Canadian Water Network (CWN) recently hosted a Leaders Dialogue to discuss the challenges and opportunities water leaders face in servicing densifying areas in our cities.

Some key challenges clarified during the meeting include that:

• Rapid densification in core areas of cities, often encouraged and incentivized by city officials for economic and social benefits, leads to capacity-related challenges for urban water systems. It also leads to questions about whether existing service levels can be maintained and how they will be paid for.
• Being able to model system capacity robustly, including impacts to inflow and infiltration (I/I) on sewer capacity, has an important role in facilitating discussions with both city planners and private developers. These discussions can help promote efficiencies in city asset renewal investments and public infrastructure upgrades by private developers.
• As our cities densify and evolve, tackling capacity issues also requires revisiting baseline assumptions about the services and service levels provided to allow for flexibility in managing growth-related challenges. Some items to revisit include: fire flow standards, onsite or private-side building water management requirements, basement drainage water policies and amount of parking required.

During the Leaders Dialogue, there was also a discussion about potential areas for further inquiry. Some questions to explore further include:

• What are some strategies to work effectively with different partners with shared objectives for city growth, especially across the public-private divide?
• How can overarching integrated resource planning or City Plans provide opportunities for more coordination between asset renewal planning and infill growth?
• How can cost sharing with developers and utilities be made more effective, transparent and equitable?

CWN’s Canadian Municipal Water Consortium convenes national events to foster in-depth discussions among utility executives, global thought leaders and cross-sector representatives. These events provide an opportunity to share state-of-practice and knowledge regarding topics of relevance and interest through small, facilitated group discussions. To learn more, contact Sandra Cooke, Director of the Municipal Consortium, at [email protected]