Cool Drinks, Roger Bayley: Increase Your Home Attractiveness & Value through Sustainable Community Building

COOL NORTH SHORE
Olympic Village Net Zero Community

Roger Bayley Presentation Summary

Thanks to the thirty-three people who came out to join Cool North Shore in the conversation on sustainability for the North Shore from Deep Cove to Lion's Bay! We were warmly hosted at Larson Station Restaurant who donated a magnificent warm space with all the necessary amenities, amazing service and delicious nachos! Thanks to the owners Bernd Rhode (who has previously hosted us at the Flatbread in Lynn Valley) and his partner Jim Carmen for their generosity and commitment to their community. We invite you to support their new venture as they support your community. You can reach them at 778-279-8874 should you wish to book an event or go for a delicious brunch! And yes – they  have their liquor license now!!!

Roger Bayley gave us an eye opening inside look at the trials and tribulations of putting together the Olympic Village in False Creek at a neck-breaking pace achieving an eco-friendly development with visionary architecture designed to create an interactive community that promotes social interaction by managing the flow of people. And as our municipalities on the North Shore are developing their community plans at the moment it was refreshing to see a ray of light of what IS possible when people work together and take an active part in the process of sustainable community building.

Roger was able to also show how by designing and building 'outside the box' they were able to reduce heavily the Olympic Village development's reliance on 'the grid' while educating the public, the trades people and the municipality on what was possible from a sustainability standpoint when creativity, innovation and effort were added to the equation of development.

Roger talked about how it was a demanding collaborative process, requiring significant leadership and commitment at all levels in order to build the net-zero residences at Millennium Water. There was a significant cost premium because they were in the experimental stage. The lessons learned have been passed to the industry reducing costs of future developments and have proven that a high-level of performance can be achieved in the urban environment. Roger believes that in order to achieve goals of the climate action plan there will need to be universal commitment to net-zero housing. Retrofitting the existing housing stock is a significant opportunity in this regard.

Below is a list of comments left by participants and put together by Jeanne Mikita (our volunteer facilitator for the evening) and Warren McKay(our volunteer photographer).

If you wish to add your comments and suggestions please do so!

Thanks once again and we look forward to having the next Cool Drinks conversation in September with as many of you as possible!

Alvaro Peralta

End-of-Evening comments

Table 1
“We need to get this valuable information received tonight out into the community.  More people need to know about the Millenium Water Project and its successes.
We need round-table discussions involving politicians, architects, developers, citizens etc.
The talk tonight was inspiring and its message needs to get out there!
We (at our table) were amazed to find out the details in terms of energy conservation and sustainability of the project.  Others out there need to know!”
 

Table 2
“Retrofit or sink!
Retrofit to improve:
Your health
Your community”
 

Table 3
“The sustainable issues Roger discussed work best where areas are built at high density and at one time.

We live in a very environmentally suitable place.  Cheap energy, water, clean air, mild climate.  It is hard to convince citizens that we should strive to be more sustainable –

Government monitoring and higher cost of energy, water, etc.  will be necessary to make change”

Table 4
Poop is precious!
Legislate
Metering for usage of energy
Engage/educate youth

Table 5
“Get that sewage heat captured!!
Make it economically practical to get to net zero.  Don’t penalize to achieve goals.”