Victoria passes demolition waste and deconstruction bylaw
Victoria passes demolition waste and deconstruction bylaw
Board by board, nail by nail, oak floors are being removed from a 1940s home in Victoria. Soon, those boards will be packaged up for resale.
“It will get used by another third-party person, whoever is looking for – in this case – 2.5-inch oak flooring,” said Peter Worden, who works for Unbuilders Deconstruction.
Unbuilders Deconstruction was hired by the contractor renovating the home.
“We come into a building and look at what’s of value and those items we salvage,” said Adam Corneil, the company's founder and CEO.
Corneil says 90 per cent of the materials salvaged from a construction site are either resold, donated or recycled, keeping them out of the landfill.
The business is set to grow as the City of Victoria has just passed its demolition waste and deconstruction bylaw.
“Really, what this bylaw is aiming to do is address a major source of waste that goes to our landfill every given year,” said Rory Tooke, manager of sustainability for the City of Victoria.
It’s estimated that one-third of the material ending up in the Hartland Landfill is construction junk.
The new bylaw means that, in Victoria, contractors must now unbuild buildings and salvage what they can, rather than demolishing the structure and sending the waste to the landfill.
“We know there’s lots of demand in this market already for this type of salvaged wood,” sad Tooke.
Doors, bricks and wood, will all be reused by someone.
Development permit holders will now have to put down a refundable deposit of $19,500.
“If the material is salvaged to meet the targets that are in the bylaw, then that full fee goes back to the permit holder,” said Tooke.
But not everyone thinks the new bylaw is a good idea.
“The outcome of this is going to be higher prices that are unnecessary,” said Casey Edge, executive director of the Victoria Residential Builders Association.
The association says the bylaw will slow projects down and could add up to $20,000 to the cost of a home in a region where real estate prices area already sky-high.
“Every time you add a regulation – which the City of Victoria is prone to do, they’ve never met a regulation they didn’t like – they add costs to housing,” said Edge. “This in a market that is already one of the highest in Canada.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Economists predict a 'mild recession,' but what would that look like in Canada?
With inflation on the rise and central banks poised to increase rates, CTVNews.ca speaks with experts on whether Canada will experience a recession, and if so, what it would look like.

Medical investigator rules Baldwin set shooting an accident
The fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin last year was an accident, according to a determination made by New Mexico's Office of the Medical Investigator following the completion of an autopsy and a review of law enforcement reports.
'We've been abandoned': Man dies in B.C. town waiting for health care near ambulance station
For the second time in less than a month, a resident of Ashcroft, B.C., died while waiting for health care after having a heart attack mere metres from a local ambulance station.
'I have to fight for myself': Quadriplegic man says N.S. government told him to live in a hospital
A diving accident at 14-years-old left Brian Parker paralyzed from the chest down. Now at age 49, he's without the person who was caring for him full-time until just last week, after his 68-year-old mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Minister asks Canadians not to fake travel plans to skip passport application lines
Minister of Families, Children and Social Development of Canada Karina Gould is discouraging people from making fake travel plans just to skip the line of those waiting for passports.
Canadian home sales fall for 5th month in a row, down 29 per cent from last July
Canada's average resale home price fell 4.5% from a year ago in July and was down 5.4% on the month as buyers continued to sit on the sidelines amid rising borrowing costs.
Wet'suwet'en pipeline protest blocks Vancouver traffic
A large rally planned in Vancouver to protest the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C. blocked traffic Monday morning.
Thousands of Afghans who helped Canada trapped in Afghanistan, struggling to leave
The federal government needs to do more to help thousands of Afghans who assisted Canadian Forces but remain trapped in Afghanistan a year after the Taliban seized Kabul, aid groups and opposition parties say.
New COVID-19 booster targeting Omicron, original variants approved in U.K.
British drug regulators have become the first in the world to authorize an updated version of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine that aims to protect against the original virus and the omicron variant.