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This is our entry for the Green Pages contest, 'My Big Sustainability Idea'. Please read and give us your support with your vote! We'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. The Onaen House project is a new approach that intersects urban community revival, personal benefits, economic stability , ecological and community health. In Canada’s urban communities, home to over 80% of the population, the timing is right. As seen in Ontario’s Places to Grow Act (2005), cities are facing rapid population growth – our hometown of Guelph is expected to grow by 125,000 people in the next 30 years, almost doubling our current population. Urban densities will need to increase dramatically, yet the Canadian Federation of Municipalities indicates urban infrastructure, including housing, is in a state of collapse . Especially in a time of economic downturn, stimulating housing improvement is a necessary step to increasing self-sufficiency, community resilience and ecological sustainability.

The Onaen Project - Urban Housing Regenerated

The Onaen House project is a new approach that intersects urban community revival, personal benefits, economic stability , ecological and community health.
In Canada’s urban communities, home to over 80% of the population, the timing is right. As seen in Ontario’s Places to Grow Act (2005), cities are facing rapid population growth – our hometown of Guelph is expected to grow by 125,000 people in the next 30 years, almost doubling our current population. Urban densities will need to increase dramatically, yet the Canadian Federation of Municipalities indicates urban infrastructure, including housing, is in a state of collapse .  Especially in a time of economic downturn, stimulating housing improvement is a necessary step to increasing self-sufficiency, community resilience and ecological sustainability.

The trend in Canadian real estate is towards conserving and sourcing more energy, food and water locally. A Royal LePage national survey indicates 62 per cent of Canadians would pay up to $20,000 more for a home with green features ; the increased demand for retrofits is expanding rapidly.

Considering these conditions, we propose looking at retrofits for rental properties – one-third of all Canadian homes as of 2008 . Across Canada, tenants face the crunch of stagnant or decreasing incomes while rent increases faster than inflation. For millions of tenants, including students like us, the pressure is on for reduced utility costs and more income opportunities. However, creative solutions are being restrained by a lack of sustainable housing initiatives and retrofit government grants accessible to low income tenants.

Instead, let us empower tenants and students to improve the places where they live. The Onaen Project uses a creative incentive structure to transform the relationship of students and landlords into a cooperative partnership. Students become stewards working with the landowner to minimize utility bills and improve property value. Financial capital is generated through sought-after retrofits, government rebates, and saved utility costs. By improving relationships between landlords, tenants and neighbourhoods, the project also creates social capital. And land management generates ecological capital, while cultivating stewards with improved physical and emotional health and practical skills.

The Onaen Project - Our Vision

‘Onaen’ means ‘to kindle’ in old English. It represents the power of a simple spark to ignite a renewing force. Our vision is rental housing regenerated, using the idea of tenant-landlord partnerships to provide immediate financial and lifestyle incentives for green home retrofits.

The Onaen Project is already taking off in Guelph, and its potential for value creation is described in the included pilot project proposal. At its bare essentials, the Onaen Project:

-Organizes a household of lower-income tenants who save on utilities and earn wages by partnering with their landlord to complete low-cost, easy-to-install retrofits

-Grows quickly; green tenants bring skills to new houses, and green landlords contract with new tenants

-Creates a Living Catalogue of urban sustainability ideas and hosts this online

-Generates financial incentive structures and sample legal contracts applicable to a diverse range of tenants with little technical or business experience

A New Idea in Urban Sustainability

The Onaen Project is original, while evolving from other urban sustainability initiatives:

-The focus is on existing urban structures: specially built eco-buildings such as Grand House (Cambridge, ON) are not accessible to the majority of Canadians who live in existing houses; soon, over a third of Canadian households will be renting. The Onaen Project embodies the idea that tenants can be motivated to complete green retrofit contracts in their current residence.

-It doesn’t require extra funding: granting agencies such as the Equilibrium Sustainable Housing Initiative have supported projects like Now House (Toronto), which achieved a major retrofit of an existing war-time house. Because most Canadians do not receive large grants, the Onaen Project brings tenants and landlords together to accomplish financially sustainable retrofits.

-It employs students in their own homes: award-winning projects such as Share the Warmth (Moose Jaw, SK), an energy-retrofit program run by volunteer students, assisted 1,000 low-income families in three years by installing weather-stripping and other low-cost energy-savers. The potential for paid retrofit work in student-landlord partnerships is even larger.

-It targets active tenant-landlord relationships: ‘green’ renting initiatives such as Ontario-Rentals.com, or the many student co-op retrofit projects (eg. Guelph and Queens University), invite tenants to live in already ‘green’ homes. This project uses hands-on learning to give tenants and landlords the skills to go green on their own power, while constructing responsible relationships.

 The Onaen Pilot Project – A Reality

The Onaen vision is already being realized by the Onaen Pilot Project in Guelph, ON.

The Onaen Project Pilot landlord Arthur Churchyard is pre-approved for a mortgage to buy a 4-bedroom home in Guelph. Along with project co-lead Marena Brinkhurst and a team of students and faculty advisors, he is now pioneering the Onaen model of a working relationship between landlord and tenants to ‘green’ rental housing and promote sustainable living. 

University students are the ideal pioneers for the Onaen model. We are skilled in networking, researching, and synthesizing information. With our colleagues in universities across the country, we share concern for world issues and want to apply our knowledge and connections with campus research in a way that helps. At the same time, we are under pressure to develop employable skills and earn money. The Onaen Pilot Project connects skills development, hands-on learning and financial incentives in an attractive model that sustainably self-perpetuates.

Conclusion

The Onaen Project makes urban sustainability accessible and measurably valuable to Canadian tenants and landlords. It addresses the gap between many Canadians’ desire to live healthy, green lifestyles, and the skills, knowledge and connections to make that desire a reality on a small budget and a tight timeline.  The Onaen model shows it is possible to have landlords and tenants cooperating, with each benefiting, to green our urban rental housing and build resilience into our communities.

A gap can be many things: a missing link, a break. But it can also be an opening. Like a space in the canopy, a gap can inspire growth and creativity. Renting students and young people are the homeowners of tomorrow. Engaging the rental market is an essential part of making sustainable lifestyles ‘common sense’.
 

Posted by ArthurChurchyard on February 23, 2009 10:34:26
Filed in : Energy, Climate Change & Your Carbon Footprint, Fair Trade & The Social Economy, Green Living/Sustainable Living, Sustainability Ideas, Law, Policy & Social Justice