Many City of Edmonton buildings highly vulnerable to climate risks, report finds

CBC

2 days ago

Hundreds of municipal buildings in Edmonton are highly vulnerable and at risk to climate-related hazards, according to an external report that has not yet been shared with city council.
The City of Edmonton hired Stantec Consulting Ltd. in 2022 to conduct a climate vulnerability and risk assessment for its building portfolio and identify which buildings were most at risk.
The December 2023 report concluded that wildfire smoke, intense rainfall, heavy snowfall, storms, extreme cold and winter freeze-thaw pose the highest risks to the city's building portfolio for the 2030s. Once a manageable issue, extreme heat is now becoming a more prevalent risk.
The report, which cost $400,000 and was funded in part by grant money from the provincial government, said that as the climate changes, so will risks to the city's buildings.
The report said the risks dramatically shift for the portfolio in the 2050s and 2080s, with the risk of wildfires, droughts, extreme heat, extreme weather events and freeze-thaw events increasing.
The document predicts that buildings or assets surrounded by forests could be susceptible to wildfires, extreme heat and high winds could lead to power outages and HVAC systems blocked by smoke could lead to poor indoor air quality.
Other impacts could include flooding, roof damage, cracked foundations and higher insurance premiums.
CBC News recently obtained a copy of the report through a freedom of information request.
Though the most at-risk buildings, the costs of retrofits and the costs of inaction were redacted in the report provided to CBC, a post about the risk assessment on the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre's website says 39 per cent of assessed structures (or 343 of the city's 884 buildings) need immediate action because of their high risk, age and condition.
Mackenzie Boilard, a 19-year-old University of Alberta student and member of the community organization Edmonton Youth for Climate (EYFC), said she worries about climate change damaging municipal buildings to the point where the public can no longer use them.
"I want to be able to walk into a building and be comfortable and be able to operate and do my work," she said in an interview this week.
She and Tristan Dell, 24, also a U of A student and EYFC member, read the 2023 report and said the city should be mitigating risks now to avoid more dire consequences later.
"I think that it's easy for people to kind of turn their heads away from it," he said.
Chris Webster, a communications adviser for the City of Edmonton, said while 39 per cent of the buildings were initially assessed as being exposed to medium- to high-climate risk and vulnerabilities over the coming decades, many of the buildings have not been visited to definitively confirm work required.
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He said climate vulnerability risk assessments would have to be done on specific sites before major renovations take place.
Webster said Stantec's report can help prioritize buildings for the city's retrofit program but additional assessments will better confirm potential climate risks, allowing for the most appropriate action.
He also said Stantec has produced a more recent version of the report, which is under review.
Webster said the city is still reviewing the findings from the report, no actions have been taken and the report has not yet been shared with city council.
"Any potential projects or expenditures resulting from this report could be submitted as part of the 2027-2030 budget process for consideration and approval by city council," he said.
The report makes more than a dozen recommendations for the City Edmonton, including creating a frozen pipe policy, training staff to respond to extreme climate events and seeking out opportunities to divest at-risk and low-value buildings.
The document also lists dozens of possible adaptation measures, such as insulation upgrades, green roof design, passive solar cooling and ventilation systems, increasing stormwater drainage capacity and providing back-up power.
The report said not adapting the city's buildings to prepare for the effects of climate change would lead to assets needing to be replaced or rehabilitated earlier, increased operation, capital and maintenance costs, and reduced service levels for residents.
Jason Thistlethwaite, an associate professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Waterloo who researches climate risk management, said municipalities have the most exposure to climate change but the least amount of money to mitigate it.
He said there is a consensus now among experts that investing in retrofits now is worth doing.
"The benefits of investing in preparedness, mitigation, and defending your community from climate risk far outweigh the cost," he said.
The report said the costs to retrofit the buildings fully by 2040 or even later is "beyond available revenue-based funding."
"I see the position they're in, but we need to start prioritizing this and not doing business as usual," said Haley Pukanski, an organizer with the Climate Justice Edmonton collective.
She criticized the city's recent decision to extend the Community Revitalization Levy downtown instead of spending the millions of dollars on climate action.
Ramla Qureshi, an assistant professor of civil engineering at McMaster University who researches structural resilience against extreme hazards, said based on her work, even municipalities that have seen buildings damaged by wildfires continue to build in the same places and don't seem to be offloading at-risk structures.
"Even when cities know the risk and they understand, leaders just don't have the capacity to make all these changes," she said.
Webster said the majority of new municipal buildings since 2008 in Edmonton have been built to meet the LEED Silver green building standards and that a climate strategy and action plan guides the city's efforts to conduct impact assessments on buildings, maintenance programs, retrofits and new infrastructure developments.