mentioning that soil washing isn’t something that goes on in Canada.” In fact, CleanEarth owns and operates the only licensed soil washing facility in Canada. Its soil washing process is unique to North America—it was recently featured as a best practice by Public Works and Government Services Canada. Among CleanEarth’s clients: Clean Harbours Canada, Canada Lands Corporation and NB Power.

A spokesperson for Waterfront Toronto says the quotation attributed to its president and CEO John Campbell that read, “by using state-of-the-art technologies and processes not currently used in Canada, we have the opportunity to turn contaminated soils into a resource instead of a liability” was a “typo” that should have read “not widely used in Canada.”

Waterfront Toronto has already responded formally to CleanEarth’s concerns. While Conrod maintains that the organization was well aware of what his company does, Kusturin says that because the bid came in 24 hours late, it was returned unopened. “We weren’t familiar with what they’ve done—we certainly haven’t seen it licensed in Ontario and we definitely didn’t have anything on them because we returned their package unopened.”

In fact, CleanEarth does have an Ontario Certificate of Technology, issued in 2006.

“Our proposal for the open bid did not arrive in time,” admits Conrod. “Our partner, one of the largest environmental consulting firms in Canada, didn’t submit the proposal on time. Their senior project manager pleaded with Waterfront Toronto to consider us within 24 hours of the late presentation. We reviewed its procurement policy with respect to late submissions and believe a technical proposal consideration for a late presentation could have been granted.”

Kusturin says, “Normally, we provide a bit of leeway, but the bid was a day late.”

Liz Peace, senior project manager of environmental services with CH2M HILL, which did not submit a bid, says, “The request for proposals (RFP) was, ‘come to us with whatever tech you want that will work,’ so I couldn’t comment on how the selection was done. I do know that because the project involved many different types of contaminants and soil, there are few technologies that can [be effective], so soil washing is a good option.”

Conrod says his company takes the same approach to soil washing as the winning bidder, but better. “We’ve optimized what soil washing is: we start with a wet system and our production rates are much higher than [DEC’s].”

Conrod believes Waterfront Toronto favoured DEC before it even released its RFP. “Foreign is somewhat sexier and the way to go, but we’re here and we exist,” says Conrod.

The spokesperson for Waterfront Toronto says, “We can’t pre-choose based on a public-sector model.” It was a complex procurement. The RFP went out internationally and, as Kusturin explains it, “there was a very rigorous analysis of all the bids we received.”

Peace says what struck her at the meeting she attended was how upfront Waterfront Toronto is being about the challenges of making its sustainability framework a reality. “They were very frank about the fact that this was a pilot project and the cost of dig and dump is less than what the soil washing would come in at.” They’re trying to commit to sustainability framework by that by conducting this soil recycling pilot as part of a Soils Management Strategy to determine the viability of treating and reusing impacted soils as an alternative to the dig-and-dump approach, but struggling with how to build in that extra cost.

As for the reasons behind choosing an international technology vendor over a Canadian firm’s similar technology: “We didn’t open that document,” says Kusturin. “If we had, who knows what would have happened.” 

HSBC Group—one of the first major banks in the world to become carbon neutral—just finished building its new LEED-Platinum software development centre, Discovery Green, in Burnaby. Credit: HSBC Group

“This issue is way too important for government,” said scientist and environmentalist Amory Lovins in reference to leading the transition to a low-carbon economy [back in 2004]. Peter Halsall, of Toronto-based consulting firm Halsall Associates, quoted Lovins at a recent pre-policy meeting at the Ministry of Environment’s Toronto offices.

In many respects, government is behind the private sector. Ontario’s proposed new Water Opportunities and Water Conservation Act is a prime example. It encourages clean water and selling infrastructure that promotes it, but in many buildings around Queen’s Park, employees aren’t drinking tap water because the government hasn’t removed the lead pipes from the building. “In the private sector, you’d be hard pressed to find a tenant that would take such a building,” says Chris Rickett, who is leading the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s (TRCA’s) Partners in Project Green, helping to “green the bottom line” at Toronto’s Pearson Eco-Business Zone.

The companies working with TRCA aren’t alone in their quest for sustainability.

Big retailers like Walmart and IKEA and manufacturers like IBM and GE are all flying the green flag, becoming masters of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by releasing not just public relations messages, but annual sustainability reports. At a recent session, TD Bank Financial Group’s Grant Bishop centred his entire presentation on how much TD cares about municipal sustainability.

The motivations behind a shift towards green standards aren’t often questioned when it comes from government, but are almost always met with suspicion when industry is the source.

But it’s often industry that has the will and ability (government often just has the will) to push change. When CSR heavy-hitters like Walmart and GE come together, the effect is a product like Motorola’s new Eco-Moto W233 Renew: a carbon-neutral, energy efficient, environmentally friendly phone, made possible in part because GE supplied the recycled plastic and Walmart committed to selling it.

The megastore announced in February that it would require its suppliers to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the life cycle of the products it sells. This was followed by a similar announcement from IBM in March that it will require its 28,000 suppliers in more than 90 countries to install management systems to gather data on their energy use, GHGs and waste and recycling. Those companies in turn must ask their sub-contractors to do the same if their products or services end up as a significant part of IBM’s $40-billion global supply chain. The suppliers must also set environmental goals and make public their progress in meeting those objectives.

Walmart’s measures are helping to build sustainable business practices. For example, it’s shaping the organic cotton industry to meet its demands.

According to its Global Sustainability Report for 2010, Walmart is buying renewable power, reducing packaging, reducing waste, making its fleet more efficient, and selling more sustainable products.

Halsall says, “With Walmart, a lot of what’s driven them is their access to sites. They realized that if they wanted to get into municipalities, they had to change.”

