Category: Urban Innovation

Written by Frank Clayton, Toronto Metropolitan University. Photo credit (Shutterstock). Originally published in The Conversation.

A building under construction in Toronto. According to Canada’s national housing agency, Ontario needs to build 1.8 million new homes to alleviate the housing crisis.

Few Ontario residents know how land use planning regulation shapes their physical environment, including where new housing is built, the size and type of buildings, and housing density. As a result, most people are only interested in the topic when a new housing project is proposed near their homes.

The Growth Plan

The planning system is often criticized as time-consuming, overly bureaucratic, uncertain and costly. In Ontario, land use planning is carried out by municipalities and shaped by provincial legislation.

But the Greater Golden Horseshoe has had an additional layer of bureaucracy in the form of a provincial planning policy called the Growth Plan. This policy places restrictions on what parts of southern Ontario can be used for development and infrastructure via the Planning Act

The Growth Plan became law in 2006 under Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government. Since then, it has been adapted by successive Ontario governments, most recently Doug Ford’s Conservative government.

The Growth Plan represents an ambitious effort to shape how residents live, work and interact with one another with land use regulations. Ensuring a sufficient housing supply to improve affordability is just one of many objectives the Growth Plan is intended to address.

Research shows more restrictive planning regimes result in higher housing prices. A 2017 study found that land use regulation in Auckland, New Zealand, could be responsible for up to 56 per cent of an average house’s cost.

Another study from California found that housing prices could decline by about 25 per cent in Los Angeles if its planning regulations were decreased to the levels similar in the least-regulated cities in California. Based on my own estimates, home prices in the Greater Golden Horseshoe could fall by a similar amount under a benign land use regulatory system.

Supply and demand disparity

While affordable housing is a stated goal of the Growth Plan, the interpretation and implementation of its policies will reduce housing affordability, not improve it. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Ontario needs to build 1.8 million new homes by 2030 to get housing affordability back to where it was in the early 2000s.

While most Greater Golden Horseshoe homebuyers undoubtedly prefer ground-level homes, the Growth Plan prioritizes higher-density forms of accommodation, instead of single-detached houses.

This disparity between housing demand and supply sets the stage for housing prices to increase even more in the coming years. The four regional municipalities, Durham, York, Peel and Halton, around Toronto all face a marked disparity over the coming three decades between housing planned and the market.

The supply of single-detached and semi-detached houses will only be 25 per cent of the new housing, compared to a demand of 50 per cent.

The reverse holds for apartments: 50 per cent of the new housing will be apartments, while the market demand is just 25 per cent. The demand and supply of townhouses will be similar, at 25 per cent of the new housing.

The sizeable shift from single-detached houses to apartments over the next 30 years is expected to happen under the current provincial government’s version of the Growth Plan passed in 2020. In the earlier version of the Growth Plan passed by the last Liberal government in 2017, even fewer ground-related homes would have been built in the future, resulting in even more stress on affordability.

Countering adverse price impacts

To counter the adverse price impacts of the Growth Plan, I have two proposals for the provincial government. First, municipalities must offset any planned reduction of single-detached and semi-detached houses below market demand with an equivalent number of “missing middle” housing.

Missing middle housing includes townhouses and low-rise apartments with four storeys or fewer, like stacked townhouses, and are the closest substitutes for single-detached houses. These should be added in existing urban areas (mainly single-detached neighbourhoods) and on vacant fringe lands.

Second, the government should conduct an in-depth review of the land use planning regime to improve efficacy and minimize adverse impacts on housing affordability, as was undertaken in New Zealand.

What is needed is a sweeping overhaul to increase not only the numbers of new housing units built, but to accelerate approvals of all housing types, with particular attention paid to single-detached and missing middle housing.

Without these changes, housing costs will continue to rise and many households will face longer commutes as they move farther away from employment centres in search of less expensive single-detached houses and townhouses.

Written by Meike Siegner, Ryerson University; Cory Searcy, Ryerson University. Photo credit: Shutterstock. Originally published in The Conversation.

An office building made with cross-laminated timber in Tokyo, Japan.

In 2020, the extraction, transport and manufacturing of materials for the building sector accounted for 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If buildings are to make meaningful contributions to keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, limiting emissions from building materials is crucial.

To achieve this objective, engineered versions of age-old building technologies, like wood, straw or bamboo, are critical. These bio-based building materials generally demand less energy in manufacturing and have the ability to capture and store carbon through photosynthesis.

This is why experts in green building policy, climate science and architecture increasingly tout the benefits of transforming buildings from a giant source of carbon into a large carbon sink.

As scholars of business sustainability and bio-products markets, we closely observe the trends in green building and construction industries, and the reactions these provoke in sectors of the economy looking to cut emissions. With corporate announcements on the rise that publicize natural materials like wood as “the new concrete” in company offices and warehouses, we believe it’s time to take a closer look at the opportunities and limitations of making building materials part of a company’s net-zero carbon pledges.

The rise of net-zero carbon offices

The past two decades have seen the use of green buildings as an explicit tool to reduce the carbon footprint of companies. It is now commonplace for business offices to feature the latest in engineering and building operations, from energy efficiency and on-site heating and cooling, to waste reduction and recycling.

