Quote:
Originally Posted by bomberjet
So despite the negatives on cost, will the new codes make buildings easier to warm/cool? Or will they reduce utility costs enough to recoupe the construction costs over the life of the building? I'm not really up to speed on what the differences are with the new code. But if the answer is no to those questions and it just costs more, what's the point?
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The answer is that it's mostly irrelevant because people aren't prepared to pay for 'green' anything. They'll take the cost savings up front every time ignoring that there's a payback of sorts.
For instance, if it's a condo building, you aren't going to be able to charge a higher per-square-foot sale rate because the end user is going to achieve 'x' energy savings over time. They simply don't care. They also mostly don't believe it. So in this case - because the developer also won't pay - you end up with discounts elsewhere that cut into the overall quality of the build.
The same will go for rentals. Any increase to the efficiency of a building is meaningless to everybody because the landlord doesn't pay for heat or electricity on new builds and the tenant won't pay a higher rate than they already have to. So again, your increased costs come at the expense of overall quality.
There are no free lunches. Government can't understand this age-old concept, but forcing regulation onto one corner of the market just weakens another. If you force people to have the most energy efficient building, you're forcing the provision of a luxury item causing overall housing quality and affordability decreases. The black market ends up filling that role. That means more unregulated units going to what is now a larger subsection of the rental market because the effect of this sort of regulation is to expand the class of people requiring substandard housing while diminishing supply. You're essentially signalling to the market that energy efficiency is a more important subject than something like basic fire protection (which is achieved through registration of a rental unit). The fewer units you get, the higher your demand pressure is, the more likely you'll satisfy this demand through unregulated units.
And frankly, I couldn't care less, but these are the facts. Energy regulation is just about the least important thing in housing in Manitoba. It's the greatest example of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic I can remember...