Should the credit, then, not go to government for having codes and standards in place? Not according to Halsall. “Policy is behind, always. Regulations move the bottom feeders. The private sector is where the leaders are.”

Case in point: Walmart’s policy is holding its suppliers to a standard beyond public policy. Under Ontario’s climate change legislation, for example, those companies aren’t required to implement GHG reduction strategies.

On an equally large scale, the Carbon Disclosure Project started as a small not-for-profit in 2000 and now 2,500 organizations in some 60 countries around the world use it to measure and disclose their GHG emissions and climate change strategies. These organizations are setting reduction targets beyond what’s demanded of them through policy.

Credit: HSBC Group

These leaders are being driven by what, exactly?

Rickett says, “The reasons why are different for each company. In Walmart’s case, the company is, no doubt, in need of some good PR. However, driving sustainability into their organization not only provides good PR for them, but also helps cut waste. By requiring their suppliers to reduce packaging and report on GHG emissions, they can drive down the costs of their goods, increase profits and, hopefully, reduce costs for customers.”

Companies like GE also have good reason to be green. “GE is in the cleantech business, so if it’s going to sell it, it needs to walk the walk,” says Rickett.

Rickett says the fact that GE’s Ecomagination program is resulting in big financial returns for the company “illustrates that sustainability can result in not only reduced operating costs, but new business models and opportunities.”

Halsall believes this drive for change is coming from a sense of duty to future generations. “Our smartest clients can’t connect net with results—it’s not like buying a building and then watching the value go up. Their moral compass is telling them if they don’t act now, in five to ten years their kid is going to ask them why they didn’t.” Do people there really believe they have a moral obligation to protect our planet for our children? “You’d be surprised,” says Halsall.

Survey responses certainly back his point. People might not be buying everything green, but they’re at least saying they’re willing to buy environmentally-friendly products if it means doing what’s right. According to a study conducted by National Geographic and international polling firm GlobeScan in 2009, avoidance of environmentally-unfriendly products, a choice that is not necessarily motivated by cost savings, is up among consumers in six countries. The annual study measures consumer progress toward environmentally sustainable consumption in 17 countries around the world. The index includes the purchase and/or avoidance of specific products for environmental reasons, the preference for reusable consumer goods over disposable products, willingness to pay an environmental premium, recycling practices, and the number of large appliances. Canadians rank at around 46 per cent on the index. The general range is from 40 (Americans) to 60 (Indians) per cent. Most percentages increased over the 2008 survey.

Whether or not these results are translating into dollars, the flavour is out there. When people are saying they’re buying green, it means they respond to a company marketing itself as such.

Halsall argues that if Walmart is protecting its brand, or looking for good PR, it can only be in response to this shift in public perspective. That’s something government should clue into. “Government should get with the program, find out where the mob’s going, and jump in front,” says Halsall.

Of course, not all mob members are running in the same direction. “Like anything in life, there is a spectrum of support,” says Rickett. “Some companies get it and are driving sustainability deep into their organizations, then there’s a big mushy middle that are starting to get it and focusing on the low-cost opportunities, and then there’s another small band of those that don’t care.” For its part, TRCA is focussing on the mush. Some of those companies have now moved to facilities that are completely powered by renewable energy, others have developed closed-loop systems for manufacturing, and many are turning their sustainability efforts into new business opportunities.

Rickett says that the key for those companies is understanding that sustainability isn’t just about reducing costs, it’s about identifying new ways to make money. “Admittedly, no company is perfect; they all still have warts,” he says, “but reporting on those warts and acting to improve them is all part of the journey towards sustainability.”

The crown corporation has also developed a P3 screen checklist to assist other levels of government in determining if their infrastructure project is a good candidate for alternative financing procurement.

We asked professionals with varied backgrounds to answer some questions about PPP Canada’s methods and its place in the infrastructure industry.

Participants:

Paul Moist, National President,
 Canadian Union of Public Employees

Kevin Mercer, Hampton Consulting Group, 
Clean Water Path Division, and 
Green Municipal Fund Peer 
Reviewer for FCM

David Wright, Director PPP Solutions, 
Director of the Commonwealth 
Business School, Centre for 
Public Service Partnerships

PPP Canada’s Corporate Plan states: “There is a need to educate key decision-makers on the fundamentals and value of P3s. There is also need to enable P3 practitioners with the knowledge and tools needed to identify structure and execute effective P3s.” Is PPP Canada helping to educate decision-makers?

David Wright: Proper transfer of knowledge on P3s can only be delivered effectively in-ministry or in-company. My international experience shows that open workshops, training courses or conferences never lead to measurable improvements in organizational delivery. P3 programs still take far too long and cost too much in advisory fees and opportunity costs. There is a better way.

Paul Moist: The education and information PPP Canada provides should be objective and balanced—but that doesn’t appear to have been the case so far. Earlier this year, PPP Canada co-funded a Conference Board of Canada report on the Canadian P3 experience, along with provincial P3 agencies and other industry groups. Far from providing decision-makers with a balanced perspective, the report was astoundingly one-sided, cherry-picking favourable P3 examples and glossing over or excluding P3 criticism and failures. The report makes claims about efficiency and cost savings based entirely on Value for Money reports produced by provincial P3 agencies, the validity of which were recently strongly criticized by Canada’s Auditor General. The Conference Board report ignores these valid third-party critiques.

