Modernizing the Building Bylaw
Consultation has concluded
The City has adopted a new Building Bylaw No. 2018-01 following thecompletion of the engagement program. In addition to improving policies andprocedures, incorporating changes in the BC Building Act and Code, the newbylaw introduces recommendations from the BC Energy Step Code to achieve moreenergy-efficient buildings. The City met with industry stakeholders this pastspring to identify improvements and reviewed them with the community throughshapeyourcitypenticton.ca and at the ‘Juicy Topics’ open house. The draft bylawwas updated to eliminate the automatic requirement of an engineer to designfoundations for all simple buildings and to revise the start date of theimplementation of Step 01 of the Energy Step from Jan. 15 to March 15. You canread the new bylaw here. The City of Penticton wishes to thank the residentsand businesses who contributed to this work.
Here are some of the most common questions about the proposed changes to the Building Bylaw.
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What does it mean to builders?
The BC Energy Step Code came into force in April 2017 and builders have the option of building to the requirements at any time. Local governments have been granted 3 years (2017-2020) to evaluate their local context and to develop a strategy suitable for their particular locale. This transition period is an opportunity for local governments to be proactive by adopting one or more Steps to enable the local market to mature and to spur increased industry capacity for services and products that support higher performing buildings.
At the moment, the BC Energy Step Code only applies to Part 9 residential buildings (under 4 storeys and less than 600m2 building area) for regions outside the Lower Mainland and Southern Vancouver Island. For Part 9 buildings, there are five performance target steps, each representing a higher level of performance. Steps 1 through 3 represent the Lower Steps, while Steps 4 and 5 form the Upper Steps (Figure 1).
Step 1 is designed to familiarize builders with measuring energy efficiency. Builders will need to use a whole-building energy model to calculate the energy consumption of their buildings as well as have a building airtightness test done. However, the construction of the building remains the same as conventional construction and it only needs to meet the performance of the base BC Building Code. The Step Code forms a framework by which the construction industry can, over time, “step up” the performance of their buildings to the net-zero energy ready level that must be achieved by 2032.