Bloomberg’s European headquarters, for instance, has earned the title of the world’s most sustainable office building for combining all these measures. From a company perspective, going beyond operational efficiency, to also focus on building materials, is a logical step.

Bloomberg’s London HQ has the ‘most sustainable office building.’

Walmart offers one prominent example of the use of bio-based building materials. The retail giant is set to finish its new home office in Bentonville, Ark., by 2025. It is the largest corporate campus project in the U.S. that uses mass timber, a group of large engineered structural wooden panels that have gained market acceptance following changes in building codes, for the construction of multi-storey and tall wood buildings.

Structurlam, a Canadian company that delivers mass timber, opened a fully automated facility in Walmart’s home state where it procures lumber from forests in the region to complete the project. Similarly, Google will soon finish its first mass timber office complex.

Microsoft already opened a building on its Silicon Valley campus that uses over 2,100 tonnes of cross-laminated timber (CLT), a wood panel system that is projected to reach a global market size of more than $3 billion within the next five years.

Our @Microsoft Silicon Valley project is on track to become the largest mass timber project built to date in the US! CLT will help significantly reduce carbon emissions. Seeking net zero non-potable water per the @livingbuilding LEED Platinum @WELLcertified @USGBC #wrnsstudio pic.twitter.com/aqxFXod91x

— WRNS Studio (@wrnsstudio) May 14, 2019

Some European firms like the German retail chain Alnatura are using prefabricated loam in their headquarters, and automaker BMW is about to open an electric vehicle showroom in California that has flooring made from hemp wood.

Green construction meets prefab

What unites these technologies is a potential to combine climate benefits with the shift towards off-site construction and prefabrication, where the planning, design, manufacturing and partial assembly of building elements occurs at a location other than the final building site.

Many of the manufacturers that offer buildings made from bio-based materials are, in fact, a new class of technology start-ups that are backed by large investors.

Prefabrication helps optimize material use and model adaptive structures that can be deconstructed, modified and reassembled, thereby reducing the need for virgin resources.

This provides companies with immense flexibility in planning for the long-term use of their office buildings, sales stores, warehouses and factories, without having to think about demolishing a structure.

Limitations of bio-based building material

Bio-based building materials have their limitations. Harnessing their environmental potential requires that they are sourced from sustainable supply chains. From a climate perspective, building wooden office towers with timber can be counterproductive if large amounts of carbon dioxide are emitted in the logging, transport and manufacture of wood products.

A company may also ask whether new buildings are needed in the first place. After all, the lowest carbon footprint is that of a building that is never constructed.

Companies may consider using bio-based building materials in retrofitting and remodelling existing offices or factories instead of building new ones. Serial retrofit initiatives, of the kind spearheaded by governments in Europe and suggested for Canada, already funnel capital into the scale-up of industries for prefabricated building technologies, like facades made from wood and recycled materials.

Ultimately, as with all corporate environmental strategies, simply introducing bio-based products and materials to the company, be it in office buildings or elsewhere, without having resources in place to monitor their environmental efficacy (for example, in procurement, installation and use) can backfire.

The future of bio-based building materials

Building materials can play a key role, when considered as a part of a broader strategy in companies’ efforts to reach net-zero emissions. Over 450 firms around the world have already pledged to finance the transition to net-zero emissions by 2050.

The issue of materials in construction is gaining attention at the global scale as well. With more than 130 events focused on the built environment at the COP26 summit in November, buildings received more attention than ever.

That being said, bio-based products and materials will require even more attention going forward. A likely bottleneck in assessing when and how to use bio-based building materials, will be just how quickly industries normalize the use of life cycle costing tools, such as whole life carbon accounting.

Progress on the adoption of these tools has been slow, but the recent signing of whole life carbon requirements by 44 large companies offers hope that the time for net-zero carbon buildings may indeed be ripe.

Written by Shelagh McCartney, Ryerson University; Ellen Molloy, Ryerson University; Ely DeSandoli, Ryerson University; Frances Grout-Brown, Ryerson University; Laura Lebel-Pantazopoulos, Ryerson University; Paul Arkilander, Ryerson University; Puneh Jamshidi-Moghadam, Ryerson University; Riley Malthaner, Ryerson University; Sally Nicholson, Ryerson University. Photo credit: LGA Architectural Partners, Ben Rahn/A Frame (Author provided). Originally published in The Conversation.

After an extensive renovation, an old house in a laneway in Toronto became a new two-bedroom home.

Cities across North America are experiencing a housing affordability crisis. Key workers such as teachers, nurses and social workers are being forced out of large cities because they can’t pay rent.

In Toronto, someone making $50,000 can only afford a one-bedroom unit in three of the city’s 140 neighbourhoods, forcing one-in-five renters to live in overcrowded shared apartments. To combat this issue, cities are building taller and taller condo towers to create more units. However, these towers are radically changing the surrounding neighbourhoods without improving affordability.

