We had pretty magnificent barriers associated with using rainwater to irrigate our lawns. There was perhaps good but perhaps unnecessary concern about contamination of that rainwater as it came down onto a roof and into a cistern. The concern was that the water would not be good enough for people walking by a sprinkler to drink. So it was a little bit difficult to try to get through all the regulatory aspects of using rainwater for irrigation.
I think it really stemmed from trying to do something different. It wasn't what we traditionally do, and for some reason every time we go down the path of trying to do something different that makes perfectly good sense to everyone, the regulatory barriers come out, and they start saying you can't do it; it's different. You have to be pretty tenacious to beat through that and to get through to where you need to be. There was a regulatory barrier from the city, from the municipality, and from the province, all of which independently said sure, we'll do this, but when we got down to the proof in the pudding, they wouldn't do it. So it was a matter of pushing it through, collaborating, integrating everyone together and asking, why is this a problem? And everyone said, “Well, actually it's not”. We got through the problem, and now this is a common development technique we use in all of our developments in Ontario, and now other developers are picking up on it.
It's amazing that when you change the pace from what is the norm, it's a large obstacle to go through. And thanks go to CMHC, actually, which stepped in and intervened on our behalf, saying this isn't working and we need to correct it; we need to use rainwater harvesting. It was through CMHC's leadership that we actually got to the point where we are putting rainwater harvesting in all of our buildings.