Kevin Mercer: The “need to educate key decision-makers on the fundamentals and value of P3s” reflects PPP Canada’s role as a policy instrument of the government rather than an agency in alignment with the ultimate users of its services, the provinces and territories, their municipalities, or First Nations. To “educate” policy makers assumes that the policy makers of the governing body wish to have PPP Canada engaged in (directing) their process. Does this reflect PPP Canada’s role as the federal government’s strong arming of those who need federal funding for infrastructure capacity building or for the maintenance of infrastructure? PPP Canada’s knowledge and tools might be viewed through a more lenient prism if the government was more transparent, which it’s not. It seems the goal of the federal P3 agency, its rules, and its processes are to further federal policy priorities rather than provincial/territorial policies.

Canadian municipalities represent a significant potential market for P3s, with construction capital expenditures in 2008 estimated at $15 billion. Will PPP Canada be able to effectively help grow this market?

PM: PPP Canada’s own corporate plan acknowledges some of municipalities’ key concerns with P3s: the complexity and cost at the procurement and contract stage—issues felt most acutely by small communities; the long-term expense of higher private-sector financing costs; the erosion of in-house expertise and capacity; and the need to maintain and upgrade existing infrastructure. I would add concerns about transparency, loss of local control and the inflexibility of multi-decade deals. These are all structural problems that can’t be fixed by simply adjusting the P3 model. CUPE is concerned that the federal government is imposing this flawed P3 model on municipalities. While the federal government suspended its P3 screen requirement to get stimulus spending out the door quickly, it may reappear when that spending winds up in 2011.

KM: What portion of that construction capital expenditure is directly tied to federal government management? Therein lies the answer. PPP Canada will be able to grow the influence of P3 engagement where it controls the purse strings, but there is some question about whether provincial/territorial goals for infrastructure that don’t align with federal policies (climate change adaptation programming for example) would be unlikely to benefit from PPP Canada’s expertise.

Issues of cost, complexity and uncertainty of bid processes have been raised by many private sector players. Bid costs for P3 transactions can be significant. Are there opportunities to simplify and standardize processes and documentation to reduce cost? Can PPP Canada help with that process?

DW: There are two main reasons for high transaction costs for both public and private sectors. Public sector officials don’t have the skills necessary to scope projects, and therefore can’t manage the different type of procurement or the advisors they appoint to help them. Also, advisors tend to complicate the process, thus increasing client dependence. Standardization can go some way to demystifying and simplifying the process, but much of the work is done in the project-specific, non-standard areas. PPP Canada can help first by adapting international best practice with possible standardization and second by insisting on properly accredited training of public officials.

There are some in the industry who are not in support of P3s because they contend that contracts tend to go to non-Canadian firms. Is there a role here for PPP Canada to encourage Canadian firms to work as part of consortia?

DW: In my experience Canadian firms have picked up many of the P3 contracts in Canada. In some sectors where there might not be homegrown experience, the best approach for Canadian firms is to partner with overseas firms with relevant experience. They will learn new skills and will then be able to win contracts on their own or with partners as suits them.

PM: Canadian firms that once were direct contractors on design-build projects now must entangle themselves in complex and risky consortia structures as sub-contractors to giant multinational firms—if they get the work at all. A typical consortium includes corporations that are financing the project, as well as corporations charged with maintaining, operating or managing the infrastructure after construction is complete. Construction firms find themselves dealing with a host of legal and accounting middlemen, instead of the relevant public authority.

PPP Canada says it will “seek opportunities to bundle projects and municipalities” to make P3s more appealing to investors. This super-sizing of infrastructure projects will freeze small and medium-sized construction firms out of even more opportunities. Trade talks with the European Union could make matters worse. The EU is demanding access to all Canadian sub-national purchasing and contracting—a move that would prohibit government policies and actions favouring local businesses.

KM: The goal is supposedly market efficiencies, not restriction of competition. That being said, this federal government does not have a record of supporting Canadian capacity building. Instead, this government utilizes a no-market winners strategy (leading Canadian companies in the Canadian market) to drive competition through foreign investment.

Should Canada be encouraging more P3s?

PM: Canadian municipalities do have significant infrastructure construction and maintenance needs. But municipalities can find public solutions. Recently, an independent analysis of the business plan for Victoria, B.C.’s Capital Regional District sewage treatment needs found that public operation was $116 million cheaper than a P3. CRD directors have voted to keep the five of seven new sewage plants public, and to keep public options open for the remaining two.

KM: Certainly. P3s are an acceptable mechanism for the achievement of policy objectives where shared fiscal responsibility is one of the objectives, but not the sole objective.

Ontario’s Blind River is the world’s largest commercial uranium refinery. Credit: Cameco

After a decades-long hiatus, the nuclear industry is gearing up for a renaissance.

Predicated by two catastrophic nuclear incidents—Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986—this hiatus led to a moratorium on new nuclear reactors in the United States and a construction slowdown worldwide. It also changed how many countries operated their nuclear industries.

Ahab Abdel-Aziz, a lawyer who specializes in nuclear energy and a partner with Heenan Blaikie LLP in Toronto, says, “After these events, many European and North American countries changed their regulatory standards and processes, and their processes for approving new nuclear reactors.” The changes, driven by the social policy implications of those nuclear incidents, resulted in regulatory delays and corresponding high-cost overruns for developers.

Abdel-Aziz says unlike European and North American countries, Asian countries like Korea, Japan, and China have regulatory systems that provide a high degree of predictability and certainty. “At the outset of the regulatory process, a vendor or proponent in one of these countries will know how long the regulatory process will take, when they can expect approval for their project, and what the regulations are governing the construction, commissioning, and operation of a nuclear reactor.”

As a result, these countries are able to build reactors on time and on budget—and when the average price of a reactor in today’s dollars starts in the range of US$5 billion per reactor and can take several years to build, time and money are infinitely important. “This gives Asian countries a competitive advantage in their domestic programs and is beginning to help Korea and Japan build momentum when competing in the global market,” says Abdel-Aziz.

