Legal Code (municipal) - Guideline Codes

Guideline Codes

Some national and regional governments may issue model codes, such as a model building code. Examples include the National Building Code of Canada, the National Fire Code of Canada and Germany's MBO - Musterbauordnung. All three aforementioned examples are issued as guideline documents, which are then used by their Provinces and Bundesländer, respectively, as a baseline to author their own building codes, such as the Ontario Building Code (OBC) and fire codes, such as the Alberta Fire Code (AFC), respectively, which must then, in turn, also be adopted by the municipalities, before they become local law, which is then locally enforced by the municipalities. Usually, the municipality passes a by-law to adopt the code, so the same book applies across that whole territory or Province, etc.. Alternatively, a municipality may elect to issue its own version, such as The City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which typically makes its own changes to the British Columbia Building Code (BCBC), and then issues its own Vancouver Building By-law, rather than to simply adopt the BCBC, as all other municipalities in British Columbia do.