One solution may be to increase urban density and the number of rental units through laneway housing that maintains the character of a neighbourhood.

Cities are increasingly interested in unlocking the potential of laneways and transforming these underused, historically utilitarian corridors, into thriving public places. Building homes along laneways is a crucial ingredient in this goal.

Our research focuses on locating eligible lots and how to unlock and maximize their potential.

The importance of laneway suites

In contrast to laneway houses, laneway suites are tethered to a separate, primary residence on the same lot. Laneway suites can increase the number of housing units in stable neighbourhoods that are dominated by closely spaced, detached and semi-detached homes.

They take advantage of established infrastructure, such as schools, parks, roadways and transit, and increase sustainability by adding living units into central neighbourhoods. They can also enable multigenerational living by allowing residents to age in place.

Toronto legalized laneway suites in 2018 in an effort to ease the city’s housing crisis. Laneway suites could increase rental stock in established neighbourhoods without affecting their character.

Toronto is not the first city to explore laneway housing. It has been successfully adopted in Vancouver and Calgary, and several cities in the United States. Vancouver has approved over 4,000 laneway suite permits since 2009, while Calgary has similar numbers of backyard suites.

Toronto, by comparison, has lagged behind, issuing only 24 per cent of the permits that Vancouver did in its early years. Why have laneway suites had lower uptake in Toronto despite the steep need for housing?

Barriers to development

Current emergency access requirements are a source of frustration for would-be builders. Toronto grants laneway suite building permits if the plans meet zoning requirements and are in compliance with fire and emergency service (EMS) access requirements.

Our research found these emergency access requirements reduce the total number of laneway suite eligible lots in Toronto to less than 28,000 from 47,000. However, recently adopted updates will increase lot eligibility by 30 per cent to 36,000.

This is a step in the right direction, but still overestimates the total number of eligible lots because of another significant barrier: neighbours.

Where neighbours need to share the side lot space between their homes to meet the required one-metre-wide passage for emergency services, builders need to acquire a Limiting Distance Agreement (LDA). Negotiating this can be a tall order, requiring legal consultation and registration on title, adding risk and uncertainty for the neighbour. An LDA can also benefit neighbours, however, as it could streamline the implementation of their own future laneway suite.

Toronto could decrease the minimum clearance required between houses to 0.81 metres, as other cities have done, to limit LDAs. This is the minimum front door size required by the Ontario Building Code. But this would not prevent unwilling neighbours from halting projects if an LDA is needed.

Most successful laneway suites in Toronto have been completed on narrow lots, seven to nine metres wide, and likely required an LDA. In comparison, the minimum size of an eligible lot in Vancouver is 10.7 metres (32.15 feet) wide, and doesn’t likely require an LDA because the extra width allows for extra clearance.

To mitigate this barrier, Toronto should adopt alternatives to side access by increasing the maximum distance for emergency access along laneways, reducing the required clearance or purchasing smaller fire trucks for denser areas.

Additionally, our research noted that problems can occur with neighbours during the minor variance process if they express NIMBYism. Some people have negative perceptions of renters and their perceived effects on the character of the neighbourhood, causing delays and increasing cost of development.

Public places

Preliminary research suggests laneway suites benefit both homeowners and the neighbourhood by increasing property value and rental income, as well as catalyzing the transformation of laneways into high-quality public places.

The Toronto neighbourhoods with the highest number of eligible lots have above average walkability scores and relatively underused social infrastructure. Laneways provide connections between public amenities and could promote walking and cycling to schools, libraries, commercial streets and parks through alternative routes with less vehicular traffic. The best way to transform laneways into thriving parts of the public realm is by investing in a mix of uses for housing, work and socialization.

Laneway suites are more than an opportunity to provide housing. They are a first step towards fulfilling laneways’ potential as vibrant and sustainable connections within/between neighbourhoods.

The legacy of laneway suites is to unlock the potential for new, unconventional housing types, such as garden suites, increasing housing units in underused spaces in Toronto’s “Yellowbelt” — zones of residential, detached homes — where there are 10 times more potential lots to add units and address the need for housing.

Michelle Senayah, executive director of the Laneway Project, co-authored this article.

Written by Ryan Plummer, Brock University, Darby McGrath, Brock University, and Sivajanani Sivarajah, Ryerson University. Photo credit: Shutterstock. Originally published in The Conversation.

Cities can prepare for climate change emergencies by adding green spaces to help manage stormwater, heat stress and air quality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to weigh the benefits of keeping green spaces open against the public health concerns that come from their use. During the pandemic, playgrounds have been taped off, parks locked and access to outdoor spaces for recreation cut off.

Green spaces have positive effects on mental health, physical fitness, social cohesion and spiritual wellness. Although researchers say the coronavirus spreads more easily indoors than outdoors, they also believe the concentrated use of green spaces will increase the transmission of COVID-19.

As cabin fever set in and governments began to ease restrictions, those living in urban areas have turned, en masse, to green spaces. Urban nature has been a source of resilience for many during COVID-19. But the outcome has been disconcerting. COVID-19 has highlighted the inadequacy of green space for the dense populations of cities. It also reinforces existing inequities regarding unequal access to parks in term of size and quality.