Since Canada took its first step into that market in 1942, Atomic Energy Canada Limited (AECL) has built 22 nuclear reactors in Canada, 18 of which are still operating. Outside Canada, AECL has built 11 reactors—but hasn’t sold a new reactor in years. Most recently, AECL has struggled to keep the refurbishment of New Brunswick’s  Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station on track. As of February, the project was about 16 months behind schedule.

Now that the global market for nuclear is heating up, there’s some uncertainly at the federal level as to whether AECL’s structure as a Crown corporation best equips it, its employees, and ultimately the Canadian nuclear industry, to participate fully in the expanding global nuclear industry.

In 2007, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) began a review of AECL to determine its future and concluded that AECL should be restructured and its business model revised. In 2009, NRCan invited investors to submit proposals for AECL’s CANDU Reactor Division. Then Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt said, “AECL’s CANDU Reactor Division needs strategic investors to take full advantage of this opportunity, strengthen its global presence and reduce the financial risks carried by taxpayers.”

“This is an issue of industrial policy,” says president of Macquarie Capital Funds Canada, Michael Bernstein. “Should the government be subsidizing this industry?”

If AECL’s CANDU Division isn’t lucrative—either because it’s too expensive to run or the technology isn’t world-class—then the federal government may be looking to unload an albatross.

According to NRCan, successful participation in the commercial reactor business requires global scale to leverage AECL’s technology, skills, experience, and capabilities—hence the restructuring. The government is currently in negotiations with a short list of bidders.

Neil Alexander, president of the Organization of CANDU Industries (OCI), says that not knowing which companies are on the short list or what their intentions might be is causing some concern in the nuclear industry.

“It’s important, regardless of the outcome of the government’s restructuring plans, to keep the CANDU technology here in Canada. We would like to see the new organization keep the team of scientists and engineers and the intellectual property in Canada. The CANDU technology is uniquely Canadian and it is a good technology that can compete effectively in the world market,” says Alexander.

The nuclear industry has in the past had considerable impact on the Canadian economy, in terms of GDP, employment, and government revenue.

Based on investment data collected in 2001 on two 720-megawatt-capacity CANDU 6 reactors and updated to 2005 dollars, the construction of a pair of new reactors either for domestic use or for export could create $5.973 billion in GDP generated by investment in two CANDU 6 reactors and $1.03 billion in GDP generated by export of two CANDU 6 reactors.

The McMaster Nuclear Reactor began operating in 1959 as the first university-based research reactor in the British Commonwealth. Last May, the University received $38.5 million in joint federal/provincial funding under the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, towards upgrades to thereactor and the Nuclear Research Building. Credit: McMaster

Government revenue resulting from construction of two CANDU 6 reactors would be $1.604 billion and government revenue resulting from export of two CANDU 6 reactors would be $260 million.

Employment created in Canada by nuclear power plant operation would be 66,694 jobs and employment created in Canada by export of uranium would be 4,898 jobs.

As the world’s largest producer of uranium, Canada profits from more than just the sale of its CANDU technology. Saskatchewan mines provided about 21 per cent of the global supply of uranium in 2008, and Canadian uranium is used exclusively for the generation of electricity at nuclear power plants. Depending on the outcome of the restructuring of the CANDU Reactor Division, Canada’s uranium industry could be impacted.

Provided that AECL continues to operate and refurbish existing CANDU reactors and build new CANDU reactors, both domestically and internationally, there will be a market for Canada’s high grade uranium. According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute’s report entitled The Canadian Nuclear Industry: Contributions to the Canadian Economy, released in June 2008, “annual worldwide demand for uranium use for electricity generation will increase for several reasons, notably the fuel requirements of the 27 new reactors presently under construction worldwide.”

If Canada gained a competitive advantage in the global market, not only would the country see an increase in these socio-economic benefits, but a renaissance in the nuclear industry could provide Canada with a great opportunity to transition its displaced autoworkers in central Canada, where the country’s nuclear industry is primarily located, to the nuclear industry.  “Already, there are some displaced autoworkers performing jobs in the nuclear industry,” says Alexander.

But some professionals already working in the nuclear industry are worried that this “restructuring” is essentially a complete sale; a privatization of the CANDU division that will make it difficult for Canada to compete in the global market.

While Alexander agrees that it’s important that projects like this are sold by “statesmen-like people,” he says that regardless of how this restructuring plays out, governments will continue to assist any company that has a stake in the CANDU division. But he doesn’t make light of the restructuring, saying the federal government’s next step affects the entire industry. “It needs to be done and it needs to be done soon, but it must also be done right.”

Diane L.M. Cook is a Calgary-based freelance writer and editor.

A proposed design intervention along Twelfth Avenue, along the north side of the Victoria Park, will be one of the first initiatives in the Regina Downtown Neighbourhood Plan—the Saskatchewan city’s first-ever master plan. Credit: Office for Urbanism.

Regina: building it up

“Regina has never had a master plan before,” says Mayor Pat Fiacco. “Before this, everything was done on an ad hoc basis.”

What’s so great about a plan? For starters, it’s hard to put a budget together without one. “Most municipalities attempt to be strategic, but budget pressures make that very hard,” says Fiacco.

Two years ago, the City brought in Toronto-based Office for Urbanism to start creating a master plan for the downtown, a process that engaged councillors, the city planner, civil engineers, and members of the business community.

One of the plan’s many proposals is a $386-million entertainment facility that would be built across the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks in a space currently filled with shipping containers. New public spaces would be developed around the entertainment facility. The area would link to the downtown via three new pedestrian connections, including one bridge that could become a destination itself. The intention is that the area would be busy every day, not just event days. The report notes opportunities for mixed residential and commercial development near the facility.

