Council tweaks city’s methane policy

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This article was published 16/11/2022 (1074 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Brandon has repealed its outdated methane gas sites policy to provide developers with relief.

Scrapping the policy in favour of a new regulation for building on former landfill sites within the building bylaw will give developers an extra option and open up areas to infill development, the city said.

“As we do with all our policies, we try to take a look at them to make sure they’re up to date, and this one needed some updating,” the director of the city’s planning and buildings department, Ryan Nickel, told Brandon City Council, which agreed to the change during its regular meeting Monday evening.

“Where this is important is that we have a few different landowners who have been constrained over the years because we said you couldn’t build anything.”

A council report on the subject states that its methane gas sites policy was more restrictive than Winnipeg and other areas of the province. The city wanted to make sure property owners have similar options to develop methane sites.

There are 11 such suspected and existing methane sites located throughout the city, which include existing and formerly licensed landfills and informal dumping sites. That encompasses established areas, and in some cases the methane policy restricted development.

Nickel said some sites are suspected landfills based on historical knowledge, where people may have simply dumped items. The new regulation will allow for development on these Level 1 suspected or licensed former landfills.

Landfill gas has the potential for long-term impacts on health and ecological effects, and a risk of explosion, the regulation itself notes.

To reduce that risk, engineering requirements will be in place, and construction won’t be allowed until an analysis of the impact of methane on the building and its occupants is complete. If the risk is too high, the city will deny construction.

“You still have to do all the proper engineering studies,” Nickel said. “It’s not like you’re just building a typical structure. You have to have an engineer.”

Building techniques and proper ventilation allow for such construction, Nickel added. In fact, he said, the city itself owns some of these sites.

Adopting methane standards and construction requirements as a building regulation would more closely tie the standard to those who administer building standards in the city, the report stated. Administration believes the old separate policy was leftover from when the city and the Brandon and Area Planning District were distinct entities.

The regulation allows for non-building-related improvements such as parking lots, and allows for buildings in the landfill sites subject to testing and engineered design.

Anyone who wants to construct a building in or near such a zone needs a full report and development proposal prepared by a professional engineer, for example. Requirements can include such measures as permanent monitoring wells and a system to deal with methane gas generation.

The regulation also allows the city to consult with an environmental engineer to review and potentially remove suspected landfill sites in the future. Sites would be reviewed as budget permits and based on future development potential.

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