After three weeks of summer fun, members of city council were back in their chairs Monday evening. But there was one subject there was no getting away from: the serious backlog in building permit applications. 

Added to that, four local contractors appeared before council. 

John Vogt, the owner of Vogt Homes, once again raised his concerns about the slow pace in granting building permits this year. 

Vogt began with a complimentary letter to the city outlining a list of new requirements for the applications that could improve the quality of local homes. 

But he said the city has caused a disaster with the implementation of the new list because it has conducted “zero communication” about the new requirements with the builders – who only learned of the requirements when they applied for a permit. 

The builders raised the issue in April, with the hope that things could have gone better, but they went in the other direction. 

“At that time, permits were taking four to six weeks, and that number quickly jumped to an official plus-eight weeks,” said Vogt.

“The actual reality: in early July, there were more permits awaiting approval than the permits had been approved –  and the city was only getting through one permit application a day,” Vogt told council.

On top of that, he said, the city has made the new requirements hard to find – causing more failures during the approval process. 

The city has been working on full power to get as many permits out the door as possible. A social media update on the current situation says, “The 30 permits issued this week represent a six-fold increase compared to the rate we were issuing permits in early July.” 

Problems are still expected during the inspection phase, since the city has diverted several employees from doing inspections to assessing building permit applications – leaving only one person working on inspections.

Vogt said this has resulted in the builder spending two weeks waiting for one inspection. Meanwhile, the poor cell phone service in Whistle Bend has caused the newly launched remote inspection service to be inefficient, he said.  

The city’s poor communication has been an issue for a long time, Vogt told the lawmakers. Those problems have snowballed along with others – causing a huge economic impact both for the city and the home builders. 

“This communication issue cannot be considered acceptable,” Vogt said.

“We are now at the point that they have crippled our industry, and the impact will be felt by our city for years. I urge the council to deal with the issues, as we cannot afford for something like this to ever happen again.” 

Acknowledging the issues raised by the builders, Coun. Ted Laking inquired about an update on the timeline for better preparation at city hall for future challenges. 

Vogt said builders are still trying their best to work as much as they can to finish what they can before winter.

He believes the city co-operatively listening to the builders is the key to addressing the issues. 

City administration recommended an amendment to increase the city’s budget for building inspections this year to $123,540 and in 2025 to $186,301. 

The additional funding would be used to pay for another building inspection staff member and consultants to continue with the city’s remote inspection services. 

Coun. Dan Boyd inquired about where the city is at for building permit applications that need to be approved. 

The city has improved the rate of approval to 30 permits per week, with a total of 186 approvals in total as of Monday. Currently, the wait time has been reduced to five weeks, and will continue to decrease, council was told. 

Mike Gau, the city’s development services director, said administration is aware of the potential inspections backlog, but added officials are working on better balancing both services to minimize the impact on contractors. 

As for the poor cell service in Whistle Bend, Coun. Mellisa Murray asked whether administration had any solutions. 

Gau said the city has yet to work on that portion of the problems, but he will further explore the issue with officials. 

Starting this past spring, the city has been experiencing a piling-up of building permit applications. The delays have caused contractors to sit and wait for months, potentially reducing their production to just half the number of houses they used to construct during the summer building season. 

Council will bring the budgetary amendment back for further discussion next week.