“This has so much spin-off for other redevelopment,” Fiacco says. Already, the master plan has prompted developers from outside Regina to come to the City with plans for residential towers and commercial space. Office for Urbanism’s Jennifer Keesmat says Regina’s master plan took the city from having a very weak regulatory framework to a very strong one, something that actually attracted developers, rather than turned them away. The city has had interest from Vancouver and Toronto developers because they see the promise of an environment where quality will be expected.

The interest came, according to Fiacco, because the City has a plan that shows developers what the outcomes are going to be and why they should invest. The City saves developers time and money by telling them what’s expected of them in the areas that are open to development—and what they can expect in return. Namely, quality neighbouring developments that have been held to the same standards.

Fiacco says, “Council has to have the courage to create that partnership with the developers—to work with the developers and collectively come up with a solution knowing the rules of engagement.”

It also takes courage to put a price tag on all of this growth. Fiacco says council has to make a decision on where the financing comes from for various projects. Some comes from the taxpayers, and some come out of new development fees. For example, a development on South Regina’s Harbour Landing is generating revenue that will go towards the downtown redevelopment.

Brantford: tearing it down

Recently, the city of Brantford, Ontario announced its plans to demolish and remove 41 structures from the south side of downtown Colborne Street. The structures themselves date from 1850 to 1915 with the section stretching from 115 to 139 Colborne comprising one of the longest surviving collections of pre-confederation buildings in Canada. You can almost hear Toronto architect Les Klein saying, “Think of the embedded energy!”

Can the buildings be salvaged? An environmental assessment is currently underway as a condition to getting $1.38 million from the federal government for the demolition. That may provide some answers.

Certainly, something needs to be done in this dying—or possibly dead—neighbourhood. As of August 2009, vacancy rates along Colborne Street are more than 40 per cent, with the southeast corner around Queen and Colborne Street supporting the greatest number of vacant buildings. Official records from a recent meeting chaired by Brantford Mayor Mike Hancock say, “Although vacancy rates in downtown Brantford are high (approximately 20 per cent) relative to the rest of the city, it is particularly apparent along Colborne Street. Where at-grade vacancies exist, the overall perception created is one of blight, which is a discouraging sign for potential future [development].”

The feeling among city staff is that the high vacancy rates and deteriorating condition of the buildings set for demolition undermines the city building efforts and financial commitment of Harmony Square and its adjacent buildings and is a “major impediment” to the redevelopment of the downtown.

And the expropriation is part of an official downtown master plan—a plan that won the OPPI’s Award for Planning Excellence in 2009.

In March, the City ran a design workshop for that section of Colborne Street. Sandra Lawson with the City’s engineering and operational planning department says part of the public meetings and workshops was deciding what new developments would best fit in the soon-to-be vacant spots. Options include a YMCA, a sports complex in cooperation with Brantford’s two university campuses and a local college, and a residential development proposed by Wilfred Laurier University. There’s also speculation about a riverside corner lot being filled with condos.

Lawson says the planning department will put out a request for proposals once all the public consultation is done. She, along with other city officials, seems certain that developers will jump on the opportunity to build on open land that’s in the downtown core and overlooks the river.

Fiacco says vacant land will be developed as long as a city has a thoughtfully developed plan. “You have to know what kind of a downtown you want first,” he says. Years ago, a number of vacant buildings in Regina were demolished with the same intention to attract new development. They stayed as surface parking lots.

Keesmat, who worked on Regina’s master plan, adds that an area plan needs to take adjacent areas into account. “The trap with planning is to think on a site-by-site basis without considering context or connectivity to larger things like transportation.”

Lawson says Brantford’s master plan has taken context into consideration. “There’s already excellent transit in Brantford’s downtown,” she says, “and a [class] environmental assessment is currently underway to look at taking Colborne and Dalhousie from one-way to two-way streets to promote more business in the downtown.” Philips Engineering (recently merged with AMEC) is doing that study and should have a good idea by this summer of whether a two-way road conversion is feasible and, most importantly, what it would cost. There are also plans to expand inter-city transit with new GO buses by 2012.

At its peak in 1950, Detroit, Michigan was the fourth-largest city in the United States, but its population is shifting to the suburbs, leaving behind abandoned structures and broken down neighbourhoods.

Detroit: autos to agriculture?

If Waterfront Toronto can return marshland to the West Donlands, Detroit can go from urban to semi-rural. The rumour circulating is that the City, which plans to demolish 10,000 residential structures by 2014, will convert 140 square miles (363 square kilometres) of land from empty buildings to fruit trees and vegetable farms. The city that once defined industrial land as an auto industry hub would become pockets of urban space in a green, semi-rural landscape.

Don’t get too excited. A spokesperson for the City says a land-use plan is in the very early stages of development and, while they are “open to hearing proposals from any group,” no official plan is in place.

The City certainly can’t exist in its current state. Detroit has 78,000 vacant houses (nearly one in five), and with population likely to be down around 700,000 by 2020, it doesn’t look like they’ll be needed.

Detroit’s mayor, Dave Bing, has been lobbying Washington for support, and in January, Detroit was awarded $40.8 million for renewal work. The federally funded Detroit Housing Commission supports Bing’s plan.

In his March 23 State of the City Address, Bing said the plan to demolish 10,000 “dangerous residential structures” is the first step in a process to work out a better use for those 140 square miles. “The harsh reality is that some areas are no longer viable neighbourhoods with the population loss and financial situation our city faces. This is about determining what areas of our city are best suited for residential use, commercial and industrial businesses, parks and green space.”

While they’re considering proposals from park space to urban food production, the City is nowhere near ready to go rural. A spokesperson for the city says, “Private companies [like Hantz Farms] that are trying to work with the City to develop farmland are using the media to get the word out about their ideas.”

