Vancouver city council begins mulling natural gas debate

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On Tuesday, Vancouver city council began weighing what could be one of the more contentious decisions of their four-year term: whether to change course on the use of natural gas heating in new buildings.

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Tuesday’s council meeting follows months of heated public debate, since council introduced a surprise amendment in July directing city staff to amend bylaws to allow natural gas for heating and hot water in new buildings. This would reverse a four-year-old policy established by Vancouver’s previous council to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions — and the July vote passed by the narrowest of margins, 6-5.

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On Tuesday, city staff reported back to council, presenting two “compliance paths” for builders. The first pathway would mean building to a high level of B.C.’s zero carbon step code, which generally doesn’t allow gas for heating. The second route would allow builders to use gas for heating, but would require them to build to the highest step of the energy step code, which achieves a higher level of energy efficiency. Both paths would allow natural gas for cooking.

The subject has drawn intense debate, with some business groups including the gas industry, encouraging council to reintroduce natural gas in new buildings. Environmental advocates are opposing the reversal, raising concerns about increasing the city’s climate pollution. In the homebuilding industry, there have been vocal proponents on both sides of the argument.

By presenting the second “compliance pathway,” city staff appear to be seeking to blunt the climate impact of adding natural gas by requiring a higher standard of energy efficiency for the building, said Roberto Pecora, director of building decarbonization with the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre, or ZEIC, who was among those registered to address council.

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“It’s a bit of a trade-off,” said Pecora, who spent 20 years in the building industry before joining ZEIC, a non-profit promoting sustainable construction and practices. “But even if they try to mitigate the carbon pollution potential of that path with the highest performing and most energy efficient level of the step code, it still has a significant risk of increasing the city’s carbon pollution.”

David Longpre, an architect with experience designing multiplex projects in Vancouver, said the two pathways presented by city staff represents “a fair compromise.”

Longpre believes allowing the option of gas heating could make more multiplex projects financially viable, by reducing the need for expensive electrical upgrades.

Bill Tieleman was also at city hall Tuesday, speaking for the B.C. Coalition for Affordable Dependable Energy, a business and labour industry group pushing council to allow gas.

Tieleman believes city staff’s recommendations don’t align with what council directed in July. By enabling natural gas heating only if builders follow “extremely expensive” energy efficiency requirements, Tieleman said, “It’s keeping an effective ban on natural gas.”

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“City staff have, clearly, an environmental agenda,” he said. “It’s been inculcated in the city for a long time, and I’m not too surprised by it.”

Tieleman said he believes council should send the report back to city staff “and say: ‘This isn’t what we asked for.’ ”

Before Tuesday’s meeting, former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson wrote to council urging them not to allow natural gas in new buildings

“There is still time to do the right thing,” Robertson wrote. “Do not fall for the deceptive talking points repeated by fossil fuel lobbyists and climate change deniers. Allowing gas back in buildings will have dire consequences for our health and the environment for generations.”

More than 142 people signed up to address council on the gas decision, showing a high level of public interest. A rally Tuesday morning outside of city hall drew a crowd, including climate activist Avi Lewis, calling on council not to allow gas in buildings.

“We’re playing defence today,” Lewis told the crowd to applause. “This is when we stubbornly hold the line.”

The matter is expected to resume later in the week.

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Late Tuesday afternoon, ABC Coun. Brian Montague raised an objection over the two Green councillors, Adriane Carr and Pete Fry, whose desks were displaying works of art created by local elementary school children. The pieces of colourful construction paper included crayon-written messages like: “Keep our homes fossil free!” and “Save our only earth.”

Montague complained that the posters were “intimidating to the speakers we’re going to have.”

“It’s intimidation. They’re basically saying they don’t want to hear them,” Montague said, asking ABC Mayor Ken Sim, chairing the meeting, to rule on whether the posters violated city policy.

After a recess, Sim said he agreed the children’s posters could be intimidating, emphasizing the importance of creating “a safe environment for everyone so they can express their feelings.”

Fry and Carr said they didn’t want to argue the matter, and took down the children’s posters.

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