The Standing Codes Coordination Committee (SCCC) met to prioritize “bottom-up” work—topics raised by the code user community that fall outside current strategic priorities and national model code committee mandates. The committee reviewed recommendations from its Working Group on Bottom-up Work (WG-BUW), which assessed unaligned code change requests (CCRs), unfinished tasks from previous cycles, and new stakeholder issues.

CHBA contributed by clarifying the status of CCR 1871 (In-Factory Airtightness Testing), emphasizing the need to broaden the definition of “effort” in triage decisions, and advocating for clearer criteria around “industry hardship” to support innovation.

The SCCC finalized a shortlist of five high-priority items for the 2030 code cycle (including a Part 9 item on developing exemptions for roof and attic ventilation). The SCCC also agreed to recommend that all 10 or so "low-effort" items be considered. During the roundtable that followed, CHBA pitched a CCR for fibre cement sheets standard as a low-hanging fruit—highlighting its relevance to wildfire resilience and spatial separation, and its role in replacing a withdrawn CGSB standard. The committee also discussed a report on the Grenfell Tower fire, concluding that the NBC provides sufficient safeguards. The SCCC agreed to propose a formal process to the CBHCC for responding to catastrophic building failures abroad.

The agenda documents are linked below.

For any questions, please reach out to Frank.Lohmann@chba.ca