OCAF is supporting the Future Homes Ottawa Project, a community collaboration led by EnviroCentre and the Ottawa Energy Collective, to mobilize community engagement and participation in the kind of deep retrofits required to improve homes and transform neighbourhoods into low-emissions, resilient, climate-proofed communities of the future.
EnviroCentre has completed the first phase of its Future Homes Ottawa project that focused in two Ottawa neighbourhoods—Carlington and Old Ottawa South—to gauge homeowner interest in energy efficiency, testing support tools and outreach approaches to encourage home retrofits resulting in six retrofit demonstration homes.
Phase 2 will continue building momentum toward the massive increase in retrofit activity that will be needed to bring all the city’s homes to net-zero or net-zero ready. The 50 to 100 retrofits during this phase will give homeowners and the local renovation industry a compelling, hands-on picture of what’s possible in deep energy retrofits.
EnviroCentre will also work closely with building trades to carry out many concurrent retrofits; this phase will lay the groundwork for a scalable local retrofit industry model. The work will position Ottawa to take advantage of emerging support for a national mass retrofit initiative that includes a special effort to reach out to businesses owned by people from BIPOC and other communities that are under-represented in the industry.
By building up local demand for deep retrofits and local capacity to deliver them, the program will also position Ottawa to take advantage of energy retrofit grant programs, including the $40,000 zero-interest loan program announced earlier in June by Natural Resources Canada.
Click here for more on the first phase of Future Homes Ottawa.