Barriers to building range from governmental permits and approvals (zoning, planning, environmental), land acquisition, site inspections (geotechnical and environmental), title searches, First Nations consultation, and financing.

Depending on the nature of the issue, some of these risks can be allocated to a contractor, but there may be a significant cost in this risk transfer. While each situation is different and must be carefully examined, owners should review with their project team the best method of dealing with some of these issues. From the contractor’s perspective, a number of these issues are beyond their control and certainly beyond what they would normally expect to price.

Tendering

Before a contract is even negotiated, it’s critical to choose the right participants. Traditionally, an owner chose an architect or engineer through use of references and through developed relationships. The owner, through the architect or engineer, would then develop tender documents and choose the contractor based on submitted bids. However, with the many new delivery methods comes a variety of new methods for choosing the various members of a project team.

First, the owner has to decide whether or not a formal tender process suits the needs of the project. In the case of government institutions, that decision may be regulated by law. For example, most significant Canadian government purchases are, because of obligations in national and international trade agreements, specifically required to be conducted as competitive open procurements.

For those organizations which don’t have a legal obligation to conduct public tenders, the first question is whether a formal tender process is more advantageous than sole sourcing the project’s needs.

In determining the best approach, an owner has to consider the time, cost and risk associated with a given process. These considerations will include the need for thorough identification of the goods or services being purchased, the preparation of detailed documentation, responding to questions received from bidders during the bid process, and the formal evaluation of bids and an award of contract.

Owners may also have policy reasons to use formal tendering processes, especially when an owner must maintain neutrality in the selection of a supplier. An open tendering process theoretically ensures that the successful bidder is selected through a formal evaluation of published and transparent criteria. This method reduces the likelihood of allegations of favouritism or bias and reduces the risk of disputes or complaints.

The other extreme is the time-tested method to arriving at an agreement: negotiation. In between, there are myriad alternates that can be defined by the owner.

Legal ease: when to make an addition to your team

A contractor and consultant are brought in upfront without hesitation. A more difficult decision is when to involve a lawyer.

Historically, many parties waited until the end to bring in the lawyer and paper the deal.  While many of these pre-construction issues don’t need a lawyer’s involvement, a number of clients bring in a lawyer at an earlier stage. While it’s true that the terms and conditions of the various agreements between the parties are the central focus, lawyers can assist even at that early conceptual stage, as they can bring their experience to many of the early issues. Considering the multitude of contractual issues that can arise before a contract is ever signed, it’s important to take the time in that early stage to work out the details. Unfortunately, contract review is often left to the last minute, leaving no time to address what some parties may see as major issues within a contract before starting construction.

There are many ways to deliver a project, but there’s no substitute for early planning.  Avoidance of some of the many potential project barriers can only occur if an owner follows best practices and deals head on with these barriers. Hoping that problems will solve themselves usually leads to project failure. Involving the right people at the right time can mitigate, or even eliminate, some of these problems. 

Doug Sanders is a partner with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in the firm’s Vancouver office and Geoff Stenger is an associate in the firm’s Calgary office. Doug is also co-author of the text “Practical Law of Architecture, Engineering, and Geoscience: Canadian Edition” (Pearson: 2007).

City staff say conflicts arise with telecoms because they want to do a job "cheap, shallow and fast." Credit: Todd Latham

The municipal right-of-way (ROW) in Canada is more crowded than ever. A single ROW—a public road or corridor in a municipality—may contain the wires, trenches and ducts of multiple private utility companies. In the face of growing public demand for improved services, it has become increasingly difficult for municipalities to effectively manage the use of the ROW without losing money. A variety of cooperative tactics, along with new and increasingly balanced federal guidelines, are helping to ensure that both public and private interests are protected.

Much of the current ROW overcrowding is a result of the 1997 deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Municipalities were flooded with requests from private telecom companies wanting to make cuts in the ROW to install individual telecom ducts.

“New companies wanted to tear up the streets,” says Peter Judd, acting city engineer for the City of Vancouver. “We realized we needed a system for managing and coordinating access.” The federal Telecommunications Act provided this framework, giving the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the power to regulate the telecommunications industry in Canada.

The CRTC issued a set of regulations that stated several key rules. Among them: telecommunications companies must be given access to the ROW, municipalities must approve this access, municipalities may only collect “causal costs” from telecoms, and no revenue may be collected for the private use of the ROW. These rules were solidified in 2001, when Vancouver challenged construction company Ledcor (which has a telecom division) in an attempt to collect revenue for use of the ROW, and lost the case in a landmark CRTC ruling.

“All the big battles were fought a long time ago,” says David Ailles, managing director of development approvals for the City of London. “The Ledcor ruling means that all we can recover are causal costs. We can only ask them to pay their fair share, and that can get complicated really fast.”

Much confusion has been avoided thanks to the introduction of Municipal Access Agreements (MAAs). Though they’re drafted individually by each municipality, most MAAs are fairly similar and serve the purpose of establishing in advance who will pay for various aspects of installation, relocation, management and administration of the telecommunications equipment in the ROW.

Despite the widespread use of MAAs, problems still arise between private companies and municipalities thanks to the massive grey area that still surrounds what constitutes a causal cost.

An example is pavement degradation. Ailles says it is a serious problem in most municipalities, with London seeing more than a thousand cuts per year. Each cut creates a seam that becomes a weak point in the pavement, lowering the overall strength of the road. Ailles says that although there is a degradation fee included in the permit, telecoms operating in London must buy before making a cut, it doesn’t begin to cover the actual cost of maintaining that pavement over the long term.