Human benefits only part of the story

Natural features and diverse urban forests are essential for cities to be more resilient and resistant to future challenges, such as invasive species. They are also imperative to how cities can prepare for climate change emergencies by helping manage stormwater, heat stress and air quality.

Cities around the world can make incremental adjustments and take on radical overhauls to improve their green spaces. Some cities have already started.

Urban green space patches are critically important — and always have been — for biodiversity conservation. But only recently do we seem to appreciate their value and presence. In fact, research has shown that gazing at trees has psychological benefits. Improving green spaces means making use of traditionally grey infrastructure spaces and infusing them with green.

To do this properly, cities need to adopt an ecosystem planning approach that incorporates nature-based design to make them more liveable and resilient. It also means managing cities as ecosystems.

In our field of ecosystem restoration, we talk about patch size and quality, corridors and matrices of green space when we assess landscapes for their ability to support biodiversity. Cities that map these spaces are finding increasing trends (e.g. community stewardship, tree planting initiatives) connecting people and nature. Some cities map the green dots of tree canopy cover to ensure the urban forest is well-managed and to prepare for consequences of climate change.

For example, one analysis found Toronto lacked permeable surfaces and growing space on public land, making it difficult for the city to meet its tree canopy target of 40 per cent coverage by 2050, part of its commitment to the local economy and better equip Toronto to face the effects of climate change.

#CityTO has approx. 1,500 parks, covering approx. 13% of Toronto's land base. This works out to an average of 28m2/person, and is higher near large parks and ravines and lower in the city’s highest growth areas. Learn more at https://t.co/i8snapK8A0#TOparks pic.twitter.com/EuN8UiLkSo

— City of Toronto PFR (@TorontoPFR) November 20, 2019

Written by Ryan Plummer, Brock University, Darby McGrath, Brock University, and Sivajanani Sivarajah, Ryerson University. Photo credit: Shutterstock. Originally published in The Conversation.

Cities can prepare for climate change emergencies by adding green spaces to help manage stormwater, heat stress and air quality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to weigh the benefits of keeping green spaces open against the public health concerns that come from their use. During the pandemic, playgrounds have been taped off, parks locked and access to outdoor spaces for recreation cut off.

Green spaces have positive effects on mental health, physical fitness, social cohesion and spiritual wellness. Although researchers say the coronavirus spreads more easily indoors than outdoors, they also believe the concentrated use of green spaces will increase the transmission of COVID-19.

As cabin fever set in and governments began to ease restrictions, those living in urban areas have turned, en masse, to green spaces. Urban nature has been a source of resilience for many during COVID-19. But the outcome has been disconcerting. COVID-19 has highlighted the inadequacy of green space for the dense populations of cities. It also reinforces existing inequities regarding unequal access to parks in term of size and quality.

Human benefits only part of the story

Natural features and diverse urban forests are essential for cities to be more resilient and resistant to future challenges, such as invasive species. They are also imperative to how cities can prepare for climate change emergencies by helping manage stormwater, heat stress and air quality.

Cities around the world can make incremental adjustments and take on radical overhauls to improve their green spaces. Some cities have already started.

Urban green space patches are critically important — and always have been — for biodiversity conservation. But only recently do we seem to appreciate their value and presence. In fact, research has shown that gazing at trees has psychological benefits. Improving green spaces means making use of traditionally grey infrastructure spaces and infusing them with green.

To do this properly, cities need to adopt an ecosystem planning approach that incorporates nature-based design to make them more liveable and resilient. It also means managing cities as ecosystems.

In our field of ecosystem restoration, we talk about patch size and quality, corridors and matrices of green space when we assess landscapes for their ability to support biodiversity. Cities that map these spaces are finding increasing trends (e.g. community stewardship, tree planting initiatives) connecting people and nature. Some cities map the green dots of tree canopy cover to ensure the urban forest is well-managed and to prepare for consequences of climate change.

For example, one analysis found Toronto lacked permeable surfaces and growing space on public land, making it difficult for the city to meet its tree canopy target of 40 per cent coverage by 2050, part of its commitment to the local economy and better equip Toronto to face the effects of climate change.

#CityTO has approx. 1,500 parks, covering approx. 13% of Toronto's land base. This works out to an average of 28m2/person, and is higher near large parks and ravines and lower in the city’s highest growth areas. Learn more at https://t.co/i8snapK8A0#TOparks pic.twitter.com/EuN8UiLkSo

— City of Toronto PFR (@TorontoPFR) November 20, 2019

Written by Anika Kozlowski, Ryerson University. Photo credit Shutterstock. Originally published in The Conversation.

Zara says it will only use sustainable textiles in the future to do its part in the climate crisis. This image is from a Zara shop in Singapore, 2019.

Recently Zara introduced a sustainability pledge. But how can Zara ever be sustainable? As the largest fast-fashion retailer in the world, they produce around 450 million garments a year and release 500 new designs a week, about 20,000 a year. Zara’s fast-fashion model has been so successful it has inspired an entire industry to shift — churning out an unprecedented number of fashion garments year-round.

