POLICY REPORT
BUILDING AND PLANNING
Date: October 31, 1995
Dept. File No. PL002.RPT
TO: Vancouver City Council
FROM: City Building Inspector
SUBJECT: New "Dwelling Code" Concept
RECOMMENDATION
A. THAT Council accept in principle the adoption of a new
"Dwelling Code" based upon the format and rationale of the
newest version of the "One and Two-Family Dwelling Code",
upon completion of a favour-able review by the local home
building industry.
B. THAT Council instruct the City Building Inspector to solicit
comments from the local homebuilding contractors, plumbing
contractors and electrical contractors, through meetings and
workshops, and report back.
GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The General Manager of Community Services RECOMMENDS approval of
A and B.
COUNCIL POLICY
Council has always promoted principles of good building practice
through adoption of simplified building regulations and cost-effective
enforcement.
PURPOSE
This report examines a different format and rationale for a new
"Dwelling Code" for the City. For some time now, we have been
examining the merits of the "One and Two Family Dwelling Code"
published by the Council of American Building Officials (CABO), which
may soon be retitled the "International One and Two-Family Dwelling
Code." This Code, which was first published in 1983 by CABO, has a
format that is extremely practical, and has all building trades
requirements in one document. The Code is now used throughout most of
the United States.
This report also recommends holding local workshops to discuss the new
format with builders and contractors who would be using this code in
the future.
DISCUSSION
This is a further step, and a major one, to simplify and modernize the
City's building regulations by putting all requirements for single
family dwellings into one easy-to-read document.
Vancouver, like most Canadian municipalities has had a building by-law
for regulating construction of buildings for many years. The very
first City Building Inspector was named in 1882 by the Council of the
pre-incorporated City of Vancouver. His function was to inspect for
fire hazards and for construction compliance with the Fire Limits By-
laws which regulated construction in those days. It was not until
1908 that the City adopted a modern-style building by-law, which
contained the general construction requirements for all buildings in
the City. Plumbing regulations which existed at that time related
mostly to sanitary drainage and were adopted in 1893. Similarly, very
simplistic electrical requirements were first adopted by Council in
1886.
Since those early days, "Building" regulations have been upgraded
constantly to the situation we have today where we are considering
adoption of the 1995 version of the National Building Code of Canada
NBC, with appropriate 1992 British Columbia Building Code (BCBC) and
Vancouver By-law amendments. However, requirements specifically for
single family dwellings are scattered throughout this complex
document. Furthermore, plumbing, gas, sewerage and electrical
regulations are each very specialized separate documents. Each one
also covers all types of buildings. Single family dwelling trades'
installa-tion requirements are also scattered throughout these trades'
documents.
In order to make the regulations easier to use and understand, we
propose to extract all single family requirements from our current
regulations, but amended by the 1995 NBC and BCBC for new and existing
dwellings and secondary suites, and place them within one single
publication. The trades regulations specific to single family
dwellings would also be included in this publication which will be
applicable not only to single family dwellings, but also to all side-
by-side dwelling forms, including row housing. In addition, because
Vancouver is in an area subject to earthquakes, we will be proposing
slightly
more stringent requirements for earthquake resistance than are
required for other parts of Canada. Presently there are virtually
none.
Since there may be a few members of the building industry that will
advocate continuing our use of the present code and separate trades
regulations the way they have always used them, we are preparing to
hold workshops to address any concerns that the proposed changes might
increase the costs of construction, or might significantly change the
current requirements or methods of construction.
CONCLUSION
We will be working with the homebuilding industry representatives to
try to satisfy their needs regarding this proposal to combine all
regulations relating to single family dwellings into one document.
This will make it much simpler for owners, designers, contractors, and
tradesmen to find and comply with those requirements specifically
related to single family dwellings and row housing.
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