Gord McGuire, manager of surveys and tech services for public works at the City of Hamilton, says conflicts arise with telecoms because they want to do a job “cheap, shallow and fast.” He says the City plans its cuts into the ROW one to five years in advance, and encourages telecoms and other private utilities to access the ROW at that time. This doesn’t always happen, says McGuire, and telecoms often request access to the ROW without much notice. When this happens, municipalities have little recourse because telecoms are regulated at a federal level, and the CRTC states that municipalities must grant access to the ROW.

“If we’re doing upgrades or repairs, our work doesn’t necessarily coincide with the municipality’s schedule,” says Michael Piaskoski, director of municipal and industry relations for Rogers. He says that normally they try to schedule their work to allow one to three months to process the permit, but adds that “on urgent builds, we will work with the municipality’s permitting staff to get a quick turnaround.”

Like many municipal workers, Ailles feels his hands are tied because telecom regulation is federal, not provincial. “We get in [trouble] when we have to say to telecoms: ‘we did the roads two years ago – where were you?’ When the roads are disrupted the City always gets blamed—we get the negative attention.”

Even when the City and the private utility can coordinate their cuts, there’s also the issue of on-site liability, another potential complication in the cooperative access of the ROW. “If the City is the owner of the contract, we have to be very careful about who goes on the site,” says McGuire, who emphasizes that issues of insurance and liability can’t be ignored. “We have pre-construction meetings, and if there is a utility that needs access, it needs to be addressed well beforehand.”

The frequent shallow placement of telecom lines in the ROW can also cause conflict. Shaun McKaigue, vice-president of watermain rehab company Fer-Pal Infrastructure, says it’s not unusual for a telecom company to install a duct directly above existing watermains, which are usually buried deeper to escape extreme temperatures. “There’s a hidden cost of working around that telecom wire and the City never gets proper compensation,” says McKaigue. “The taxpayer is subsidizing and paying for a corridor for the telecom, which in turn makes a profit.”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” says Piaskoski of the debate surrounding this cost. He says the CRTC admits that recouping “work-around costs” sounds fair, but the municipality must itemize the cost, quantify it, allocate it, and say how much is incurred by each telecom. “It becomes very difficult for the municipality to claim that cost,” says Piaskoski.

New policy, new balance

While many municipalities still feel the CRTC regulations and subsequent Ledcor ruling have left the deck unfairly stacked in favour of private utility companies, Judd says a more recent CRTC ruling may help return balance to the often rocky relationship. That ruling, released to resolve an ongoing dispute between the City of Vancouver and telecom MTS Allstate, clears up much of the grey area causing disputes between telecoms and municipalities.

This new regulatory policy includes an allowance for the ongoing maintenance cost to pavement, as well as costs incurred by administration of applications, reviewing plans, and additional costs such as lost parking meter revenue.

“This creates a clearer regulatory environment that allows telecoms to fill their needs while still allowing municipalities to recover appropriate costs,” says Judd. He says a bylaw will pass soon which will make all companies accessing the ROW—not just telecoms—subject to the new regulations.

“The CRTC has identified areas where the municipalities can recover their costs,” says Piaskoski of the Allstate ruling. “You could say that the pendulum has swung back in favour of the municipalities.”

Judd says the problem now is getting the word out there: “Smaller municipalities may have no idea that they have these rights.”

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is currently assembling a guide to inform municipalities nationwide of the new rules. It’s just the latest in a series of baby steps stretching back more than a decade, in what has become a long march toward the uniform regulation and management of Canada’s municipal ROWs.

Lia Grainger is a Vancouver freelance writer living in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Vancouver Magazine, the National Post and The Walrus.

The Bee’s Knees: the LEED Platinum Vancouver Convention Centre has North America’s largest non-industrial green roof, complete with bees that provide honey for the centre’s kitchen. The building’s underwater foundations are designed to act as an artificial reef. The centre also processes its own blackwater and uses a seawater heat pump to regulate indoor air temperature. This is bespoke sustainability in its purest form. Credit: VANOC/COVAN

Vancouver’s Olympic Village and Convention Centre were the media-pleasing centrepieces for what was touted as the most sustainable Olympic Games ever.

But headline projects can be a double-edged sword. While they embody admirable principles, they risk absorbing enormous amounts of a city’s energy and distracting people from the fact that the city itself has changed very little.

For Vancouver, these two ultra-green developments are icons of a larger shift. Rather than being exceptions that prove the rules of unsustainable urbanization, they have helped change the rules. The city has used these two developments as a springboard to push the limits of green building practises throughout the city.

Both developments are about as photogenic as it gets. The mixed-use Olympic Village—one of only two LEED Platinum neighbourhoods built so far—is a green builder’s fantasy. Powered by district energy and local renewables, with a greywater system and a carbon-zero building, it’s been called the world’s greenest neighbourhood.

In the early days, when cities were just pushing their way onto the environmental stage, one or two successes like these would have been enough to establish a city’s green cred. But too often cities get stuck in the individual project stage. After having pushed their way onto the stage in frustration over the lack of climate change action at higher levels of government, cities too become better at making promises than delivering results. In fact, only a handful of cities in North America have managed to meet their emissions reduction targets.

In Vancouver’s case the bar is set particularly high. The city has committed to cut emissions by 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050, as well as to have all new buildings in the city be carbon neutral by 2030. At GLOBE 2010 Vancouver Mayor, Gregor Robertson, said Vancouver would be “the world’s greenest city” by 2020. A few exceptional developments aren’t going to get them there.

Luckily, they’ve created an opportunity to use the Olympic developments as living laboratories to revise code restrictions, step up regulation and increase skills within the building industry.

