The following letter to the editor was submitted to GuelphToday by Mieke Boecker.
What if Guelph adopted a green roof bylaw?
Perhaps this idea sounds too far-fetched or too authoritarian. However, it is already a reality in a city not far from here: Toronto. Toronto was, in fact, the first city in North America to implement a bylaw making green roofs a requirement on new buildings and additions on existing buildings that have a minimum gross floor area of 2,000 square feet.
Many of Guelph’s proposed developments would fit this size category. Plus, the bylaw could be adjusted to make it more in line with what Guelph residents and developers view as acceptable floor area standards, if that’s needed.
As a Guelphite myself, I know how green this city already is, both in the landscaping and in the spirit of the people who live here. However, as Guelph grows and the remaining land within buildable limits is developed, we will need to focus more and more on maintaining existing greenspaces and creating new ones. This will be necessary to help offset the negative side effects of urbanization, such as the urban heat island effect and runoff. Green roof requirements will guarantee that at least a portion of the exact area on which a building is built will serve as a greenspace, thereby making up for those greenspaces that are lost on the ground.
When properly designed, green roofs contribute to a city’s well-being in many ways. Environmentally, they can act as biodiversity corridors, providing food and shelter for pollinators and other flying/climbing species (think ON routes for bees, birds, and all their friends). Economically, they can improve a building’s energy consumption through both cooling and insulating effects (in the summer and winter, respectively). Socially, they can be charming rooftop gathering spaces for residents of the buildings on which they are located (who doesn’t love a good outdoor space with beautiful plants in the summertime?). These are just three of a much longer list of reasons why green roofs have so much potential in the area of urban climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Sustainability should be a city’s main goal, and to get there you can’t just focus on the economic, nor the environmental, nor just the social circumstances and desired outcomes for a city. Instead, all three need to work together. Social equity, environmental protection, and economic viability are all intertwined and co-sustain one another. It’s clear to me that green roofs are an approach that champions all three of these sustainability components.
It is my belief that Guelph will benefit from a bylaw that requires the implementation of green roofs as a way to counteract the effects of environmental degradation and climate change.
Conventional roofs are a thing of the past. It's time to spruce things up with some greenery.
Mieke Boecker
