Item - 2019.HL3.5

The Board of Health recommends that:

1.  City Council request the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, in consultation with the Medical Officer of Health, as part of their Heat in Apartments Working Group to identify strategies to address indoor temperatures in apartment buildings, to explore the feasibility of the following:

a.  Options for window protection in apartment buildings that balance child safety with the ability to permit air circulation for heat relief and consider potential modifications to the City of Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 629, Property Standards;

b.  Reviewing, removing, or changing the dates (September 15 and June 1) in the City of Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 497, Heating, as other jurisdictions have done in response to changing weather patterns; and

c.  Reporting to the Heat in Apartments Working Group on the status of Recommendations 1.a. and 1.b. by September 2019.

2.  City Council request the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, in consultation with the Medical Officer of Health and the Chief Communications Officer, Strategic Communications, to develop a strategy to continue to significantly increase effective communications to landlords and the public to provide clarity that landlords should use reasonable flexibility regarding the activation of heating systems in apartment units between September 15 and June 1, where the unit is a minimum of 21 degrees Celsius without heating, starting in the spring of 2019, and for the Medical Officer of Health to report back to the Board of Health at its meeting on April 8, 2019 on the communications strategy.

3.  City Council request the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning, to work with the Medical Officer of Health to identify opportunities in the City's planning processes, such as the development application approval process, to require air conditioning, common cool rooms, and/or shade structures in redeveloped or newly-developed buildings and policy options to include ways to mitigate the effect of building improvements on rent, such as grant-based retrofit incentives.

4.  City Council request the Board of Directors, Toronto Community Housing Corporation, to direct the President and Chief Executive Officer, Toronto Community Housing Corporation, to follow the City of Toronto's direction on flexibility with heating systems at the time directed in shoulder seasons (September 15 to June 1) and to implement cooling options, including air conditioning, common cool rooms, and/or shade structures within the Toronto Community Housing Corporation's buildings that can be implemented on an ongoing basis as part of the state of good repair and in new buildings.

The Board of Health:

1.  Requested the Medical Officer of Health to provide costed options for cool spaces signage and "neighbour checking" for consideration in the draft 2020 Toronto Public Health Budget.

In January 2019, City Council adopted a report from the Medical Officer of Health that proposed a strategy for heat relief services in order to put the City in a stronger position to protect residents from extreme heat. At this meeting, additional motions were adopted that aim to strengthen the hot weather response through enhanced signage of cool spaces and consideration for creating shade structures, cool rooms in apartment buildings, and voluntary contact lists of vulnerable tenants in apartments.

This report provides an update on the work accomplished to implement heat relief strategies for the summer of 2019 and how additional strategies will be incorporated into the work plan.

To coordinate the implementation of heat relief strategies, City Council requested the Deputy City Manager, Corporate Services, to develop a Heat Relief Work Group with representation from nine City Divisions to more effectively coordinate initiatives which have been shown to be successful for addressing extreme heat. These initiatives include the development of a strategic communications plan, enhancements to web-based information, expansion of the Heat Relief Network, introduction of shade structures, and piloting a neighbour-checking program.

As weather patterns continue to change and periods of hot weather increase in both duration and intensity, the City's response to hot weather must also evolve. Given that Toronto can expect to experience more days of extreme heat, the Heat Relief Work Group has determined that, for the long term, vulnerable populations will be best protected through a seasonal response to hot weather where support is provided through pre-existing services that they already access.