City of Waterloo council summary, April 25, 2022

** The council summary provides a snapshot of the major items presented at today's council meeting. Please refer to the minutes for an official record of the meeting.

Council supports people-focused enhancements to Waterloo Public Square

Council has approved a staff recommendation to install a new water feature as well as shade structures at the city’s popular Waterloo Public Square.

The water feature was part of the original plan when the public square was constructed back in 2007, but was deferred at the time due to budget limitations and planned LRT construction. The infrastructure for the water feature was installed in 2007 with the intent to eventually construct it.

The permanent shade feature, both the type and location, was influenced through public consultation undertaken by the city and are designed to work around many site constraints, like the floodway and underground infrastructure.  Movable features will provide shade for the centre of the square and can be rearranged as needed for events. The new structures will further enhance the square as a community gathering spot.

The water feature and shade structures will be installed in 2023 with the movable shade installations planned for this year.

Council strengthens commitment to “green” city buildings

As part of its ongoing commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) at a corporate and community level, Council unanimously supported changes to the City’s Green Building Policy that align with the goal of reducing GHGs by 50 per cent by 2030.

Specifically, the updated Green Building Policy is divided into three main components: New Building Construction and Expansion (updated from the previous version of the policy, Existing Building Major Retrofit (updated from previous policy), and Building Operation, Maintenance and Renewals (new to this policy). These sections include provisions for building performance targets, building design and construction process, oversight of projects to ensure performance, study requirements to meet funding criteria, prescriptive measures for equipment replacement, etc. all aimed at producing zero carbon ready or low carbon operating buildings.

The three sections combined are intended to capture the experienced life cycle of the buildings, which includes: construction of the building (occurs once, at the start of building life), retrofits (occurs periodically when major infrastructure needs replaced); and operation, maintenance, and renewals (on-going, day-to-day life of the building, planned/unplanned equipment renewals).

-30-

Media contact:
Tony Iavarone
Director, Corporate Communications
tony.iavarone@waterloo.ca