Silver Standard endorsed for National Construction Code

The recent announcement to include a national minimum standard for new housing in the public comment draft of the National Construction Code 2022 is a significant win for all those advocating for accessibility standards.

A majority of Ministers agreed to include minimum accessibility provisions for residential housing and apartments in the National Construction Code (NCC) 2022 based on the Livable Housing Design Guidelines (LHDG) silver standards.

The Ministers considered arguments about extra cost put forward by the building industry, but felt that the community benefit of a regulated approach to accessibility outweighed these costs.

Ministers also agreed the ABCB will publish a voluntary gold technical standard for accessible housing.

MOD.A supports this initiative. It will take generations for the new accessibility standards to become universal across our communities, but we had to start sometime.  Meanwhile there is more than enough existing housing needing modification to keep our members busy for decades!