Winnipeg moves to scrap bird-friendly window bylaw developers argue is barrier to development
CBC
Conservationists are raising concerns as the City of Winnipeg considers walking back a development bylaw designed to help save birds from fatal window strikes, less than a year after the rules came into effect.
The City of Winnipeg says it will hold a public hearing Dec. 18 to consider "deleting" the bird-friendly window requirements for a mix of builds along major corridors and near malls.
"I'm kind of ... shocked," said Kevin Fraser, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Manitoba who focuses on bird migration and ecology.
"[It's] a backwards move for birds."
The city published a notice in the Winnipeg Free Press on Nov. 27 outlining proposed amendments to "Schedule AB Malls and Corridors zoning bylaw 200/2006."
Changes on the table include dropping the bird-friendly window requirements.
A bird-safe window is one that is built or retrofitted with features like patterned films, decals, glazes or coatings to reduce strikes.
Environment and Climate Change Canada estimates between 16 million and 42 million migratory birds die in Canada per year due to window collisions.
A 2013 Canadian study found houses account for most of those deaths in total, because there are more houses overall than other buildings.
But Fraser says while those findings suggest each average residential home may be responsible for about two bird deaths each per year, every low- to mid-rise structure accounts for about five, and each tall building may cause 10 bird deaths annually.
Winnipeg city council began considering bird-friendly guidelines, developed by the Canadian Standards Association, four years ago. The association recommends glazes, decals or other measures be applied to 90 per cent of glass within the first 16 metres of a building, or to the height of adjacent mature tree canopies.
Last fall, council voted unanimously in favour of a motion from public works chair Coun. Janice Lukes to adopt a bird-friendly window development for select mall sites and corridors, excluding the city's downtown.
Her office declined to comment for this story.
The malls and corridors zoning rules — referred to as a "planned development overlay" — that contain bird-safe requirements came into effect this January.
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Conservationists are raising concerns as the City of Winnipeg considers walking back a development bylaw designed to help save birds from fatal window strikes, less than a year after the rules came into effect.
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