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The Canadian Home Builders’ Association has an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney on its website calling for the federal government to halt implementation of the 2025 National Building Code and all future code development until the 2025 code can be revised and reforms made to the code development process. The key demand is for code development to consider affordability when making changes, which is not officially part of the development process now. CHBA estimates the changes to the 2025 NBC will add between $50,000 to $100,000 to the minimum cost of a new 2,500-square-foot home. The association also expresses concern with the impact of frequent code changes on sector productivity; a lack of transparency and industry involvement in the development process; and an ongoing lack of code harmonization across the country owing to the provinces’ continued ability to modify the NBC or make different interpretations of it in their jurisdictions.
The tone of the letter is scathing in places:
“We cannot support the 2025 model codes or their adoption and call for an immediate pause to redo them properly.”
“CHBA has become seriously concerned over the last few years with how Canada’s new governance system for national codes and its updated code development process is neither transparent nor evidence-based anymore.”
The letter references Australia, where building code development has been paused in response to similar concerns. Specific actions the CHBA is calling for include:
- Immediately stop the adoption and implementation process of the 2025 National Construction Codes and assess them with a plan to only put forth for adoption cost-neutral changes for housing in Part 9 of the 2025 national codes (such as the prescriptive point-based compliance paths for all energy efficiency tiers);
- Pause all 2030 code development until critical reforms are made to the development approach, such as:
- restoring transparency, accountability and meaningful stakeholder engagement within the codes system;
- adding an ex-officio seat for CHBA and other broad sector stakeholders at all CBHCC meetings (including in-camera meetings) to properly inform the development from an industry perspective;
- reinstating a coordination committee dedicated to NBC Part 9 (which deals directly with housing) rather than spreading it across 13 committees with non-residential construction;
- reducing the priorities for the 2030 code cycles, focusing only on essential, cost-neutral requirements;
- making housing affordability a core principle in code development along with a robust structured process to assess and limit individual-change and cumulative costs for each future code edition
- Establish a National Building Code Interpretation Centre to achieve consistent local application of harmonized national construction codes and work with the provinces to make published solutions binding.