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The Roof, the Roof, the Roof is a Lawn

By Todd Aalgaard

20090414greenroof.jpg
Photo by inventor_77 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.


With the passage of the City of Toronto Act 2006 on New Year’s Day 2007, rumblings that the city would impose green regulatory measures on new developments pointed to significant reforms of the Municipal Code. Today, as the Planning and Growth Management Committee meets to hammer out the finer points, those reforms appear poised—at this stage, anyway—to make Toronto the first city in North America to require green roofs on new commercial and residential buildings.
After January 30, 2010, according to a draft version [PDF] of the by-law being tossed around today, every building “with a gross floor area of 5,000 square metres or greater shall include a green roof,” meaning that rooftops greater than five thousand square metres in area will require 30% green coverage, with 60% for rooftops exceeding twenty thousand square metres. Further, the construction and maintenance of new roofing will toe strict guidelines laid out in the Green Roof Construction Standard [PDF], ranging from assembly and load bearing to fire safety and plant selection. Even minimal alterations will be subject to City approval.
Although the plan sells itself, it’s not outlandish to imagine the city’s realtors and high-market landlords seeing red in the fine print. As reported earlier today by the National Post, public schools, industrial developments, and public housing will be exempt from the proposed bylaw’s reach—a consideration due to the overall cost of such reform—while the high-rise megaliths of Toronto’s skyline, from condos to office towers, will face a deterring $100,000 fine for non-compliance.
A public meeting has been recommended for May 6, at which point the Planning and Growth Management Committee’s agenda [PDF] will be discussed in a more open forum.

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  • http://null Vincent Clement

    Public and Separate schools, industrial buildings and non-profit housing with a height greater than 23 metres should not be exempt. Cost should NOT be a consideration. Period.

  • http://null Chris Orbz

    The schools should be exempt… and have mandatory solar panels instead. Have you seen the roof space the TDSB has got lying around collecting dust?

  • http://null rek

    Across the street from me is an LCBO with a big empty roof. I look down at it every day and wonder what it would take to turn it into a green roof or garden. It has terrible drainage and is covered with rain/melt water for a week or more after a storm.

  • http://null Greg Smith

    …every building “with a gross floor area of 5,000 square metres or greater shall include a green roof,” meaning that rooftops greater than five thousand square metres in area will require 30% green coverage, with 60% for rooftops exceeding twenty thousand square metres.
    Can you clarify this? Is the threshold 5,000 square metres of gross floor space or 5,000 square metres of rooftop space? Logically there would only be a 1:1 ratio of floor space to roof space in single-storey buildings.

  • http://null Greg Smith

    Vincent Clement arguing for more government regulation – now I’ve seen it all! Or is your point that you don’t like government making exceptions for itself (or, to be precise, government making exceptions for other governments)?

  • http://undefined Nick

    Great idea! I’m all for legislation for these kinds of things. The Israeli government legislated that all hot water heaters be solar-powered and lo-and-behold, all hot water heaters are solar powered. Similarly, Toronto legislated that yard waste not be picked up in plastic bags, and lo-and-behold, Rona and its ilk have developed kraft paper bags that handily hold yard waste for pick up and easy composting. There are several studies that show how the urban heat island effect can be mitigated by green roofs (even if it’s not every roof) so let’s do it.

  • http://undefined jimvanm

    This is fantastic!
    Yes, it’ll be tough, but what a great idea. What a fantastic way to get the ball rolling on something that needs to change the way we on this planet create buildings, forever.
    Imagine, every building in the city, the country, the world, acting as a collector of energy. Supplying some or all of its own needs, and feeding any excess back into the grid.
    Those who embrace this will help to take an immature industry, and bring it into the mainstream, where it needs to be. Twenty years from now, they’ll think back on how strange it was that all this was not self-evident to us.
    Could Canada become a world leader in this? Are we willing to set an example for everyone to follow?