KITCHENER, ONT. — As a way to increase the manufacturing and use of made-in-Ontario wood building products, the Ontario government has released a new Advanced Wood Construction Action Plan.
The use of prefabricated and modular wood-based building materials will help build more homes faster and create a more resilient forestry sector in response to U.S. tariffs, a release notes.
“Locally made mass timber and wood construction can be used to build modular and prefabricated buildings, including mid-rise and tall multi-family homes and a wide variety of commercial and industrial buildings,” it reads. “Advanced wood construction can complete projects up to 50 per cent faster and cut costs by up to 20 per cent, making it essential to achieving the government’s goal of building more homes.”
The plan has four key objectives:
- Support initiatives that create awareness and encourage the use advanced wood construction.
- Identify and remove barriers in codes, standards and regulations.
- Stimulate innovation and investment in advanced manufacturing facilities.
- Demonstrate and display examples of advanced wood construction to instil confidence in adopting new Ontario wood building products.
The province states it has already committed over $13 million to date in advanced wood construction capacity, including:
- Over $8 million to establish and scale up production at Element5: Ontario’s first fully-automated manufacturer of cross-laminated timber.
- Close to $3 million for wood-based construction education, research and training led by organizations such as the Canadian Wood Council and Canadian Wood Construction Research Network.
- Over $1.5 million towards the construction of educational buildings incorporating mass timber at George Brown College and the University of Toronto.
- Over $750,000 to support FPInnovations’ research and testing of wood-based construction materials and development of technical resources.
- Over $300,000 to help the University of Toronto’s Mass Timber Institute develop ways to use more underused wood for advanced wood construction and study modular housing deployment.
To learn more about the plan click here.
