Hello, I work with a…

Hello,

I work with a property developer in the GTA and am also a home owner in the City of Toronto.

As an engineer, I understand the importance of minimizing peak load on our City's stormwater infrastructure. As climate change changes the nature of storms in Ontario, we are experience more frequent heavy rainfall events - areas can receive the amount of rain in a single hour that they would normally see in several weeks or a month.

As a home owner, I see the impact of flooding on local communities - not just the short term chaos during an event, but the long term clean-up, restoration and rebuilding. The weather than occurs over a single hour can affect individuals and communities for many years.

These heavy rainfall events place serious stress on the stormwater infrastructure, forcing the City to look at two options - controlling the water where it lands (i.e. buildings), or retrofitting the stormwater infrastructure to try to accommodate the increase in rainfall. Retrofitting infrastructure is both costly and takes a long time. Requiring new buildings to control rainwater via green roofs and storage systems adds minimal cost and time to a project.

Green roofs do like nice, but their main purpose is functional - controlling rainwater and minimizing stress on the City's infrastructure. The City of Toronto has already dealt with several heavy rainfall events over the last 5 years, if the City is not able to continue to control rainfall where it lands then these events will affect more and more people - putting a strain on our relief systems, raise insurance premiums, and make make housing unaffordable in the long term.

The Province of Ontario shouldn't opt for a small, short term gain that will have large, negative impacts in the long term. The City of Toronto, and all municipalities, should be able to continue with green roof bylaws and other green building standards that make our cities more resilient to climate change.

Thank you.