Thank you for having me here today.

My name is Stephen Smith. I'm the executive director of the Center for Building in North America. We're a non-profit organization based in New York City with the goal of conducting research on construction and building codes in the United States and Canada, with a focus on global perspectives.

My organization's research starts from the premise that demand for housing in the U.S. and Canada has shifted over the last generation, and existing ways of building have not caught up. North America has a unique construction culture, one that was well suited to sprawl. We developed techniques for affordably building single-family houses on greenfield sites—that is, sites that were not previously developed in an urban way. This served us very well in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, in the 21st century, we face new challenges. The climate and a strong demand for living in cities have meant that demand and policy have turned inward toward cities. More Canadians and Americans want to live in cities, and our construction culture has not caught up.

A unique feature of construction in North America—that is, in the U.S. and Canada—is this: Per square-metre construction costs—sometimes called “hard costs”—rise as density rises. A low-rise apartment building costs more to build per square metre than a single-family house, and a mid-rise apartment building costs more to build than a low-rise apartment building. This is a feature that I have not observed in other countries. I've looked at Italy, Germany and even Mexico. In those places, the cost of building is fairly consistent per square metre, whether they're building single-family houses or denser apartment buildings. The implication of this, as demand and planning policies lead to more urban construction, is that we face affordability challenges in construction, ones we do not know how to solve.

Fortunately, there are other models. If we want to bring down the cost of urban construction, we can look to places where it doesn't cost any more to build apartments than it does houses. The places most culturally and economically similar to the U.S. and Canada are in Europe. European nations have traditionally led the way in construction, whether we're talking about the use of mass timber, prefabrication, energy efficiency or more efficient floor plans for tight urban sites. Fortunately, Canada and countries in Europe share common histories, climates and languages, and they're in similar economic situations.

My research thus far has focused on elevators and stairways. However, throughout building codes and the web of what are known as “referenced standards” in areas from plumbing to windows, we can find similar themes. A North American tendency is towards oversizing, a reluctance to look outside of our two countries for standards and solutions, and generally higher costs, especially for more urban kinds of construction.

We can get into more specifics during the questioning about codes, standards and general approaches to construction and regulation, but my broad advice to Canada is to try to resist the cultural pull of your larger neighbour to the south. I realize this is a bit ironic, since I'm coming to you from the United States. Look instead to places that have had more success in implementing the goals you're trying to achieve.

Building codes in Canada and the construction industry more generally tend to look to the United States, but this is not where you will find a record of success when it comes to building cities. When you think about affordable new urban housing, more family-friendly apartments, more energy-efficient homes, more innovative forms of construction, housing that is safe from fires and better mass transit, you won't find those things in America. If you continue to emulate American models, you'll end up with American outcomes and will probably continue to be unhappy with the results.

Thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to answer any questions.