We live in an era of hyper-consumption in the middle of a climate crisis.

Clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014. The average consumer bought 60 per cent more clothing in 2014 than in 2000, but kept each garment half as long. Apparel consumption is projected to rise by 63 per cent in the next 10 years. And less than one per cent of all clothing produced globally is recycled.

With production numbers like these, can any fast-fashion retailer claim sustainability?

Fast fashion is not eco-friendly

The fast-fashion business model itself is the very antithesis to sustainability.

Some ideas that have been presented by fast-fashion companies include recycling. But even if garments are collected in-store, the capabilities to recycle clothing at the scale needed for current production rates do not exist. It’s also typically more energy-intensive to recycle than to produce new products.

Another concept, the one put forth recently by Zara, is to use only sustainable fabrics. But switching to sustainable fabrics while producing fashion clothing under the same model will not make any fast-fashion retailer sustainable.

There is no such thing as a 100 per cent sustainable fabric. Fabrics require a tremendous amount of energy and natural resources to produce. Sustainable fabrics are just less harmful by reducing their environmental impact.

I spend a lot of time reading the corporate social responsibility reports of larger brands and interviewing micro-to-small sized enterprises to see how they approach sustainability. The largest significant difference between the two entities is culture.

Small brands focus on creating a culture of sustainability by producing less from the onset. They use strategies like producing made-to-order, so they are not making more than what is sold. They do this because waste is one of their biggest concerns. They also design clothing to be of the highest quality, ensuring durability and longevity, so clothes last a long time in your wardrobe. They will also repair your clothing so that you may keep it longer.

The most significant difference is that most small brands are opting to work under an “anti-fashion calendar.” They deliberately chose not to follow the intense seasonal calendar that fashion functions under. Instead, they produce as needed. This is the opposite of how large companies function.

Large global corporate retailers are not seeking to change their fundamental business model or create cultures of sustainability. That would require re-working their entire business structure.

Corporate social irresponsibility

The fast-fashion growth model used by all large companies is predicated on limitless growth and disposable consumption.

Corporate brands and retailers provide statistics about their environmental impact reductions within their supply chains. Unlike annual financial reports, corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports are voluntary and not verified externally. Also, the way they measure their improvements is not consistent or standardized. Therefore, consumers can’t compare one company to another without doing some wizard math.

Annual financial reports usually include ambitious goals to grow and expand. For example, H&M opened up 145 new stores this year and has expanded into four new markets: Ukraine, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Inditex, Zara’s parent company, expects to open 300 new stores this year and launch online sales in Dubai, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and UAE.

Fast fashion is a “grow or die” business. And fast fashion continues to export this western consumerism into the Global South: this could have disastrous consequences. This is the paradox at the heart of western consumerist culture and one that goes beyond fast-fashion industry. Neoliberal capitalist economies require continuous consumption and define success through growth — concepts at odds with sustainability. Business growth must be decoupled from resource use.

The global population is set to grow by another two billion people in the next 30 years. To make a dent in the climate crisis, we have to cut emissions by more than 55 per cent in the next 10 years.

The current carbon footprint of the fashion industry is over eight per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, larger than all international travel. Therefore, to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including the 2C global temperature target, the fashion industry must play an active role in changing how they operate, source, manufacture, distribute and approach the market.

It’s not as simple switching out current textiles or packaging for more sustainable versions. Solutions to sustainability must include cultural change.

How many wears does your clothing give you?

Even when a garment is produced using all sustainable materials, there are still many problems. Cheap costs and speedy production are why we still have labour issues like sweatshop conditions.

Zara has 1,800 suppliers in its supply-chain but does not disclose how often it audits individual suppliers per year to ensure compliance. If a garment is made to withstand only a couple months of wear — it is a massive waste of resources to produce that garment.

Fast fashion doesn’t nudge consumers towards more responsible consumption behaviours because that would ultimately hurt their bottom line.

I would have more faith in the sustainability initiatives by large fashion companies if they started to introduce alternative sustainable business model practices. One small step could be to offer repair or tailoring services. Tailoring creates clothes that fit impeccably, subsequently increasing their emotional value. I believe that when garments fit well and are flattering to our body, we love them, and we keep them longer.

For the benefit of the earth and humanity, large brands need to look at how to move away from their continuous offerings of weekly new products. If these kind of changes were to occur, I would start to believe Zara and other fashion brands had good intentions to curb climate change.

Written by Steven Liss, Ryerson University. Photo credit Shutterstock. Originally published in The Conversation.

Many towns in Newfoundland and Labrador have issues with disinfection byproducts created by chlorination.

Nothing better symbolizes the state of a community’s public health than the availability of clean and safe water. Yet recent water quality tests in Newfoundland and Labrador have found high levels of disinfection byproducts in the drinking water of 119 communities.

Unfortunately, these are not new concerns. CBC first drew attention to the issue of chlorine and disinfection byproducts in the municipal drinking water in 1999. The number of affected communities has since doubled.

