City hall plans to apply for $80,000 in federal funding to help make its buildings more environmentally friendly by reducing their greenhouse gases and monitoring the amount of energy they use.
During its March 28 regular meeting, city council voted unanimously to apply the Green Municipal Fund’s community building monitoring and analysis grant program for $25,000 to install energy sub-monitoring solutions at municipal venues.
Since this program covers 80 per cent of total costs, the city’s funding would come from the parks and recreation 2022 capital budget.
Furthermore, council voted to apply for $55,000 through the Green Municipal Fund’s community building recommissioning grant program for projects in city buildings. Since this program covers 60 per cent of all costs, the municipality’s share would again come from the parks department’s 2022 operating budget.
Council also acknowledged that should these applications be approved, city hall would not be able to submit any further projects to the two programs under the Green Municipal Fund’s overall community buildings retrofit initiative.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has provided $167 million to support its Green Municipal Fund’s community buildings retrofit program, a council report noted. The City of Moose Jaw believes it can use this funding to support its climate action plan.
There are five different funding streams under the retrofit program that city hall plans to explore, Derek Blais, director of parks and recreation, explained during the meeting.
The first is the community building monitoring and analysis grant, which supports projects that track energy use of existing community venues over time, compares the energy performance of the buildings to similar venues and identifies opportunities to save energy.
The second stream is the community building recommissioning grant, which aims to identify chances to reduce whole-building energy use by up to 15 per cent, extend equipment life and reduce maintenance costs. Four typical stages of a recommissioning project include planning, investigation, implementation and hand-off and persistence strategies.
The third stream is for a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction pathway feasibility study, Blais said. This stream aims to help municipalities reduce GHG emissions by 50 per cent within 10 years and 80 per cent within 20 years.
Grant funding for one building would be $65,000, while 80 per cent of eligible costs would be covered. Funding for multiple buildings would be $200,000 — cost per building cannot exceed $65,000 — while 80 per cent of eligible costs would be covered.
The fourth stream would help municipalities retrofit a community building to reduce GHG emissions by a minimum of 30 per cent compared to baseline emissions. The combined loan and grant would cover 80 per cent of the eligible project costs to a maximum of $5 million per project.
Lastly, the fifth stream would provide funding to help municipalities significantly reduce energy use and GHG emissions in buildings by retrofitting them over time.
“This would enable the implementation of long-term, multi-measure retrofit capital projects that contribute to a GHG reduction pathway,” Blais said.
The combined loan and grant would cover 80 per cent of eligible costs for a maximum of $5 million per project.
Besides submitting applications for the first two grant programs, Blais recommended that council start the pre-application process for the other three streams this year. If the applications are approved, the city’s funding for these programs would then be considered in the 2023 budget deliberations.
Coun. Crystal Froese’s only concern was that she thought city administration was hobbled by needing council’s approval to proceed.
“… I wouldn’t want our process slowing down the opportunity for us to pursue grants,” she said. “Writing grant proposals can be onerous at any given time. So, I’d hate for us to miss opportunities along the way.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, April 11.
