Whitehorse doubles budget for review of bylaw services

The City of Whitehorse will move ahead with a broad review of bylaw services, more than doubling its budget for the study at Tuesday's city council meeting.

Council had budgeted $20,000 for the study, but after receiving no proposals, it will now pay $55,000 in hopes to commission a company to undertake the review. During the original request for proposals, one firm had indicated that the scope of the project was greater than the previous budget allowed.

The last review of the Bylaw Services Department is more than 10 years old and with a growing city, council said it needs to address "emerging issues," like trail patrols, traffic concerns and staffing.

"We're gonna want comparisons from other jurisdictions based on the size of the community and size of the department," said Dave Pruden, manager of bylaw services.

The scope of the review is large. It will look at a range of issues, including bylaw enforcement, which is currently complaint-driven.

With 3,000 complaints a year, councillors also spoke in favour of the review, and the increased price tag.

"Right now our bylaw doesn't do enforcement," said Mayor Dan Curtis. "We have a very, very small team — they're really quite taxed."

The review will also include feedback from the community and other levels of government.

"We'd just like to see what the options are to take that out into the public and see if they would like enforcement from our bylaw officers and see what services that they would like," Curtis said.

"I think it would be really good to know exactly what's required and how much it's going to cost so we can take that out to the citizenry and see what they see as important and what they're willing to pay for."

The city will now put out another request for proposals for the work. The review is due to be complete in 2018.