The City of Montreal will ban conventional natural-gas usage in new buildings, starting in 2024.

City council passed a bylaw that will begin applying to buildings of three floors or less or October 2024, while larger buildings will have to comply by spring 2025. The respective bans will apply to developments that have not yet obtained building permits.

“It’s an important milestone, because we’re stopping the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions in the building sector,” Marie-Andrée Mauger, the city’s representative on ecological transition, told The Montreal Gazette.

The decision means that investors, developers and building operators will have to find other ways to heat such indoor equipment as stoves, water heater and heat pumps for pools or hot tubs. The ban includes propane and heating oil, and will apply to single-family homes as well as multi-family real estate and other commercial buildings.

Large buildings will be permitted to connect to renewable natural-gas sources to avoid overloading the local electrical grid, the Gazette reported.