Municipal staff are making developers' lives' easier, officials say.
Three years ago, the District of Squamish started its "Service Squamish Initiative," dissecting its departments' delivery of services. At the time, the municipality's planning department was bombarded with criticism from Squamish development stakeholders.
"We had a lack of customer-centric culture," Yasmine Jodrey told Committee of the Whole on Tuesday (July 23).
But that's changing, the district's IT business analyst said as she unveiled a checklist of improvements planning department staff have undertaken. Backlogs of business and development permits have been slashed, out-of-date forms updated and a new streamlined website launched, Jodrey said.
"We identified more than 50 areas of improvement," she said adding staff are already working on their so-called quick wins. "We did engage stakeholders for feedback."
For the most part that feedback has been positive, Jodrey said. Processing times for development permits have been cut from eight to two weeks. The timeframe for rubber stamping business permits has also been reduced, Jodrey said.
Streamlining the planning department's services is one of council's priorities, Mayor Rob Kirkham said. It's "incredible" to see the changes staff have implemented to date, he said.
"There is so much that has been put into this," he said.
