• Link to Clean Air Council Recommendations to Province on Ontario Building Code
• Link to Town of Whitby Ontario Building Code Council Report
• Link to City of Waterloo Ontario Building Code Resolution
• Link to Town of Halton Hills Build it Right the First Time Building Code Resolution
• If your municipal council will be advancing an Ontario Building Code discussion please let Gaby know at gkalapos@cleanairpartnership.org

Ontario's Building Code is a regulation under the Building Code Act, 1992 which sets out minimum administrative and technical requirements for new construction, renovation, and change of use of buildings. New editions or major amendments to Ontario's Building Code are generally released every five years to coincide with updates to the National Construction Codes.

The federal government has released a final draft of the National Model Building Code and has provided the Province of Ontario with the final national codes expected to be released in the fall of 2022. The Province of Ontario has indicated a desire to align with the National Model Building Code.

• The draft National Building Code indicates a tiered approach for energy performance. This tiered model outlines the upcoming energy efficiency standards and the timeframe for the schedule to new higher minimum requirements. This is important as this provides the construction industry with the pathway and its timeframe, thereby enabling to advance capacity. It will also advance consistency across municipal energy efficiency metrics in Green Standards.
• Based on the review of the ERO posting, the Province is not proposing a Tiered code; Instead, they are proposing to:
  • Harmonize with Tier 3 requirements of the National Building Code for part 9 buildings (buildings are defined as fewer than three storeys in height and smaller than 600 m2 in area).
  • Tier 1 of the national code for part 3 (buildings classified as Group A, B or F-1; or exceeding 600 m2 in building area or exceeding three storeys in building height).

• Recommendations from the Clean Air Council on Improvements to OBC include:
  
• Recommendation # 1: Bring in the Tiered Standards and Timeframe for Advancement to Higher Tiers
• Recommendation # 2: Improve Energy Efficiency Requirements in OBC
• Recommendation # 3: Support implementation of the tiered Code through education and capacity building in areas such as airtightness testing, building envelope design and building science.
• Recommendation # 4: Take steps to ensure the move from a prescriptive approach to a performance-based approach.
• Recommendation # 5: Support the Scale Up of Energy Efficiency Within Ontario's Existing Building Stock
• Link to more information on the above recommendations