Cooper Koo YMCA seeks volunteers to build green roof

Dennis Hanagan —

Toronto’s YMCA is looking for volunteers to help build the green roof on its new Cooper Koo Family branch at Cherry and Front Streets.

It’s a chance for volunteers to get “a sneak peek” of the Pan Am/ Parapan Am Athletes Village as they work on the roof, Sarah Beldick, the centre’s AGM, told the West Don Lands Committee in February.

Roof work will be done from mid-April to mid-May.

The 82,000 square-foot YMCA is scheduled to open in the summer of 2016. After the athletes finish with the site this summer it will undergo retrofitting to serve up to 3,000 people daily as a YMCA.

The green roof will be 30,000 square feet with 20,000 square feet devoted to greenery and the rest for community programming. Depending on weather it will be open from April/May to October/November.

Beldick is visiting community organizations asking for ideas for the roof. It will be next door to the 30,000 square-foot roof of George Brown College’s student residence.

Ideas for the roof suggested in a YMCA pamphlet include birdhouses, solar panels and educational displays especially about West Don Lands history, a trickling waterway, plants to attract birds, insects and
butterflies, a physical fitness area, pathways and benches.

A person at the WDLC meeting suggested setting up a sanctuary for bees in a way that would prevent the insects from bothering people. That wasn’t a new idea for Beldick. “We’ve heard that a lot,” she said.

There’s a limit to the amount of uses for the roof. “If you try to do too much you end up doing nothing at all,” Beldick cautioned.

Trees would be an important asset for the roof; they’d serve as a windbreak in a windy neighbourhood, she said.

“Using vegetation on roofs has been a traditional building method in places such as Norway for hundreds of years,” says the YMCA pamphlet.

Green roofs also retain rainwater and, along with plants, can return a portion of it to the atmosphere via evaporation. The retention of water also decreases the chance of a heavy rainfall flooding Toronto’s sewer system.

In summer, a green roof will deflect the sun’s heat to help cool the building and reduce its energy costs. Plants on the roof will trap pollutants in their leaves and reduce ground level ozone.

The Cherry and Front Street YMCA is being developed in partnership with Waterfront Toronto, Infrastructure Ontario and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.