Financial relief for homeowners in Barrie’s tornado zone could continue, but a hurricane strap rebate remains downwind.
Councillors approved a motion Monday night that the city continue to waive fixed water/sewer billing charges until the water is being used and waive late charges on unpaid 2021 final property tax amounts until Jan. 1, 2022.
But a city rebate for hurricane straps, totalling an estimated $300,000 annually, is not included in the motion.
Instead, as part of the staff memo regarding updates to the Ontario Building Code (OBC), staff provide options to require hurricane straps for new builds in Barrie. Council will consider final approval of this motion at its Nov. 22 meeting.
Coun. Natalie Harris said the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction has proven that the addition of hurricane straps to homes can significantly decrease the damage caused by tornadoes of an EF 0-2 rating.
“Which are the most commonly seen tornadoes in Ontario,” she said.
The July 15 EF-2 tornado with touched down in southeast Barrie with maximum wind speeds reaching 210 kilometres per hour damaged hundreds of homes and some small businesses in the Mapleview Drive East/Prince William Way area. It compromised the structural integrity of buildings; some of them lost their roofs.
Hurricane strapping or clips connect and strengthen wood-framed roofs and houses, with the most common ones made of galvanized steel or stainless steel. They are designed to help protect structures from severe weather, but the Ontario Building Code does not require them.
Bala Araniyasundaran, the city’s general manager of infrastructure and growth management, said Monday efforts are underway to change that.
“Staff in the building department are working on a comprehensive set of modifications to the Building Code that would improve the resiliency of buildings to withstand a tornado event,” he said. “So the plan is once these modifications to the Building Code are finalized, and these modifications will include the hurricane straps, and we would approach the provincial code and nation code agencies to see if we can get these incorporated within the Building Code.”
Araniyasundaran said councillors should have a memo on this in about three months.
Councillors also heard Monday night that Barrie-Innisfil MPP Andrea Khanjin and Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey plan to raise the matter of hurricane straps with Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark early in the new year.
“The Building Code update is something that AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) is closely following,” Mayor Jeff Lehman said. “I don’t think it would hurt for council to express its support for those changes.”
Last August, council approved a motion that proposes the province change the OBC to require the use of straps, clips or other mechanisms to better connect the roof, wall and foundation of homes. Harris said Monday the addition of straps or clips would cost $500 to $1,000 per home.
To assist homeowners impacted by the July 15, 2021 tornado, the city has provided financial relief through the waiving of $1,000 to date in water and wastewater fixed charges, to those households which have recorded zero activity on their water meters since the date of the tornado. The building department continues to waive all building permit fees for tornado related construction as well.
City staff have also been working with homeowners and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) to inspect the extent of property damage and reassess property values where warranted.
MPAC will be inspecting approximately 70 properties in total. To date, six have been identified to reflect a reduction in property taxes due to a lowered property assessment. MPAC hopes to complete remaining inspections by the end of November, staff said.
“That’s no doubt welcome news to those (home) owners who have been through a lot over the last three or four months,” Lehman said.
Harris had wanted the city to finance a rebate program for hurricane straps, but when it became evident there were not enough votes to approve it, she settled, for now, on staff providing options to require hurricane straps for new builds.
“Part of the reason why the addition of hurricane clips is recommended by the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction is because of the added protection to life and property when tornado warnings don’t make it to the families in the home on time — just like the case with the July tornado,” said Harris, rode out the tornado in a house that lost its roof.
“I received the tornado warning when I was outside looking at the damage to the homes on the street," she added.
The $300,000 annual estimate for a rebate program uses assumptions for anticipated growth and housing styles, along with a possible city rebate of $3 per strap. About 1,000 homes are expected to be built in Barrie during each of the next three years, according to city staff.
Additional resources for a rebate program would also be required as building inspectors cannot inspect compliance with a voluntary program. Funding for such a program would have to come from existing taxpayers for new construction builds.
Most houses are built with no specific consideration of wind loading, according to city building staff. There are no predetermined load paths identified in this type of construction to deal with lateral loads and uplift loads, which are both caused by the effects of wind loading.
More stringent building requirements cannot be legally enforced until modifications are made to the OBC to mandate different construction techniques.
Barrie city council does not have the authority to change the Ontario Building Code, which defines minimum construction standards for this province. The OBC is created and must be amended by the province, but council can ask for changes.
