In the battle against climate change, municipal governments, architects and developers are focused on building housing types that increase greenhouse gas emissions, says architect Kelly Alvarez Doran.

Buildings no higher than four floors built around wood frames and located on transit routes emit less carbon in construction, maintenance and operations than either condo towers or single-family homes, said Doran.

Cities that are serious about reducing the emissions that cause climate change will adopt zoning and building regulations to enable construction of mid-rise multi-residential development, he said, and reduce or eliminate the building of condo towers and single-family homes.

Condos today are one-third to one-quarter as efficient as a single-family home built to the standards of the Ontario Building Code. But single-family homes require much more land for just a few people.

“Housing is either seen as a condo or a single-family house, and it is like a false dichotomy,” he said. “There is so much in between those two ends of the spectrum. And from an emissions perspective, both ends of the spectrum are the worst.”

To reduce emissions, cities, architects, engineers and builders must focus on mid-rise developments, such as townhouses, and reduce or replace the use of concrete, aluminum, glass and foams, he said.

Vancouver is the only Canadian city to regulate what Doran calls the embodied carbon in new, multi-residential developments. Embodied carbon refers to emissions produced when making the building materials, and the emissions during construction. Materials and construction can account for 75 to 90 per cent of total emissions over a building’s life cycle.

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