Slow approvals

Report comes before council suggesting development process review

At the first council meeting of 2020, a report was presented by the County’s Manager of Planning, Paul Walsh, regarding the current development approval process. The purpose of the report was to brief council with considerations for addressing challenges faced by the County’s current processes and how to remedy them.

It’s likely not a surprise to hear that there are concerns from developers regarding the current challenges at Shire Hall. This newspaper has reported on these issues and been a strong voice for spurring development in Prince Edward County in recent years. (See page 6.) But still, there are indications of developer dissatisfaction, specifically in the timeliness of staff response to applicants. According to the report, the County is experiencing unprecedented growth. Currently, there are five draft approved plans of subdivision under review and another six to nine expected by the end of 2020. There are also nearly 30 projects that are at some stage in the process. All of this work—heaps of paperwork and studies— is spread over a rather thin planning staff team of only four people. With this increased workload, challenges to the approvals processes have been identified by both the development community and staff. There are also indications of this dissatisfaction shown by five recent appeals to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.

In 2015, the Community and Economic Development Commission suggested a Development Review Framework project be initiated in response to recognized needs to improve on development review processes. The project involved establishing a subcommittee with representatives of industry stakeholders, elected officials, citizens and staff. Developers included Sandbank Homes, Watermark on the Bay, and Port Picton Homes. The sub-committee met monthly for four months reviewing a range of issues being discussed for the sub-committee’s feedback.A number of recommendations were made, but some of them were never followed through.The report identified that a slower than anticipated uptake of the actions had occurred due to limited staff resources, volume of applications and some major development and community issues such as regulation and licensing of short-term accommodations have impacted the rollout of the plan.

Conrad Guziewicz, one of the County’s top builders in the last decade, operates Sandbank Homes and also sat on the Development Review Framework subcommittee. He has run out of housing stock in Wellington. Guziewicz is concerned about the ramifications should his new subdivision on the eastern edge of town, Wellington Bay Estates, not move forward in a timely manner. “I have no more stock. If this subdivision plan doesn’t go forward, it would be crippling to the community and local economy,” he says. Guziewicz claims that with many of these projects in limbo, there will be a substantial drop in new home builds, creating a significant revenue dip for the County. “There is limited growth in Picton and all the growth is in Wellington. But, there is limited infrastructure. The amount of revenues coming in from guys like me is going to drop to one-tenth of what it was.” says Guziewicz.

According to the report, improvements to the development approval process are planned. A three-stage effort that involves customer journey mapping, business process improvements analysis and establishing clear customer service objectives is suggested.

Customer journey mapping is a method of observing and documenting customer experiences at various stages of service delivery with the aim of identifying problem areas in preparation for making a diagnosis and developing solutions. County staff will take the information gained from this exercise, and then look at its internal approvals procedures and tasks, time usage and quality control issues. The analysis methods will reveal specific areas for process improvements. Timelines and methods for achieving customer expectations will then be defined. Specifically, this will involve a review of appropriate staff resources and procedures required in order to achieve the defined objectives. In addition, procedural-related bylaws may require review and amendments.

Letters of invitation will be sent to a sample of developers and builders inviting them to the journey mapping exercise. A report is expected to be presented to council in the second quarter of 2020 on practical strategies that could make for an improved planning and development service by the County.