Vancouver City Council voted Thursday to lift its ban on new residential natural gas connections, after residents successfully rallied against a similar motion in 2024.<\/p>\n
Mayor Ken Sim introduced Motion 8, the second major attempt to roll back the gas heating ban, on May 13, to wide public outcry. The motion also mandates<\/a> [pdf] a review of Vancouver\u2019s standalone building code, the Vancouver Building By-law (VBBL), and eliminates Energize Vancouver\u2014the City program mandating emissions reporting for commercial buildings.<\/p>\n Critics, including Stand.earth climate campaigner Sunil Singal, call it a massive rollback of Vancouver\u2019s climate policies.<\/p>\n \u201cKen Sim\u2019s motion has now gutted Vancouver\u2019s leadership as an innovator in the country for how to reduce pollution from buildings,\u201d Singal told The Energy Mix.<\/p>\n The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) condemned Vancouver City Council\u2019s decision to pass the motion. CAPE representative Dr. Maura Brown, a Vancouver-based physician, said in an emailed statement: \u201cThis decision flies in the face of public health evidence, and doctors will be seeing the harmful consequences in our communities for decades.\u201d Gas commonly leaks from home appliances<\/a>, exposing residents to benzene, a carcinogen to which \u201cthere is no safe level of exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRenters, who make up over half of Vancouver\u2019s population, will bear the brunt of these health risks with no way to protect themselves,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n More than 120 speakers signed up to speak at a public hearing on May 20, which extended to May 21. The majority of speakers opposed the motion, with only 18 speaking for it.<\/p>\n Since 2016, Vancouver has been on a path to gradually phase out natural gas for space and water heating in most new building types<\/a> by 2025. In 2022, Council voted to phase out gas for space and hot water heating in new low-rise residential construction. In July 2024, after local elections changed the voting balance on Council, Sim made a surprise move to reverse the ban. In November 2024, after wide outcry at a public hearing, councillors voted 5-5 to reinstate the ban.<\/p>\n Motion 8 directs staff to research ways to bring Vancouver\u2019s building bylaw into alignment with the provincial building code and to provide justification for divergences.<\/p>\n Former councillor and British Columbia Housing Minister Christine Boyle wrote to Sim <\/a>[pdf] asking him to hold off on any changes. The province is currently reviewing the costs and impacts of the Energy and the Zero Carbon Step Codes, which govern climate standards for buildings across B.C. Changes to local regulation would add uncertainty and delay to their review, Boyle wrote to Sim on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sim described<\/a> Boyle\u2019s letter as an \u201c11th-hour attempt to intervene\u201d on a city debate over \u201cenergy choice and affordability,\u201d declaring that \u201cIt is the right of Vancouver City Council to debate and pass these policies without undue pressure from a provincial cabinet minster.\u201d<\/p>\n Motion 8 cites \u201cregulatory divergence\u201d as an affordability concern and industry barrier to build and permit new developments. But several speakers from housing consulting firms, construction firms, and the local business community said Vancouver City Council\u2019s repeated flip-flops on building policy create more expensive uncertainty for developers.<\/p>\n \u201cIn November 2024, the building industry was clear with Vancouver City Council: hold steady on energy and emissions requirements for new builds. Builders had invested in better practices and found ways to deliver better buildings more cost-competitively,\u201d Robert Pecora, director of building decarbonization at the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC), told<\/a> The Mix in an email.<\/p>\n