Chlorine has been used to disinfect drinking water and prevent waterborne disease since the early 1900s. It has been a great success, preventing millions of deaths and making potable water widely available at a low cost.

Although federal and provincial agencies say the benefits of chlorination outweigh the possible risks associated with disinfection by-products, much of Europe has moved away from disinfectants based on chlorine and other similar chemicals for health reasons.

Canada has the opportunity to adopt a similarly pragmatic approach.

Health risks?

Regulated drinking water systems, including municipal utilities, require a minimum level of treatment. Many water utilities add chlorine twice during treatment. Primary disinfection kills the pathogens found in untreated, raw water drawn from rivers, lakes and other sources. Secondary disinfection maintains drinking water quality within the distribution system.

However, when disinfectants such as chlorine come into contact with naturally occurring organic matter, including algae, bacteria, soil, decomposed plant material or animal feces, they form compounds called disinfection byproducts, including trihalomethanes (THMs) and halogenic acetic acids (HAAs).

Long-term exposure to disinfection byproducts is associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. Asthma and other breathing issues have also been linked to exposure to disinfection byproducts in swimming pools.

Many of the communities in Newfoundland and Labrador are remote, and their drinking water is often sourced from ponds and rivers with high levels of natural organic matter and delivered over long distances. Newfoundland surface water is also heavily influenced by extreme and variable weather, creating optimal conditions for the formation of disinfection byproducts.

A Canada-wide problem

Newfoundland and Labrador Municipal Affairs and Environment Minister Graham Letto has said that municipalities should inform residents when THM levels exceed the Health Canada standard of 100 milligrams per litre and take measures to correct the problem.

For example, residents can install NSF-certified filters in water pitchers or under the sink to reduce the disinfection byproducts, or they can boil their water or leave it in an open container in a refrigerator overnight. But these can’t remove all the disinfection byproducts or prevent exposure to them when swimming, showering or bathing.

An alternative approach is to use carbon or membranes to filter the organic matter from the water before chlorination. Many municipalities do this, but it does require a large capital investment and well-trained operators and engineers for ongoing maintenance. This may not be practical for small communities, nor does it eliminate the use of chlorine.

The pathway to safer water

There are other disinfectants available including ozone, chloramines, chlorine dioxide and ultraviolet (UV) light. While these may lower or eliminate the production of disinfection byproducts, some don’t provide enough protection from pathogens along the distribution system, must be produced on site, are expensive or form other undesirable byproducts.

But the pathway to safer water is already in place in Newfoundland and Labrador. A series of pilot projects tested the SanEcoTec AVIVE water treatment system in several municipalities in Newfoundland and Ontario. Instead of chlorine, the system uses a form of hydrogen peroxide combined with silver to provide disinfection with fewer harmful disinfection byproducts as well as better water colour and smell. (Disclosure: I have received research support from SanEcoTec.)

Within two weeks of use, this hydrogen-peroxide water-treatment system met or exceeded disinfection standards, and disinfection byproduct levels were within Health Canada guidelines. The benefit comes from eliminating chlorine from the disinfection process.

An alternative approach is to use carbon or membranes to filter the organic matter from the water before chlorination. Many municipalities do this, but it does require a large capital investment and well-trained operators and engineers for ongoing maintenance. This may not be practical for small communities, nor does it eliminate the use of chlorine.

The pathway to safer water

There are other disinfectants available including ozone, chloramines, chlorine dioxide and ultraviolet (UV) light. While these may lower or eliminate the production of disinfection byproducts, some don’t provide enough protection from pathogens along the distribution system, must be produced on site, are expensive or form other undesirable byproducts.

But the pathway to safer water is already in place in Newfoundland and Labrador. A series of pilot projects tested the SanEcoTec AVIVE water treatment system in several municipalities in Newfoundland and Ontario. Instead of chlorine, the system uses a form of hydrogen peroxide combined with silver to provide disinfection with fewer harmful disinfection byproducts as well as better water colour and smell. (Disclosure: I have received research support from SanEcoTec.)

Within two weeks of use, this hydrogen-peroxide water-treatment system met or exceeded disinfection standards, and disinfection byproduct levels were within Health Canada guidelines. The benefit comes from eliminating chlorine from the disinfection process.

It can be used in pools, and no disinfection byproducts with any environmental or health impacts have been identified. This approach also produces water that is less corrosive, resulting in fewer heavy metals leaking from piping into the water system, and may extend the useful life of community water infrastructure.

All of this research points to an alternative approach for water treatment that is more robust, effective and healthy. This system can replace the one that has produced crisis conditions for residents of Newfoundland and Labrador and is burdening public health and infrastructure.

Municipalities hesitate to adopt alternative disinfection strategies due their lack of understanding and unwillingness to change. In part, this is due to perceptions the alternative approach is more costly and/or complex. But making the switch could have important public health and economic outcomes.

Written by Deborah de Lange, Ryerson University. Photo credit Shutterstock. Originally published in The Conversation.

Density is an idea sold to us by corporate developers who want to build on every last bit of green space. To fully enjoy our city now and for the future, we need more public green space.

A healthy and happy city includes creating social capital — those benefits that come with social networks, public spaces and community, much as the Danes have in their famous city of Copenhagen. Toronto’s focus, too, should be on “place-making” rather than city building. How can our waterfront contribute towards Toronto becoming a happy city?

The proposed project by Sidewalk Toronto, “high-tech” Quayside, is the most recent excuse to develop our waterfront with condos. It is ultimately just a dressed-up “real-estate play.”

We do not need to install an entirely new and experimental “smart city” on 12 acres of prime Toronto waterfront. We should not then also give away another 800 acres in the Port Lands to developers, a space almost as large as Manhattan’s Central Park.

The need for public waterfront space

Toronto’s waterfront is a magnet for nearby city dwellers, not only local residents. We seek out the waterfront on our long weekends. Families have barbecues and reunions in lakeside parks; volleyball players need a beach.

Congestion occurs because so many people want to escape to be near the water.

Where will millions more in the future go given the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is projected to have a population of about 13 million by 2066? We should not repeat the same mistakes made by the government-appointed Waterfront Toronto, “the public steward of waterfront revitalization,” of not planning for sufficient public green space.

“Density” is promoted for the benefit of corporate developers. But if more and more people are to be without the privacy and pleasure of a backyard for the sake of increasing density, then we need public parks to compensate for this. The cooler waterfront is the best location for more parkland, especially as we face blazing hot summers related to climate change.

The existing built environment at Toronto’s lakefront has so far been unsuccessful in “place-making” — turning spaces into communities. The west side of the lakefront (Bathurst to Yonge Streets) does not have enough parkland. The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization project added more concrete and traffic confusion to the already built environment of condominiums. The eastern side is also filling up with condos up to the water’s edge. Someone needs to stand up and protect what is left of Toronto’s lakefront for social capital building and climate adaptation.

Place-making can work

Some great North American cities are known for heroic efforts in place-making. In Chicago, entrepreneur-turned-magnate Aaron Montgomery Ward fought a 20-year battle to save Grant Park from greedy builders. Today, Montgomery Ward’s celebrated legacy is Chicago’s waterfront park: It is what makes Chicago a great city.

New York City has its Central Park. Central Park is one of the outstanding design features that makes New York forever attractive.

The New York State legislature stepped up to purchase more than 750 acres, 843 acres today, of parkland because, even in 1853, politicians understood that “a great public park would improve public health and contribute greatly to the formation of a civil society.” Manhattan, well-known for its limited and expensive real estate, is 13 miles long and 2.3 miles wide; Central Park is 2.5 miles long and a half mile wide.

Also, Boston’s parks, including Boston Common and the Public Garden, have been preserved. The Public Garden is the first botanical garden in the United States, established in 1837, and is considered one of Boston’s greatest attractions.

Toronto still has a chance with the waterfront space that remains.

Why is Waterfront Toronto contemplating building more condominiums? It seems the organization is attempting to pack too much into the precious waterfront space. Does a park seem too simple? Well, simplicity is majesty, as the great parks central to other world-class cities suggest. Toronto should be preserving waterfront space and making it our “Central Park.”

Toronto’s last decade has seen a rise in residential buildings, many on the waterfront, possibly related to the influence of a now-defunct Ontario Municipal Board, which gave developers too much power.

Those days are gone as of this year, so Toronto can revise its approach to be more like that of Vancouver, where the new chief planner is talking about a “vision for the future.”

Density is not the solution

The cost of living, a lack of space, transport issues, pollution and noise are problems in dense environments.

But density is not equivalent to affordable housing, especially in a downtown core. It’s a myth that developers espouse because they make more money selling more units on a smaller parcel of land.

Increased density by way of taller buildings is also not safe for people, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. In a 2016 CMAJ study, people living above the third floor had lower survival rates after cardiac arrest. That was due to the time it took to reach them and, in some cases, because elevators were too small for stretchers. Above the 25th floor, no one survived.

Research offers this warning: “If development is not in the right place, at the right time, and in the right form, even compact urban
forms can disrupt ecological and social systems.”

Tech hubs should be built elsewhere

We have lots of space around the GTA for experimenting with smart-city technologies. Transit hubs — communities built around major transit stops — begin as smaller spaces, not located on precious lakefront property. They can become additional vibrant central business districts where new smart-city technologies may be tried out as smaller individual pilot tests.

Toronto can add compact communities, with architecturally interesting low-rise buildings like Boston’s brownstones but without the hefty price tags, because they are not downtown. These communities can also include workplaces near to homes. With many of these mixed-use hubs, commuting is reduced, local housing is more affordable and small business rents are decreased. Downtown locations, while still desirable, are no longer required.

Integrated into a park-focused, climate-adaptive waterfront vision should be inspiration, beautification and monumental design that creates social capital as a primary goal, and ultimately, a happy world-class city.

Toronto needs to step back and reconsider its development assumptions and approach, including citizen participation in design, not just consultation or communications. The city should find inspiration in international examples of place-making like Boston, Chicago, Copenhagen, as well as Vancouver, as it reconsiders its direction.

