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EVE Park community in London, Ont. gets city approval for zoning

The EVE Park project, a net-zero energy residential community in London, Ontario, has received zoning approval from the city.

Local city council voted unanimously to approve the zoning by-laws on Dec. 10.

The project cleared another milestone when local council voted unanimously to approve the zoning by-laws for the pioneering net-zero energy community. The December 10 approval has passed the requisite appeal period as of January 13th. Derek Satnik, Vice President of Technology, Smart Communities for S2e, has been shepherding the zoning process.

“We are really pleased that the zoning change had unanimous support from council,” said Derek Satnik, VP of technology, Smart Communities for S2e, who was present at the December meeting. “We know that the City of London is deeply committed to sustainability issues, and it’s one of the reasons that a project like this is a great fit here. ”

The EVE Park project is designed to integrate green energy technologies with a site plan that focuses on community and shared green space. The community has been designed with an autonomous vehicle future in mind; the plan includes an electric vehicle car-share program, and removes car garages from the home to allow for more pedestrian-friendly walkways and more outdoor space for uses such as open parks, gardens, small playgrounds or walking trails. The community will include approximately 80 households, and is designed to be offered at market rate.

“We are all acutely aware of the climate crisis,” Ashley Hammerbacher, Team Lead for the EVE Park project, said in a release. “Our vision for EVE Park was to create the kind of sustainable community that could be a serious, viable part of the solution. A community that could generate as much energy as it used – and that could reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and change our relationship with our environment and our neighbours. I keep hearing that it must be too hard or too expensive. Those are misconceptions, and we’re tackling them with the support of partners – like Ellis Don, Gensler, and others – who are working with us to change perceptions of what is possible.”

The circular design of the buildings has been a key identifying feature of EVE Park. The unique design creates community spaces and wide-angle views, says Hammerbacher, who notes that “the idea is that we want to live in a park, not a parking lot.”

The company has kept in close contact with the London-area community as the EVE Park project has developed, and hopes to break ground in the coming months, although dates are not yet set.