Burlington home adaptation reducing risk

NRU
July 20, 2016
Leah Wong

Flood mitigation has been a top priority for the City of Burlington since a record rainfall in August 2014 flooded roads, highways and more than 3,000 homes. While the city has budgeted for stormwater infrastructure improvements in its capital plan, it is now looking to engage residents in what they can do to prevent flooding in the future.

On Monday Burlington council approved $50,000 for the pilot of the Home Adaptation Assessment Program, run by the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation. The program seeks to educate local residents on how they can reduce the risk of home flooding.

“We recognize that there is a significant role for private homeowners to increase the level of flood protection in their homes,” Burlington capital works executive director Allan Magi told community and corporate services committee last week. “Better education [so residents have] awareness about their homes is an integral part of this.”

The first phase of the assessment program will run in Burlington between August and November with a goal of working with 500 homeowners. Once participants have been selected program assessors will tour properties with homeowners and identify about 50 points of potential water entry. Homeowners will be given an action plan that will identify what they can do to reduce potential flooding, as well as any subsidy programs they could access to reduce the cost of these actions.

The program utilizes best practices for flood risk mitigation across the globe. Home Adaptation Assessment Program director Cheryl Evans said that the program will test how these practices work in Burlington and improve them as it progresses. The program follows up with participants at six and 12-month intervals to ascertain whether homeowners made any changes to their houses and if additional support is needed.

Magi said staff is supportive of the city’s participation in the program because it seeks to educate residents.

“[The program] will provide homeowners specific, useful information about their homes and how the drainage system will respond to extreme events,” said Magi. “[As well it will suggest] measures they can undertake to increase their resilience in these events to better protect themselves and minimize potential damages.”

Evans told committee the Intact Centre is trying to add climate adaptation to the national conversation and encourage property owners to make practical decisions that reduce the risk and costs associated with extreme weather events. The centre is piloting this program in Burlington with the intention of scaling it up on a more national level in the future.

Evans said that collaboration with the local municipality, in this case Burlington, is important as it will integrate the program with municipal eff orts to reduce flood risks. She noted that the program is more comprehensive than its municipal counterparts as it addresses a range of flooding risks—municipal programs, alternatively, tend to focus on one cause of flooding.

Magi noted that city staff are working with Intact Centre to determine the areas of the city that are best suited for the pilot. Residents that own houses of varying ages will be included so the effectiveness of the program in different areas can be gauged. City staff are also working with their regional counterparts to avoid overlap with the regional basement flooding prevention subsidy program and voluntary downspout disconnection program.

Evans said similar programs in Calgary and Kitchener-Waterloo have had promising results. About two-thirds of program participants in these cities acted on key recommendations within about six months. Evans noted that every dollar invested in adaptation is expected to produce $7 in savings during extreme weather events.

Another goal of the program is to help residents better understand their insurance coverage. As a result of payouts from claims related to recent extreme weather events, Evans noted that insurance companies are changing their policies and many residents are having difficulty understanding what these changes mean.