Proposed hailstorm roofing rebate in Calgary upped to $3,000, expanded to entire city – Calgary

Homeowners in Calgary who are still looking for help replacing their roofing with more hail-resistant materials after the billion dollar hailstorm in 2020 are getting a little more support than initially thought.

On Tuesday, the city’s priorities and finance committee approved a recommendation from city officials to increase the resilient roofing rebate program for homeowners to $ 3,000.

“(City council) found that the $ 2,000 rebate was probably not enough to change people’s behavior because they didn’t really cover the difference in cost between the non-resilient roofing and the resilient roofing,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “So they increased the amount a bit and increased the overall reach so that more people would be eligible.”

According to the rebate program starting in June 2021, the first six months would be open to homeowners affected by the June 13, 2020 hailstorm in the northeast of the city. After that, other homeowners in town would have access to the discounts.

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Only single-family and semi-detached houses are eligible.

“The goal of the program is to educate Calgarians about the benefit of resilient roofing materials and to support Calgarians in building a more resilient city,” Kris Dietrich of Calgary Building Services told the Priorities and Finance Committee (PFC) of the city.

“There are 320,000 homes in Calgary that are eligible for this type of program,” Dietrich said. “We said about seven percent of those people may be considering replacing their roof. And of that seven percent, we thought about three percent might be interested in this program. “

The committee advised the council to approve $ 2.175 million for the first year of the program with a 7-1 vote, using only Ward 4 Couns. Sean Chu is against the recommendation.

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More funding and any changes to the proposed three-year program would return to the committee and council after the first year, with new homes to be incorporated in the final year.

Dietrich said getting the insurance industry on board with incentives to match will help a program that may not fully fund upgrades and potentially become oversubscribed.

“If this were to happen, we plan to return to PFC to request additional funds,” Dietrich said.

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If approved by the city council, the first year’s funding would come from the Fiscal Sustainability Reserve, also known as the rainy day fund.

Nenshi, whose own roof is in need of repair after the June 2020 hailstorm, said the city is stepping in to help homeowners on a larger scale than they could individually do.

“(Disasters) end up costing homeowners a lot, it just makes everyone’s insurance go up. And so the city felt that if we make a small investment to help people do this, it will keep costs low for everyone. “

The Council will debate the program in May.