Province looking for climate change assessment on public housing projects

The government of Nova Scotia wants to know how well parts of its public housing stock are prepared to deal with climate change.

The province posted a request Friday for an engineering consultant to look at a selection of public housing units in 15 different municipalities across the mainland and Cape Breton, all of which have been tapped for "energy efficient and sustainable measures," according to the tender document.

The document says federal infrastructure funding will pay for those measures, most of which include upgrades to siding, windows and insulation. 

Among the projects are three dozen units in the Bayers Park buildings in West End Halifax that are due to have seaweed insulation replaced with modern cellulose insulation. One building in each of the towns of Springhill, Antigonish, Westville, Trenton and Yarmouth are to be studied as candidates for net-zero energy consumption.

The "climate change resilience assessment" that the province is now looking for is a requirement set by Infrastructure Canada, and it means that each of the buildings slated for energy efficiency projects will be assessed through "a risk management approach to anticipate, prevent, withstand, respond to, and recover and adapt from climate change related disruptions or impacts."

The province chose to prioritize renovations and repairs to public housing, including energy efficiency upgrades, when it came into $88 million in federal money last year in the first phase of the Trudeau Liberal's National Housing Strategy.