Kennedy Stewart's permit pledge a test of how many bylaws he's willing to cut
More staff in place, but interpreting contradictory bylaws the biggest challenge
Winning an election has a way of turning campaign promises into something a little more vague.
A week before voting day, Kennedy Stewart announced his plan for his first 100 days. The top priority was to "take immediate action to begin clearing the permitting backlog."
It was a pledge done in response to the oft-heard argument that Vancouver's process of approving new buildings is too complex, often taking more than six months to get to the application process and over a year to get a permit.
Nearly halfway through his first 100 days, Stewart seems to have softened the importance of his role.
"The great thing about, you know, the difference between a campaign and then then actually winning is that in a campaign you're kind of guessing at what's happening within the city. And then after you're elected you get to see what the city has been doing," Stewart said.
That doesn't mean change isn't happening. But it will likely be after the first 100 days before major changes are approved.
Too many conflicting rules
Talk to architects in the city, and they'll say the same things.
"Vancouver has ... much more policy than many cities, and a lot more rules, and a lot more regulations and those rules and regulations often conflict," said Jon Stovell, president of Reliance Properties, which focuses on mixed-use buildings.
"It's at least three times, four times longer than any other municipality," said Mo Maani, who has submitted the fourth highest number of building applications in Vancouver this year, mostly for single-family homes.
"You go outside of Vancouver and the zoning bylaw is a third the size, there's just fewer rules," said Bryn Davidson, co-owner of Lanefab Design/Build.
Davidson built the city's first approved laneway home eight years ago and focuses on building green homes and multi-family units. But he argues the city has too many policies that have to be adhered to when approving projects.
"Vancouver does a lot of really sophisticated stuff. The challenge is when they try to apply all of that sophistication to tiny little projects. And that's where we get this mismatch."
'Can we simplify?'
Kaye Krishna, the city's general manager of development, buildings and licensing, disagrees with the notion Vancouver's situation is particularly bad, saying comparisons to less developed municipalities within Metro Vancouver aren't illustrative. And she pointed to the hiring of new staff and pilot projects earlier this year that have already made an impact.
But Krishna acknowledges there's work that can be done in trimming the city's extensive bylaws.
"There's a little bit of just modernizing the bylaws, but also looking at where there's overlap, where is it unnecessarily complicated. Can we eliminate some things? Can we simplify?"
Krishna's team will be reporting to council by February on ways the permitting process can be fast-tracked. Among the recommendations will likely be simplifying the complex internal flow chart that exists for all projects, and streamlining some of the different policies created in the last decade — which planners sometimes have to weigh against one another.
"The zoning and development bylaw is very text heavy ... we also have a signage bylaw. We have a tree bylaw. They're all separate and standalone. How can we integrate those things?"
While some of that can be done easily, other tasks will require council changing or eliminating specific bylaws — something Davidson hopes this new council, with few members tied to old policies, will consider.
"Staff have done a lot. The next step is for council," said Davidson.
"Council needs to realize that bold action on housing and on permit times means taking away some of the micromanagement that we've really gotten used to."
Reporter Justin McElroy on challenges clearing permit backlog
Metro Matters: On The Road is exploring how new city governments throughout B.C. are approaching age-old issues (some political, some not) in their communities.
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