In Hamilton, a growing local expertise in cutting-edge sustainable construction methods is being driven by a surprising source: the city’s nonprofit housing sector. As affordable housing providers have ramped up new development to respond to the housing crisis, they’ve been investing in high-quality, energy-efficient designs that target environmental and financial sustainability over the long term.
Investing in energy efficient design and construction improves conditions for tenants, safeguards financial viability for affordable housing projects, reduces environmental impact, and cultivates a local knowledge base that will support future, broader adoption of sustainable building practices in all kinds of development across Hamilton.
No bad weather, only bad cladding
Many new affordable housing projects as well as several large-scale renovation projects in Hamilton have achieved or been informed by the Passive House Canada building certification standard. Passive House designs emphasize a high-performance building envelope – a well-insulated, airtight exterior that means much less energy is required for heating and cooling to maintain a comfortable indoor air temperature.
“There’s a Nordic saying: ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather. There’s just bad clothing,’” said Peter Vander Klippe, Manager of Development for CityHousing Hamilton, the municipally owned social housing provider. “Passive House is that approach, but for buildings.”
You might say, for a building, there’s no bad weather, only bad cladding.
Passive House buildings use about 80 per cent less energy for heating and cooling than standard buildings, according to research cited by Passive House Canada. This makes them much more environmentally friendly, with reduced energy usage and drastically reduced carbon emissions. HVAC systems can be much smaller than in a standard building, and opting for an electric heat pump system over a natural gas furnace allows a building’s heat to draw on Ontario’s clean electric grid.
Passive House buildings have other benefits, too: they are quieter, making them great for noisy urban environments, and the interior thermal comfort is consistent. There are no cold, drafty spots around windows. They also feature high-performance ventilation systems that constantly remove stale air while retaining heat, and carry in fresh, filtered air, resulting in much better indoor air quality than average buildings.
Finally, these structures are highly resilient to temperature changes, meaning their ability to retain indoor air temperatures over time makes them far less susceptible to spikes in heat and cold, or to heating or cooling equipment failures – a big plus in an era of climate change.
Energy efficiency = affordability
The most compelling reason to build this way for the affordable housing sector is the long-term cost savings, said Vander Klippe. Consider the financial picture for an affordable housing provider like CityHousing Hamilton, and the link between energy efficiency and affordability is clear.
Often, in standard buildings, poor insulation for a cold climate is compensated for by adding “a monster furnace,” said Vander Klippe. This is of course wasteful from an environmental perspective. And it also represents excess expense – and risk – for the building’s operator.
Since CityHousing Hamilton intends to maintain its rental units as affordable for tenants indefinitely, the organization has to carefully guard its long-term operating costs. Affordable housing providers follow provincial rules on rent controls, so “our income stream is capped,” said Vander Klippe. Rents can rise over time, but at a rate lower than inflation, which meanwhile impacts every other factor in an organization’s ongoing costs, like staffing and administration.
“When we’re predicting the affordability of a building over 100 years, the utilities seem to be the biggest cost that we had no control over whatsoever,” Vander Klippe explained. “Enbridge gets approval from the Ontario Energy Board to increase their natural gas rates – boom, our costs go up. And same thing for the electricity rates. How do we protect ourselves from that? You’ve got to reduce your energy usage.”
This is especially true in a period of increasingly volatile energy prices due to global conflicts, coupled with climate change.
Proven value
“Okay it’s great but how much does it cost, right?” This is the first question Sarah Borde said she used to get at conferences on Passive House construction just a few years ago. Borde is a board member of Passive House Canada and Director of Capital Projects at YWCA Hamilton, a nonprofit provider of emergency, transitional and permanent affordable, supportive housing in the city.
In recent years, Borde said, enough new Passive House buildings have gone up in Ontario that their value has been tested. “Now we can say, ‘Well, actually, it doesn’t cost much more – we are talking about like three per cent, which is almost nothing, and then the operating costs are way lower, so you’re going to recoup that in a few years anyway.’”
Vander Klippe, of CityHousing, said his organization conducted a study to look at the pure business case for building to Passive House standards, as a way to aggressively reduce energy and operating costs. “The study came back: yes, we should definitely do this,” he said.
All of CityHousing Hamilton’s new builds and renovation projects in recent years have incorporated Passive House principles, and the organization now requires this in all of its developments going forward. So far, its Passive House projects have included the world’s largest Passive House retrofit, meeting the organization’s EnerPHit standard, a 146-unit building at 500 MacNab Street North, in 2021, a new 103-unit building at 8 Roxanne Drive, opened in 2023, and a 55-unit building at 106 Bay Street North, among others. In total, the organization has added 400 units designed with Passive House principles, with 300 of those actually undergoing the rigorous certification process with Passive House Canada, according to Vander Klippe.
YWCA Hamilton built its first Passive House development at 52 Ottawa Street North, opening 50 permanent, supportive residential units in 2021. The organization is currently working on a new development at 1067 Barton Street, near the intersection with Ottawa Street, called Oakwood Place. This Passive House building is slated to open in Spring 2027 and will feature 90 units of transitional, supportive housing.
Other major nonprofit housing developers in Hamilton that have embraced Passive House building methods include Victoria Park Community Homes, Hamilton East Kiwanis Non-Profit Homes and Indwell.
Hamilton as a centre of Passive House building
“Hamilton is really a hub,” for this kind of development, said Borde, of YWCA and Passive House Canada. “We had the Passive House Canada conference in Hamilton in the last couple of years because there are so many examples to show for it.”
“And what’s different in Hamilton compared to, for example, Vancouver – they do a lot of Passive House building – but in Hamilton it’s mostly driven by nonprofit organizations, which is very strange if you think about it,” said Borde. “We have less money. Usually we’re trying to make more units with less money, so we cut where we can.”
Two factors have contributed to making the nonprofit housing sector the leader in Passive House construction in Hamilton, Borde said. First is that huge promise of long-term cost savings with dramatic energy efficiency gains. The second factor is “the power of the coalition” – the Hamilton is Home coalition, which counts every major nonprofit housing provider in the city as a member.
“We share lessons learned and discuss how it works, so I think it’s less scary for an organization to start a Passive House building project if you’ve never heard of it and you have no idea what you’re doing,” Borde said. “We have those great resources that we can all share together.”
In spearheading Passive House development in Hamilton, the nonprofit housing sector is laying the groundwork for other developers to more readily adopt this approach, too. Designers, contractors and the trades are all gaining familiarity and experience with Passive House methods. “The knowledge is there and it’s helping reduce the uncertainty,” said Vander Klippe.