A Whitehorse city councillor is concerned about a backlog of development and building permits.
In a prepared statement issued last Wednesday, Ted Laking said, “This spring, the City of Whitehorse has heard concerns from those in the construction industry over delays in obtaining the necessary city permits for development.
“Currently, 71 applications are under review or yet to be reviewed, and 55 more are on hold pending more information. The current wait times for permits in Whitehorse are five to eight weeks.”
While permitting delays are not unique to Whitehorse, Laking said, “with our shortened building season in the North and the critical shortage of housing, the issue is more acute.
“Doing what we can to speed things up and work with our builders is key to solving the major issues facing our community and our economy.”
At the June 3 council meeting, Laking asked city staff what’s being done to address these backlogs. In response, staff indicated that the backlogs are partially due to “staffing issues and an influx of applications all at once.
“We need action to address this problem and need to utilize new ways of doing business so that we can continue to provide excellent service to our community,” Laking said.
While he attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Annual Trade Conference in Calgary last week, he said, the City of Kelowna provided a briefing on a recent innovation they have developed to eliminate their permitting backlog. They have developed an artificial intelligence tool which allows them to have less complex permits processed by AI.
“This has reduced the turnaround of these less-complex permits to 24 hours while allowing up to 40 per cent of staff to focus their attention on the more complex and larger permits – speeding the processing up for those ones as well,” Laking said.
