City council and local home builders met face-to-face at a special Committee of the Whole meeting set up to address issues with building permit delays on Thursday.
“We’re in the business of approving developments,” Mayor Mark McKee told them. “We want houses built, we want families building here and we want the tax base increasing. We want you guys going to work.”
The meeting was organized after about 30 builders met at Rona on June 1 to discuss their issues with getting building permits approved and construction projects going.
The Review reported on their concerns in our June 7 issue.
Following the meeting, the group presented a 21 item list of concerns and suggestions for improvement to the city.
On Thursday, the city responded, while several contractors addressed council and staff directly.
Staff attributed much of the problem to staffing shortages.
“Right now the planning department, we’re holding steady on the backlog, we’re getting permits out as quickly as they’re coming through,” said Nigel Whitehead, the city’s director of development services.
He said 99 building permit applications have come into the department this year and 62, worth $19 million, have been issued. Of the 37 others, he said seven needed more information and 30 were waiting for staff to process them. The wait to issue a permit for a new single-family home was seven to 10 weeks.
Whitehead said they hired a new assistant planner who will be starting soon. “I’m planning on looking at the revenues of the department this fall and looking at the structure of the department to see if we can find efficiencies,” he said.
Mike Thomas, the city’s director of engineering, explained he and the city’s engineering technician also had a heavy workload that included reviewing most developments.
“When there’s new infrastructure being built, that’s when engineering will get involved at a more detailed level,” he said.
“From a development perspective, one of the biggest challenges we face is the quality or consistency of the documents we’re receiving,” Thomas added. “Generally, meeting the city bylaws is not an onerous matter, but there’s not a lot of engineers doing work in Revelstoke that are familiar with the city bylaws.”
Later, he said staff had to review work done by the builders to make sure they got it right. “It is up to the city to review the work provided by consultants, because if it’s wrong and that storm water overflows and runs into someone else’s yard and we’ve approved it, we are on the hook for that,” he said.
Mayor Mark McKee then went through the 21 item list, defending the city and going over some of the ways they were trying to address problems, like getting staffing back up, re-allocating city resources and updating the zoning bylaw.
But, he said, “We’re here to protect the corporation and the taxpayer and anything that increases that level of risk is not going to be acceptable to council and staff, and it’s not going to be acceptable to the community and taxpayers.”
McKee also acknowledged some faults. “One of the things that city hall is really good at is they’re really good at telling people what not to do,” he said. “What they’re not good at is telling people what’s needed and why that’s needed.”
When it came time for the builders to speak, they sang a different tune. Jordan Cochrane, the owner of Jordan Cochrane Construction, said he was bothered by the fact Mackenzie Village’s building permit was accelerated ahead of others. (McKee defended this, saying the project had been in the works for several years.)
“Right now, there’s a permit getting a put out every six days,” Cochrane said. “There needs to be more people to support what’s going on right now.”
Dean Prunkle of Mubiks Construction, said the city was holding up permits because of minor details. He said he had one delayed because the city wanted to know details about windows. He said many of these points could be dealt with during the build process, and not beforehand during the permit process. “I feel for the staff having to deal with people who are not happy waiting on these things,” he said.
Roger Kessler, the owner of Kessler Custom Homes, noted the building permit application absolves the city of risk. “That shouldn’t be a problem if someone wants to take on some risk,” he said.
He also questioned the expertise of staff. “To be told by someone who has no background in engineering that I need to get an engineer, I question their level of knowledge,” he said.
Greg Hoffart of Tree Construction, said his problem was they were expected to bring in detailed drawings for the full build process, when plans might change as work progresses. He said the city could inspect and review projects as they went along. “I think to help out the planning process, if we weren’t reviewing so much at the beginning and reviewed stuff in parallel, it would take a lot of pressure off us, and a lot of pressure off you,” he told the city.
After, McKee said he wanted the dialogue to continue going forward. “Any opportunities to make things more efficient, that’s what we’re looking for,” he said. “I’m hoping to hear more positive comments from you guys on dealing with city hall and getting through the process as we get back to normal.”
Councillor Aaron Orlando said council needed to take responsibility for the issue and how to make it better. “I would be really keenly interested in seeing a report from staff so we have information to make decisions, likely at budget time this year,” he said.