As Edmonton’s population has grown over the last decade , this has placed increasing pressure on our immediate environment. Our unique prairie location makes rapid outward growth relatively easy. In many cases upfront costs are lower for developers to build on greenfield sites rather than infill. The long term cost will be greater. My wife and I made the choice to live in the core neighbourhood of Strathcona so that we could minimize travel and continue to be less car dependent. While we both work we are able to ride share and remain a single car household. When it came time to build a new home, we decided we wanted to stay in the community and we decided to focus on building an energy efficient house that became the second netzero energy home in our area. The savings on utilities means we could invest the extra upfront cost into energy efficiency items. I would like to see the city build on its current rebate programs and seriously pursue programs like P.A.C.E. (Property Assessed Clean Energy) programs that would allow homeowners to offset upfront costs for energy efficient upgrades through an annual levy on their property taxes.
