Green Infrastructure Project to Take Place in Ontario

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) and Landscape Ontario launched a research and community engagement initiative funded by the Metcalf Foundation. This project will develop the capacity of communities throughout Ontario to understand the costs and benefits of investing in living green infrastructure development. The project involves the development of a tool that features detailed descriptions of multiple green infrastructure technologies and the average costs and benefits and then applying this analysis to areas in different communities that are redesigned in a one day charrette.

Design charrettes will be held in four cities with carefully selected community stakeholders. These full day events will draw upon the experience and expertise of selected attendees to re-envision degraded areas within their community with living green infrastructure such as urban forests, parks, green roofs and green walls. The goal of the charrettes will be to provide communities with a vision of what is possible, and the costs and benefits associated with moving forward on implementing that vision.

“There is a case to be made for significantly increasing the amount of public investment in the design, installation and maintenance of living green infrastructure in our urban and suburban communities. In order to achieve this, we need the tools to re-envision what is possible, and make the business case that this investment should be made,” said Steven Peck, founder and president of GRHC, co-founder of Green Infrastructure Ontario Coalition.

By coupling the economic cost and benefits with a solid vision of green infrastructure’s place in future development and redevelopment this project should make a unique contribution to the transformation to healthier, more resilient and sustainable communities in Ontario and beyond. 

In addition to its partnership with Landscape Ontario, GRHC is undertaking this project with Green Infrastructure Ontario and the Ontario Parks Assn. This vast pool of resources allows for an unprecedented collaboration between top thinkers in a number of key green infrastructure practices.

The Toronto pilot charrette report is available for download.

Source: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities