In hopes of continuing down the path to remove government regulation, Municipal Affairs Minister, Kaycee Madu announced Alberta will now allow wood-building construction up to 12 storeys following the next edition of the National Building Code set for publication at the end of 2020.
This move will make Alberta the first province in Canada to allow the practice provincewide.
Minister Madu believes this implementation will support the forestry industry and land developers, but not all are happy in light of the recent news.
The Alberta Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA) issued a statement on behalf of all Fire Services in Alberta. It mentions concerns regarding the 12-storey pursuit, indicating no consultation with the AFCA was sought. It also says a more thorough review of safety standards, best practices, emergency and resource planning along with fire safety recommendations during the construction phase needs to be applied to address public safety in the vicinity of these structures while under construction.
"Consultation is good. Do they have to do it, no. Is it a good thing to do, absolutely. Just to get some feedback from people that are fighting the fires on those buildings," explains Jeff Avery, inspector with Cochrane Fire Services.
Progression in fire-protection and wood-product technology has made the construction of taller buildings a possibility. Included in the National Building Code is encapsulated mass timber. Mass timber is described as large engineered wood products that typically involve the lamination and compression of multiple layers to create solid panels of wood. It has sufficient volume and cross-sectional dimensions to offer benefits in regards to fire, acoustics and structural performance.
"Although you have this mass timber it's covered now with two or three layers of drywall, which is what they call Type X Fire Resistant drywall. It takes even longer to penetrate those layers in order to get to the wood," said Jay Wieliczko, inspector with Cochrane Fire Services.
In Cochrane the maximum building height bylaw is eight storeys. To date the largest wood structure in town a five storey condominium located in Sunset Ridge. Roughly 90 per cent of the buildings in Cochrane are made of wood.
"Everything being built in town right now is wood, now it's just getting bigger," said Avery. "The code is not being lenient on them whether they build it out of metal, whether they build it out of brick, or they build out of wood they are still following the same code."
With the use of mass timber there is a likelihood to create 60 jobs per construction site and up to 400 jobs per new sawmill and production sites. Since the Red Tape Reduction Act was passed, CutRedTape.Alberta.ca has received more than 4,500 submissions. This year the Canadian Federation of Independent Business gave Alberta a B minus for its efforts to cut red tape. This is the highest grade the province has ever earned.
As for Cochrane, the probability of seeing a 12 storey development in the future isn't far from reality.
"Our biggest concern right now is eight. I think sooner or later we will definitely approve bigger buildings with Cochrane growing, so if we do get a request from a developer to build an eight storey building of wood then we have to sit down and look at all the plans and make sure that it's built right and of course safety is number one. When I look the five storey building, it's a really good building. So another three storeys of that - do we have a huge problem with that, no. Not if it's done right." said Avery.
