Correspondence — Dr. Omid Aghaei & Dr. Sara Nikoofard (Technical concerns and sustainability comments)

Correspondence — Dr. Omid Aghaei & Dr. Sara Nikoofard (Technical concerns and sustainability comments)

Email: Re: Westhills Report

• From: Omid Aghaei
• Sent: September 12, 2021 6:32 PM
• To: Trina Cruikshank; Langford Planning General Mailbox
• Cc: Matthew Baldwin; Leah Stohmann; sara nikoofard
• Subject: Re: Westhills Report

Hi Trina,

Thanks for the document regarding the changes to the Westhills zone and Master Development agreement. Regarding this proposal, we have the following concerns. We would appreciate it if these are communicated with Westhills and possibly raised during our meeting on Monday.

Westhills has made great effort to make this community an exemplary green built and sustainable environment. However, I would appreciate if they can clarify/comment on the followings:

a. It seems Westhills could not fulfill the LEED ND V2009 on time (certification sunset of June 2021). I was wondering why it is not changing to LEED ND V4 or V4.1 which has no prerequisite on brown field to stop the certification for moving forward. They are rather credits that can be achieved or compensated with other credits (as far as I understood). Is the current development not able to get certified under either of those versions due to lack of points? or has the applicant lost interest? The newer version of LEED (V4.1), for example, allows for grid harmonization which can help reduce the load on the utility and shift the peak load in the community.

b. What green standards is planning to be achieved? It is not clear to me at this point. However, deciding on one standard that can be certified by a third party like LEED or WELL would be much better than a “Sustainability Statement” that is not clear how or on what grounds it assesses the sustainability of a building. “Submitting a Sustainability Statement” as mentioned in page 24, to me, is not a good choice to move forward with.

c. As these buildings will be constructed over the next decade I would suggest going for higher than certified LEED or Bronze level of Green built rather than lower possible certification level. These buildings are going to be built and left here for the next century. As climate change is an urgent problem, now is the time to tackle it while we have the opportunity. The today new built will be the future existing buildings. It is easier to build a greener, more efficient building today rather than fixing it as an existing building down the road. In addition, in a few years step code will move on to higher levels and there is nothing to stop us to build higher step levels today (i.e. net‐zero energy ready building). Studies show that the technologies needed to achieve that level are already existing and the cost of building will not be more than 5 to10% of the current industry norm (depending on the climate zone). We are in the perfect position to showcase that building a green community is not only possible but also it is economically feasible. This will be a great part of the demonstration project as it was originally outlined.

Thanks,

Dr. Sara Nikoofard, PhD, PENG, LEED Green Associate, CMVP

Dr. Omid Aghaei, PhD, PGEO

1483 Commander Crt
Langford, V9B 0T1
BC, Canada

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On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 2:42 PM Trina Cruikshank tcruikshank@langford.ca wrote:

Good afternoon,

You recently requested a copy of the Westhills report. Planning, Zoning, and Affordable Housing Committee Agendas are posted to our website the Friday afternoon prior to the Committee Meeting. The Agenda was just posted and here is the link.

Trina Cruikshank
Assistant Land Development
City of Langford
t 250.478.7882 x4606
2nd Floor, 877 Goldstream Avenue | Langford, BC V9B 2X8
Langford.ca

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