I have to give Derek Bates high marks for the report he wrote.

The way I see it, for the most part the business commitee really did not do their homework. It was primarily a “bitch” session, no different to many on this site, without much substance.

I think the City got what it paid for – nothing of note.

In my view it just caused more work for Administration and sent a further message that Council really does not do its homework. Looking at many of the reminders the City Manager presented, Council should have been able to pick out the matters which dealt with policies they themselves had approved and culled the list.

But, I suppose they are not the ones to roll up their sleeves over such details when they have administrators to do that for them.

It is obvious to me that in a few cases cited about the leniency of this City in accepting substandard submissions for permitting, being lenient is not exactly helpful to anyone. All it means is a more expensive and time consuming process to accommodate developers who are not competent to do the work needed to get approvals.

If I may make a suggestion. Put on a few free workshops of how to prepare submissions to the City. An hour or two will do in many cases. Or look at setting up a self instructional guide on the internet perhaps with a video or two.

If people are not trained or not required to submit proper documents, the path of least resistance will continue to be followed, with more bitch sessions at the counter and more unproductive work for administration at the cost of the taxpayer rather than the permit applicant where the cost should lie.

Being “open for business” does not stand for accepting substandard work. It is high time we deliver that message to the “business community”.

According to CBC News a worm-like fossil is a ‘distant cousin’ of humans, who share genes with this ancient creature.

That explains a lot.

The answer to your problem Gus, is give the permit applicant all the information,bylaws & zoning regulations that apply to the property in question .
Instead of one piece at a time.
May I make a suggestion , the city has a wonderful program called MAP PG,if they could some how tie that information to the property PID # along with zoning & bylaw regulations .
So that when I punch in the PID # it tells what documentation is required.To get the planning and permitting process rolling.

Oh by the way Gus, once an applicant has started into the process and is delayed because they didn’t receive all the proper information.It is the applicant that bares the cost of delay.

I understand that Kamloops has a more timely planning & permitting process.

Logical One wrote:
“The answer to your problem Gus, is give the permit applicant all the information,bylaws & zoning regulations that apply to the property in question”

I guess you don’t understand laws.

Neither the City, the Regional District, the Province, the Feds, etc. will protect you against ignorance of the law.

There is a reason why people use Engineers, Architects, Planners, Accountants, Lawyers, etc. when they do not want to take responsibility themselves. Professionals such as those will take that liability on for you. There is no way that such liability is taken on by any government organization at any level, likely anywhere in the modern world.

It is your project, it is your responsibility to research the information you need. When you ask for it, and the City is the keeper of the information, they will give it to you. They will, however, be VERY careful to answer a question such as “Am I missing something”; “how many plies of 2×12 lumber do I need to span a 16 foot garage door opening”; etc.

As far as MAP PG (sic) goes – actually called PG MAP – I am extremely familiar with it as well as GIS mapping systems from some other cities.

As far as tying it to zoning goes, it actually is, as well as underground city services locations, assessments, etc. If you want hydro, gas, etc., you are SOL. The system is not integrated with other service providers, at least not for the general public.

Bylaws, forget about it. Too many local, provincial and federal jurisdictions and very dependent and very much dependent on what you wish to do with the property.

Anyway, here is what it does as shown on the City’s web site
•view property boundaries
•aerial photography
•search by address, legal description, parcel Identification number
•verify zoning and other City bylaw area boundaries
•find parks and trails
•print property reports and high quality maps
•view service connections
•access legal plans

So, no, you do not understand the answer to my problem. I have no problem. I know the system because I used to have to work with it.

In fact, as I have said before on here, I know the system well enough that I was able to speak to inspectors when they were wrong, and if they inssited I knew the appeal process and when I know I was right I took it to the building appeal board. There were 4 occasions I did that. Twice in PG, once in Quesnel, and once in Mackenzie. I won the appeals on all four occasions.

And, on top of that, I never once complained that this or any of those other places were not open for business. They were and still are. It is like everything else in the world, things are getting more complex, everyone has to be given equal rights under the law in the City, the Province and the Country and favouritism is going further and further out the window, thank goodness ……..

BTW, as with any kind of data depository, maintaining the information in a current state of accuracy is a very costly venture. There are tipping points where it costs more to digitize the data than the savings that can be had to deposit it into the database.

Ithaca, NY, was one of the first towns that had a public accessible GIS database on line. It even had images of building linked to the properties. I just took a look to see if I can find it. What I found was nothing special in today’s world of accessible GIS. It looks like they decided at one point to cut spending on it back to what they feel is a minimum requirement for today’s world.

http://www.lethbridge.ca/Doing-Business/Planning-Development/Permits-Applications/Pages/Residential-SFD.aspx

The link is to the Lethbridge web site’s pages on building permitting process. PG has similar info on their web site but not as nicely laid out. The info is, however, essentially the same.