Cortix Utilities engineer Terry Balak walks inside the Dockside Green community. Chad Hipolito / Globe & Mail
The Globe and Mail
By David Ebner, Published Wednesday, November 24, 2011
*Excerpts from The Greenest Communities in the World. Download the PDF to read the full article.
Several times a week, a truck rolls up to a non-descript sheet metal-clad industrial building on Victoria's upper harbour. The trucks dump loads of small chunks of wood, waste that has been reclaimed from construction sites in the region and acquired from a nearby recycling facility.
The wood is fuel. Inside, the wood is turned into synthetic gas, which then is burned to boil water. This water, moved through the district energy system at the new Dockside Green community, provides heat and hot water to four residential and two commercial buildings, located adjacent to the power facility on six hectares. The system slashes the buildings' energy needs by more than 80 percent.
Dockside Green blooms on land that was long underused, faded industrial ground that was once home to whaling boats and shipbuilders. The neighbourhood is now bustling, vibrant and home to businesses and hundreds of people occupying about 270 units. About one-third complete, (it opened in 2007-2008) it's being hailed as one of the greenest communities in the world.
The pioneering work, the community design, and what's known as a "district energy" system that underpins it, is now a model for others in Canada, and beyond.
"It's not just the West Coast any more," says Vancouver-based architect Robert Drew of Perkins + Will, who led a local group - including financier Vancity, a credit union, energy system maker Nexterra and utility manager Corix Group - that came together to build the world-leading community.
"It was the birthplace. But it's spreading all across Canada. Developers are buying in because they see marketing opportunities."
Dockside Green, Mr. Drew believes, is "done evidence" that green energy projects are more than feel-good initiatives. It works. And it makes economic sense. Energy costs are radically reduced and it didn't cost a fortune. Mr. Drew estimates that condo units cost, at most, $5,000 more than a non-green version - a small amount equivalent to B.C.'s property transfer tax on a $400,000 unit.
It certainly didn't dissuade buyers. All the units sold, even as the world suffered recession, and even as other projects in the saturated Victoria market struggled.