City development permit process under review

Vernon is undertaking a long overdue review of its development permitting process, which has been plagued with delays and poor communication.

Council previously approved $100,000 to undertake the process and has now settled on terms of reference.

“This has been a long standing issue for at least my two terms in office,” Coun. Scott Anderson said. “This is a much more in-depth process, to identify problems and find ways to improve it.”

“There are three primary objectives here: improve turn around time, accuracy and consistency and communication,” Coun. Brian Quiring said. “It’s unbelievably busy and it’s been hard for staff to keep up.”

“There have been pain points in the Vernon process for sometime,” Dan Winer, the executive officer for the Central Okanagan Canadian Home Builders’ Association, said. “We have been engaged with Vernon council and will be as helpful as we can. Kelowna has adopted some useful processes which we hope to share.”

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The results of the development approval review will be reflected in future upgrades to the city’s Tempestpro, My City programs in order to provide for online applications and customer access to online permit tracking.

“I’m incredibly excited to see the technology that could improve the process,” Coun. Kari Gares said.

“I hope this will make Vernon the gold standard for development processes,” Coun. Dalvir Nahal said.

Earlier this fall, council received correspondence from a citizen on a building matter whose inquiries by phone and email to a staff member had not been responded to for an extended time period.

“I will be very interested in the communication part of this review,” Mayor Victor Cumming said.