Brent Toderian, Vancouver’s director of city planning, is straightforward about the need to put these projects to work. “These developments are powerful because they are very symbolic. They embody a model of urbanism that raises the bar both locally and internationally. But what good is a model if it doesn’t change business as usual? What’s the use if it doesn’t make everything that comes after it better?”

Exhaust flues were designed (with odour control) to look like a stainless steel hand rising beside the bridge with LED fingernails that change colour to depict the amount of energy demanded by the new Southeast False Creek and Olympic Village. Credit: Sandwell

Changing policy to change a city

In the era of the iPod we all love innovative new technology. That fascination is just as strong in sustainability circles. But the frustrating truth for planners, developers, and many homeowners is that while the technology is there, the right to use it is still elusive. “So many years, even decades, after a wonderful model has educated a city, you’ll hear stories about the details of the model still being illegal in other parts of the city,” says Toderian. “You have to change business-as-usual really quickly in order for the model to have real power.”

Vancouver is on its way to removing the barriers in local codes that block new designs in the rest of the city. The City has changed its wall thickness and insulation approach; it has added rules to allow encroachments on streets for architectural elements that add to passive solar shading; it now allows penetration of height restrictions where it accommodates solar panels or access to green roofs.

“These things were all piloted in the Athletes Village, but they very quickly turned into city-wide rules,” says Toderian.

As well as opening up new opportunities in the code, the City has also used increasingly stringent regulation to push developers in the right direction. Where other cities have focused more heavily on providing incentives, Vancouver has established regulations and a formal negotiation process that pushes developers to provide social benefits and certain levels of environmental performance. “Vancouver can link much of its success in progressive city building to strategic regulation,” says Toderian.

An example of this strategic regulation came just before the start of the Games, when the City passed a new policy that, by early 2011, will require all developments applying for rezoning to meet LEED Gold standards. The city is now also requiring development of two acres and up to do feasibility studies on district energy systems, and to build them if they are found to be feasible.

In addition to the code amendments and regulations that flow directly from the Olympics, the City has implemented a Green Homes program, introduced in 2008. Its requirements and bylaw amendments are expected to cut energy use in newly built one- and two-family homes by 33 per cent.

Just a Vancouver thing?

The balance Vancouver has struck between regulation, code reform, and incentives may not work for all cities. Vancouver is one of a small number of Canadian cities with a charter that gives it greater power to regulate the building industry and change code requirements. It has also been in a rapid state of expansion over the past two decades, further fuelled by the Olympics, which put the city in a stronger negotiating position when making demands on developers.

But that doesn’t mean cities don’t have other options. Between 2005 and 2007, Rob Bennett led the development of the City of Vancouver’s Green Building Strategy and worked on the Olympic Village. He went on to work for the Clinton Climate Initiative and then to found the Portland Sustainability Institute where he’s currently executive director. He points out that regulation on its own is  not a silver bullet for increasing environmental performance. Research has shown that buildings that comply with efficiency regulations on paper often underperform in practise.

While he doesn’t dismiss the importance of regulation, Bennett says it won’t get us where we need to go on its own. It needs to be coupled with incentives, education and encouragement that can create a real market transformation within the local development industry.

“A catalytic project, whether it’s Vancouver’s Olympic Village, or a smaller town’s first foray into green building, can help do that,” says Bennett. “At their best they can trigger a profound cultural shift within the industry. They can align new ideas in regulation and development, and create more cost-effective procurement pathways for those who are in the trades. If they do those things, they’re really worth it.”

Bennett also emphasizes the need for cities to nurture innovative local designers and builders. Outliers in the development community can come up with locally relevant techniques and designs with game-changing impacts on cost and performance. A city can play an important support role by making room for experimentation and facilitating links between builders, researchers and industry.

Continuing to raise the bar

Toderian and Bennett both agree that success doesn’t come from a one-off revision of building codes. It’s about establishing a new approach to development that continuously updates requirements and removes barriers. Vancouver’s new LEED Gold rezoning standards, for example, are an upgrade of 2008 regulations that required LEED Silver. Within a few years, its district energy requirements are also slated to expand to include developments of any size along key corridors and nodes. The Vancouver approach has been to continuously move regulation forward, providing clear timelines to allow industry to adapt, and support to help build skills within the design and development community.

But don’t expect a cakewalk, Toderian warns. “The industry will never say that it’s ready, but it can adapt [to new regulations]. Municipalities have to be bold because experience has shown that the private sector won’t get there on its own fast enough. As a city you need to know where your building and architectural industry is, where your development industry is, and then move that industry forward.”

Exceptions that change the rules

What’s next for author Douglas Coupland’s City of Glass? Those trademark towers are in for a change. Efficiency guidelines will bring new building materials into the crystal-scape of the Vancouver’s downtown. But the biggest challenges are what to do with existing buildings and how to protect affordability.

Existing buildings account for the majority of many cities’ emissions and they have a very slow turnover rate. For Vancouver, addressing that problem will require creative thinking around incentives, financing and workforce creation. Plans in cities like Toronto (the Mayor’s Tower Renewal Program), Portland (Clean Energy Works) and New York (Green, Greater Building Plan) are providing some good examples of what that might look like.

Affordability is another tough nut to crack. Vancouver’s high real estate prices may be the cost of success. But both the city and the province will have to work hard to make sure that the city doesn’t become an enclave for elites and investors. As Toderian points out, protecting low income and modest market housing is essential to Vancouver’s city building project, both socially and environmentally.

Talking about changing codes or sparking a shift in development culture isn’t nearly as captivating as looking out over the new Convention Centre’s green roof, or strolling through the streets of the Olympic Village. But it’s only by changing the written and unwritten rules that govern how Vancouver—or any city—is built that we are going to get close to where we need to be.