Action plan for Caledon: Sustainable Retrofits

NRU
Aug. 12, 2015
By Leah Wong

Caledon council is considering a plan to build resiliency and improve the local environment in one of its mature neighbourhoods.

Staff has recommended the town work with Peel Region and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority to develop a Sustainable Neighbourhood Retrofit Action Plan for the Jaffrey’s Creek sub-catchment area. This is TRCA’s sixth SNAP, following programs in Mississauga’s Burnhamthorpe community and Brampton’s County Court. Each program is tailored to a specific neighbourhood, and focuses on improvements to stormwater management, green building, natural heritage and active transportation, for example.

“SNAP is a model for the transformation of older neighbourhoods. It’s meant to act as sort of a demonstration site—or living lab—to test approaches to working together on neighbourhood retrofits,” TRCA project manager Shannon Logan told NRU.

Through the program the partners can determine what barriers a municipality might face in implementing new initiatives and learn about how better to work with residents in the future.

“A key feature of the SNAP program that appealed to [the town] is its ability to serve as a means for effectively coordinating the implementation of multiple municipal and agency plans, priorities and recommendations into on-the-ground action,” Caledon climate change coordinator Shannon Leigh Carto said in an email to NRU.

TRCA uses its experiences in other SNAP neighbourhoods to inform new programs.

The Jaffrey’s Creek area has been recommended as the next SNAP for a number of reasons. First, the area comprises mostly single-detached homes, which at 16 to 30 years old are prime candidates for indoor and outdoor water and energy conservation retrofits.

There are a number of environmental issues in the area. Some residential properties have had flooding issues, which could be related to drainage problems, and the creek’s flow and storage capacity has been impacted by in-stream erosion.

Additionally Peel Region and the town have designated the neighbourhood as an urban tree planting priority area. Carto said this area also has opportunities for cross-departmental cost-sharing to offset expenses related to urban renewal and community initiatives, plans and projects.

“The SNAP will take a comprehensive approach to looking at Jaffrey’s Creek and the broader area around it,” said Logan. “We’re looking at things like resolving some of the erosion or drainage issues and also tying into broader improvements in stormwater management, water balance, as well as, energy and water efficiency within the homes and businesses.”

The TRCA has learned through its other SNAP programs that the neighbourhoods selected need to have specific project priorities that align with existing municipal and watershed plans.

“There has to be a specific local priority identified that really acts as a driver,” said Logan. She added that it also has to align with a capital project—in Caledon’s case the 2015 Drainage Study for Jaffrey’s Creek and 2016 Stormwater Master Plan.

To be successful the program also needs to be locally driven, with residents or groups that will act as champions for initiatives, and area gathering spaces where the partners can hold information sessions. Communities that are proposed for a SNAP also need to be receptive to a taking a new approach to long-standing issues. Logan said this might include a project where public and private sector landowners collaborate to achieve a retrofit solution.

“For example, if one partner is working alone on a particular issue at a particular site this SNAP model really offers another option to step back at a neighbourhood scale and bring landowners together to come up with different solutions that might not have happened otherwise,” said Logan.

The staff report recommends that staff work with the TRCA to submit a grant application to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Municipal Fund to pay for a portion of the $300,000 project. If the town receives $154,000 from FCM the remaining funding will come from the TRCA ($96,000) and the town ($50,000). If funding is committed the first phase of the SNAP will start in the winter, including the development of the plan and an implementation strategy.

Caledon council was considering staff recommendations at its meeting yesterday, which was still underway at NRU’s deadline.