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ARTICLE · 14 JUNE 2016

Building Up BC – Building Act

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The British Columbia Government has started to bring into force some of the key provisions of its new Building Act.

CanadaReal Estate and Construction
Joy Ren
Joy Ren
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The British Columbia Government has started to bring into force some of the key provisions of its new Building Act.

The Act, which was passed by the legislature in the early half of 2015, is intended to provide greater consistency in the building and construction industry, and to modernize and streamline the building regulatory system.

The first substantive provisions of the Act came into force in December 2015. The latest provisions address municipal building requirements. The Act states that if municipalities have existing building requirements in their bylaws, they will be of no legal force as of December 2017.

Key provisions are these:

  1. Section 5 – this section provides that, as of December 15, 2017, local government building requirements will have no legal effect to the extent that they relate to matters covered by a prior provincial building regulation such as the 2012 BC Building Code (the "Building Code").

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