A new bill from Premier Ford takes aim at many protections Torontonians hold dear - from tenant rights to bike lanes to green building requirements.
Bill 60 takes aim at Toronto’s green roof bylaw and green building standards, which have been making Toronto buildings more climate safe, energy efficient, and sustainable for over fifteen years. This is now Ford’s third attack on the Toronto Green Standard (TGS). This time, he’s packaging it all in a massive omnibus bill that targets other important city programs like rent control and bike lanes.
On the same day as Bill 60’s release, TEA put out new polling fielded by Abacus data showing that 84% of Torontonians support their government applying green building requirements, and 76% of Torontonians think that green building requirements ‘ensure homes are constructed properly’ vs only 24 per cent who think they are “‘slowing down construction of housing unnecessarily.”
You can find that polling here.
Killing green roofs and green standards will worsen flooding and heat, and make new buildings less energy efficient - that means burning a lot more gas to stay warm, and cranking up expensive AC units in the summer for those lucky enough to have them.
The developers attacking green standards like to tell us that removing rules ensuring our buildings are well-made will fix the housing crisis. But developers don’t live in the homes they build. So if removing green standards means they build a leaky condo or a slapdash office tower, it's the building’s residents who are left to foot the massive energy bills, while developers make off with the profits. No wonder a whopping 92% of Toronto residents support their local government applying building requirements that would make buildings safer from extreme weather like heat and flooding.
In summary, Premier Ford's Bill 60 is bad news for the things that make our city liveable. It guts tenant protections, takes a sledgehammer to bike lanes and potentially even kills vibrant and creative uses of our streets like CafeTO and street festivals. It kills green roofs which will worsen flooding and heat, and tries again to kill the green standards that have been protecting buildings in Toronto for over 15 years.
Now is a great time to stand up to the Ford government and say enough is enough. Please reach out to your local MPP and Housing Minister Rob Flack.
TEA is still sifting through the details. We will update you with more action opportunities to come! (If you haven’t already, click here to get updates from our team on this and other important environmental issues facing our City)