Proposed Toronto By-Law Will Kill Small-Scale Green Roofs in City

The City of Toronto is considering a By-law that will require green roofs on certain types/sizes of new construction. As a part of this By-law, there will also be a Toronto Green Roof Construction Standard governing how a green roof should be designed/built.

The problem lies in that fact that this Standard will apply to all green roofs, required or not, regardless of their size. Some of the draft standards, however, are excessively onerous for small-scale projects. Some would outright make it impossible for small-scale green roofs to be built at all. If my garage had been subject to these standards, it would have only allowed to have been 10% the size, the structure would’ve needed to be beefed up considerably because I would’ve been mandated to use a deeper depth of growing media … and I probably wouldn’t have proceeded at all.

The documents outlining the By-law and construction standard are here and here, and my response letter to the city is available for your perusal here.

Please: if you are a strong advocate for green roofs and don’t want to see Toronto’s fledgling green roof movement die before it gets off the ground, send a letter to the city!