On April 15, the minister responsible for housing, Rich Coleman, announced that new Building Code requirements to increase energy and water efficiency would come into effect on September 5, 2008.  The Heritage Branch has been working with the Office of Housing and Construction Standards for some time now to promote the development of the Code to facilitate rehabilitation and a more sympathetic 
approach to code compliance for historic places.

In a discussion paper on ‘Greening the Building Code’ that was widely circulated in late 2007, the potential conflicts between the sensitive characteristics of designated historic places and new energy efficiency requirements were addressed by a proposed exemption for such places.  However, there is no such wording in the published Code amendment.  The Office of Housing and Construction Standards (OHCS) has explained that the way they decided to operationalize this Code amendment as it pertains to all existing buildings, including legally protected 
historic places, is to rely on the present provisions of the Code that allow discretion in the application of the requirements to existing buildings.

The Heritage Branch is assured by OHCS that when applied to the historic built environment (existing buildings), the Code is intended to balance safety and economics, and that the way this is achieved is open to interpretation and innovation.  Of course, as we have seen in practice since the publication of the heritage buildings appendix to the Code, the grey area that surrounds discretionary powers usually limits the usage of such 
options in favour of more concrete, explicit standards.

So while we wait for the development of a code for buildings, as opposed to the code for building that we have now, it is up to designers to exercise creativity in 
addressing code compliance issues in historic places.  And it is up to regulatory bodies to be open to considering creative alternatives lest a blanket of bland, albeit energy efficient, homogeneity descend upon our province.

BY RICHARD LINZEY, BC HERITAGE BRANCH