Mid-rise condos might not be the first thing you think of when wood-frame buildings are mentioned. A quaint log cabin or cozy ranch-style home may come to mind instead.

If you live in Ontario, there’s a chance the province’s building code has something to do with this. Until recently, it put the ceiling on wood-frame buildings at four storeys. But in January 2015, the limit increased to six storeys, and now some experts say wood-frame construction could open new doors for residential development in Toronto.

“In terms of the market itself, I think it’s going to be very good for affordable housing,” Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), tells Harvey Kalles Real Estate. “[Construction] should be less expensive,” Lyall continues. “It might not be right out of the gate, you need a little volume there,” he says, but adds, “The experience of British Columbia is that the construction costs are lower.”

In British Columbia, which updated its building code in 2009 to allow for taller wood-frame developments, a number of five- and six-storey dwellings of this type have sprouted, including Library Square in Kamloops and Sail in Vancouver.

In addition to potential savings from cheaper construction being passed down to homebuyers, Lyall says the building process itself is efficient and the material eco-friendly. “It’s good in that you have less noise on the job site, you have fewer concrete trucks, you have less mess, you limit waste, [and] the building should go up faster, so it’s less intrusive for the neighbourhood,” he says.

Residents in the Upper Beach will soon be able to judge for themselves. In April, construction is expected to begin on Heartwood — The Beach (1884 Queen Street East), the first six-storey wood-frame building approved for construction in Toronto since the Building Code was changed.

Marco VanderMaas, designer director at Quadrangle Architects, a firm involved with the project, says he sees buildings like Heartwood — The Beach “as a way of building complete communities.” Faster project timelines and lower costs can encourage developers to start similar mid-rise projects, he notes, resulting in higher density in areas where it would have been cost-prohibitive before. “That’s sort of the promise of this,” VanderMaas says.

Lyall, meanwhile, expects the province to approve even taller wood-frame buildings in the future.“You will see a 12-storey [wood-frame] building in Toronto going up at some point in time, something in that range.”