Vancouver has been working for a year to reduce its wait times for permits, but data show that waiting times are as long as ever – or longer
As cities increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of critics who say they are responsible for housing shortages, they are struggling to find ways to fix one of the major issues – delays with building permits.Vancouver has been working for a year to reduce its wait times for permits. But data show that, although it is processing more applications than it was a year ago, the volume of permits being requested has spiked and so waiting times are as long as ever – or longer.
“In one project, it took five months just to get to a plan checker,” said general contractor Avi Barzelai, who has kicked off a vocal one-person crusade recently to highlight the problem. “It’s gotten progressively worse over time.” Vancouver – where the mayor got a motion approved to have staff look at the possibility of guaranteed permit times – is not the only city struggling with the issue as provincial and federal politicians have attempted to pin some blame for Canada’s housing-affordability crisis on city governments that are not only slow at issuing permits, but also prone to charging massive developer fees.
the increasing number of new policies and requirements that have been imposed on housing in recent decades – everything from energy efficiency to accessibility to tree protection.Council in Maple Ridge, B.C., received a scathing report last fall from an outside consulting firm about its permitting processes, which noted that not only were permitting times too slow but that the attitudes of some staff were a notable problem.
Ron Rapp, the chief executive of the Homebuilders Association Vancouver , said people in the industry are still frustrated by the long waits in Surrey, B.C., and have taken to calling anything processed quickly as “unicorn permits” – referring to a rare, almost mythological, event.
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