A new report warns that building new homes in the path of wildfires and floods could cost billions, with B.C. facing the highest potential costs across the country.
But one of the authors of the report emphasizes that even though the projected losses are "quite dramatic," it's only a small proportion of new builds that could be responsible for the vast majority of losses.
Billed as a first-of-its-kind analysis in the country, the Canadian Climate Institute released "" Thursday (Feb. 6), which uses original modelling of the financial costs of future floods and fires on new housing slated for construction by 2030.
The report found that more than 540,000 SA国际影视传媒� of the 5.8 million homes the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimate are needed to be built by 2030 SA国际影视传媒� could be built in areas prone to flooding, while another 220,000 could be built in locations at risk of wildfires.
And in B.C. the associated total costs would be the highest across the country at $2.2 billion under worst-case scenarios.
Sarah Miller, the research lead on the adaptation team and one of the report's authors, said it came about because researchers wanted to look at two things: the housing affordability crisis and climate impacts on housing.
"We thought it would be important to look at these two things and to try and get a sense of what we could expect from these worsening wildfires and floods if we do build housing on the scale that CMHC and others say is needed for affordability, and to give some recommendations to governments."
The report includes five recommendations. Miller highlighted one: ensure that in programs and policies aimed at increasing housing supply or infrastructure that climate hazards are explicitly taken into consideration.
"One of the recommendations that we make is really to bake in consideration of wildfire and flooding (risks), and also provide municipalities with the resources needed when they make applications to funding programs to do that screening, to look at what the the hazards are, and to make sure that they understand the extent of the hazards and can build housing away from those areas."
In some regions, she said, it can be a particular challenge to not build in the riskiest areas.
"We know the Okanagan, with the extreme wildfire risk and the amount of housing growth that we're seeing, they're in a particularly tricky spot."
Miller added that even in communities with a higher risk, "there is still relatively safer land often on which to build." Developers and planners can also look at densification, rather than continuing to expand into wildland interface.
She said that provinces and territories should strengthen their approach to land-use regulations. B.C., Alberta and the territories take a more "hands-off approach" at the provincial and territorial levels and leave more policy up to municipal governments, Miller said.
"Those policy choices are one of the drivers that are contributing to those relatively higher losses that we're seeing in those places."
However, Miller said it's not all fear-mongering even though the projected losses could be quite dramatic.
"We also find that it's quite a small proportion of homes that are responsible for the vast majority of the losses, so these are the homes in the very riskiest areas that are driving the vast majority of the damages that we're seeing."
She said it's estimated that about three per cent of homes slated for construction in the next 15 years could be responsible for almost 80 per cent of the losses across the country.
"We're trying to make it clear that governments can really reduce the losses from disasters without constraining housing supply," she said.
"All they need to do is understand where those homes are and instead build them in safer places away from these hazards ... You can do both. You can reduce the losses and you can still have the supply that you need."