Toronto could still take back control of at least part of its rare and precious lakefront. The city could create an extraordinary public experience, possibly with world-class monumental architecture placed within a larger green space to satisfy and inspire future generations of happy city dwellers.

Who will create a green vision for our waterfront, as Montgomery Ward did for Chicago?

Written by Steven Liss, Ryerson University; Anna Majury, Queen’s University; and Haley Sanderson, Queen’s University. Photo credit THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christ Young. Originally published in The Conversation.

Demonstrators at a 2010 Toronto rally protesting the mercury contamination of the Wabigoon-English waterway in northwestern Ontario carry long blue banners meant to represent a river.

Water crisis is over and lead levels back to normal in Flint, read the headlines. The Michigan city has been besieged with water quality challenges for the past three years. Incidents of Legionella infections leading to 12 deaths in 2014 and 2015 further complicated matters.

Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, a leading water expert, declared the end of the Flint water crisis. He urged residents to continue to use filters until the infrastructure upgrades are complete, but acknowledged it would be some time before residents would trust officials as guardians of water quality.

Factors contributing to the Flint water crisis are not unique.

Inadequate and aged water infrastructure are common sources of problems. While upgrading infrastructure after a crisis is necessary, and technological advancement can overcome some water quality management challenges, those efforts are only effective if implemented consistently and maintained properly.

Underlying issues that become apparent after a crisis must also be addressed. They include public trust, accessibility, the need for environmental protections and for strong communication between officials and the communities.

Water crises have a long history

Just over 17 years ago, the tainted water crisis in Walkerton, Ont. led to 2,300 cases of gastroenteritis and seven deaths. Amid excessive rainfall, cattle manure run-off from an adjacent farm contaminated the shallow drinking water well.

The community’s prolonged exposure was attributed to a lack of training and education of key personnel, and lack of action when the test results showed fecal contamination.

Similarly, in Camelford, England, a major pollution incident occurred in 1988 when 20 tons of aluminium sulfate, a toxic chemical used in water treatment, was introduced into the water system.

At concentrations 3,000 times the acceptable level, lead and copper were released from distribution pipes, leading to short-term illnesses such as headaches, abdominal pain and flu-like symptoms. There was also long-term harm, which can include kidney disease and even death.

The situation was worsened by poor governance and communication with the affected community.

The Walkerton and Camelford communities enjoy improved oversight of their water resources and infrastructure. In contrast, First Nations communities do not always see improvements after crises.

First Nations often forgotten

From 1962 to 1970, wastewater containing mercury from a paper mill was dumped into the Wabigoon-English River. It is the water supply for the First Nations communities of Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong, each about 100 kilometres from Kenora near the Ontario-Manitoba border.

The river is still contaminated with mercury, and indemnities granted to the paper mill owners from the federal and Ontario governments severely limit cleanup and monitoring.

While the First Nations communities received monetary compensation, the loss of a commercial fishery removed the primary source of income for the residents, and 90 per cent of the population continue to show signs of exposure to mercury.

The federal government reported in July that there were 150 drinking water advisories for First Nations south of the 60th parallel. Shoal Lake 40 First Nation on the Manitoba-Ontario border has been under boil-water advisory (BWA) since 1997, while Winnipeg continues to draw its freshwater supply from Shoal Lake.

Clearly, an inequity in water quality services in First Nations compared to non-First Nations communities exists. It has contributed to the disparity and lack of trust and satisfaction about their water supply among First Nations.

Limited consultation with First Nations communities for projects related to their traditional lands and natural resources around them causes further distrust.

Canada, with about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, is perceived as a water-rich nation, but only a fraction — about 6.5 per cent — is renewable.

Changes in water quality owing to depletion of non-renewable groundwater supplies, contamination due to the release of inadequately treated or untreated sewage, discharge of emerging contaminants and climate change all pose challenges to the sustainability of water resources and the supply of safe water.

Solutions not always simple or clear

At any given moment, there are hundreds of boil water advisories in effect across Canada, many lasting more than five years. There is no national standard to determine when a BWA should be implemented. Reasons for BWAs include problems with disinfection systems and failed microbiological tests.

BWAs are an important precautionary tool regarding water safety. However, frequent and/or long-lasting BWAs may affect consumer behaviour to such a degree that people stop heeding them.

The development and implementation of risk management plans for water, based on quality requirements, is limited by what is considered safe.

In the context of human health, safe water contains negligible, if any, levels of harmful contaminants such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses or protozoa, cancer-causing chemicals or any other acutely toxic substance.

Other potential and emerging contaminants such as personal-care products, pharmaceuticals and antibiotic-resistant microbes may cause less acute illness. And they may affect populations such as the frail, elderly and children quite differently, making them difficult to address and include in risk management plans.

Acute crises draw attention to the need for multi-level risk management plans that are preventative rather than reactive, address the greatest risks, draw on experience and adequately invest resources for risk mitigation.

The failures serve to remind us that investing only in infrastructure and personnel training is not enough.

There must also be investment in programs and resources that incorporate broader environmental protection requirements, community involvement, education and research to better address contemporary water issues and prevent future water crises.