Good idea or bad, I wonder about maintenance. Every lawn or garden I've ever seen needs care, watering, weeding, fertilizing or mowing or something. Even a quasi-wild field needs something, and these are bound to be only inches deep and not huge. Is this part of the deal? If it dies, you have to replant? What about no watering periods during droughts? Anyone know details from Toronto or Chicago or elsewhere?

Whatever the contribution is to water management, CO2 absorption, heat dissipation blah blah blah, green rooftops will be one way to make a city considerably less ugly. I always think the aesthetics of any manmade space is improved by the addition of plants. There's also the potential to make the space a place to go for people to relax and enjoy, even have a cafe there, maybe.

I think that green roofing is a good idea (green-- including solar, possible small wind, etc projects) however, the goverenment mandating and getting into our lives even further is unnecessary and quite the opposite of what is needed.
If they want it, offer tax credits for doing it or offer some stipend to have it done. But ordering every new building to have it done will create cheap sloppy work resulting in damages and uncared for roofs and simply even more unhappy citizens.

I hope that they would count solar (heat or power) or some other type of green project as part of the % and not just a roof with plants on it. it is always scares me when gov seems to force people into one product and not into a range of solutions so privet sector can find the best answer for the different people/buildings. An example, privet homes have solar hot water but office buildings have plants and a roof top park.

Well.. in my city one of the mayors made it mandatory that every major development, as in shopping malls or sky scrappers, have to have a small park area. so similar to the roof idea but next to the building.

The people who are complaining about this are ridiculous, as are all the developers. Green roofs can be expensive but they can also be very affordable. I recently did a project in my University course that looked at establishing a green wall on campus. I had to sift through a lot of information on green roofs and green walls to get my information and they are pretty cheap--100 per square METER of vegetation. Of course if you want exotic plants this will up the pricing. Also the benefits that.... More

Maybe I am the only one in the whole world right now that thinks this but I don't care I don't think the goverment should be putting all these by-laws into effect at all I think that it is the responsbily of the buyer a new development to buy what they feel is environmentaly impacting if thats what they feel is better. I don't like the goverment pushing things like this on us

I really don't see any problem with this, The streets of cities are dirty and depressing, and I've seen Chicago's green rooftops and it's like a slice of paradise. They can take the edge off a hot day and will help make the air just a bit cleaner, so what problem can people possibly have with this? It may sound bad, but anyone who would seriously oppose this is a moron or just loves to pick fights.

I think its great that they're putting in green rooftops, I wish that they would make all suburban developers put in solar shingles on all new homes. that would offset a bunch of energy usage.
I hoping when its time for us to put on a new roof we can afford to include solar shingles.

Draesdehn, where in the world did you get that statistic? I’m not refuting it, but I can’t find proof of that anywhere. Obviously, the US is a very spread out country. But the point is that urban areas are extremely dense with people and pollution. I think that many people don’t understand the purpose of green rooftops. The point of having a green rooftop is to offset the massive amount of impervious surfaces that urban areas create. Anonymous 9:01 AM, that is why solar panels and green.... More

Green roofs are a nice idea maybe for smaller buildings with less access to sun, but I would say that putting in solar panels would be a lot more productive and effective use of roof space or a mini version of those concentrated solar towers?

If not for plants we wouldn't be able to breath. It's easy to forget that the necesseties of humans are greatly dependant on our environment. I think this law helps because at some point in our distant future there might not be non-urban areas, so it's important to integrate our necessary ecosystem into our continually confining environment.

Think about it, we've paved over so much of our world already, like a parasite in a host were slowly draining/killing the earth. so whats a little landscape on the roof anyway?

I live in Toronto, and I'm pretty glad they implemented this bylaw. I have very little patience for the whining of developers who, even in a downturn, stand to profit millions of dollars from any large-scale development - especially in Toronto's overcrowded urban landscape. 170,000 dollars is a drop in the bucket to these people - it's the inconvenience that bothers them, and I couldn't have less sympathy for it.

Meanwhile, green rooftops will do a lot to make the city more liveable -.... More

Like every one else said, its great for the envo and looks, great jobs I think why not

this law is bunk. I should be able to decide if i want a bunch of grass and **** on my roof. so again bunk on this