90 per cent of Canadians surveyed want ‘green’ condominiums
Fiona Anderson
Sun
A computer-generate rendering of the Pacific Street elevation of the Pomaria residential tower
Ninety per cent of Canadians living in major urban centres want to buy condominiums that are energy efficient, according to a survey conducted on behalf of TD Canada Trust.
Forty-five per cent of respondents in the on-line survey — which was carried out by Ipsos Reid and questioned 725 adults in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax — said living in an “environmentally friendly, energy-efficient building” was very important while another 45 per cent said it was somewhat important.
Robert Drew, an architect with Busby Perkins+Will Architects in Vancouver said the finding was consistent with the message his company is getting from its clients.
“Underlying this is a young demographic out there buying condos and they’re educated, they’re informed [and] they know that the environment is critical as an issue right now,” Drew said. “And that’s informing how they are choosing to live.”
There is also the older demographic who are downsizing and need to know the condo they are buying isn’t going to drain their monthly income through high energy costs, he said.
The survey found the importance of energy-efficiency increased with age, with 50 per cent of those 55 and older citing it as very important.
Jennifer Podmore, managing partner of MPC Intelligence which advises developers on consumer needs, said energy-efficient condominiums have become much more topical recently.
A lot of people are realizing how easy it is to have a more energy-efficient condo and with that realization there is more pressure on developers to deliver them, Podmore said.
“[But] the one thing we are finding is not many people are willing to spend a lot more to have a greener condo,” Podmore said.
So the key is finding ways to make an apartment more environmentally friendly — without making it more expensive — by cutting down on common-use areas such as lobbies and swimming pools that take a lot of energy to maintain.
“The less common space the less waste,” Podmore said.
Developers are also putting in gas stoves and heating, energy-efficient light bulbs and water-efficient toilets, some of which add to the price of the condo but will pay back in reduced monthly expenses over time, Podmore said.
Qualex-Landmark Group of Companies found that higher prices didn’t scare buyers away from their Pomaria project, which is aiming to be one of the first residential towers in Canada to get silver certification under LEED, an American rating system that stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Getting LEED certification, which won’t happen until the building is completed this summer, required Qualex to do a number of things, including recycling parts of buildings that were torn down to clear the site for the new development, and keeping down dust during building. The building also had to use LEED-certified materials right down to the carpets and cabinets, Qualex’s vice-president of sales and marketing, Chris Colbeck said.
That added about three to four per cent to the construction costs “which obviously translates into sale price,” Colbeck said.
But Pomaria was aimed at sophisticated buyers who were looking for something special, he said.
“First of all they liked the product. Second of all they liked the fact that it was a sustainable building.”
The TD survey also found Vancouver had the highest number of respondents (50 per cent) who were willing to buy a condominium as their principal residence. Sixty-two per cent of Calgarians and 57 per cent of Torontonians were against the idea. Thirty-four per cent of Vancouver respondents could see themselves raising a family in a condo, compared to 29 per cent country-wide.
Vancouverites were also most likely (84 per cent compared to a survey average of 79 per cent) to walk away from a condominium that didn’t have a parking space. Yet 81 per cent of Vancouver respondents (above the national average of 80 per cent) said the condo needed to be near public transit.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007