Quote:
Originally Posted by fenwick16
I have a question, where do most of the delays come from - the city staff or the HRM council. It seems as though both create their own delays, so I am not sure which one is worse.
Personally, I have stopped making apologies for the way things are done in the HRM. The Halifax area has a reputation for never changing (is not progressive in other words). This is a reputation that comes from people who have moved away, not just now, but from decades ago (although the 70's and 80's seemed to be progressive years). I have a feeling that Calgary treats developers fairly whereas that isn't the case for Halifax.
I don't think that Halifax has become anti-development because of poor architectural design from the 70's. The architectural design in Halifax from the 70's was similar to the rest of North America and then it changed to mostly glass in the 80's. So it was a natural progression. Personally, I just think that people who have control over the downtown area are not progressively minded people. Almost all the development in the HRM is taking place in the suburbs where it is easier to get permits and build.
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Well I am not sure where it comes from in HRM to be honest; but I know there can be delays to get things to council because of report deadlines. As with any organization - there is a reporting structure; so the planner would write the report and then the management levels above edit it and so on.
So in my case, my boss (known as a lead planner) would make changes, then her boss (Chief Planner) made changes. Then the principle planner in charge of the Planning Commission made changes, then the general manager of the planning department could make changes to it before it came to the Planning Commission. That alone, with set deadlines took roughly 3 weeks. So my draft was submitted to the commission on a Tuesday, the final report and attachments were locked down the following Tuesday; agenda/packages printed and put online by Thursday and then the meeting would be the following Thursday.
Some of the delays come from statutory deadlines; I'm sure. A public hearing has to be advertised in most provinces, regardless of what the application is. So the typical advertising time is 14 days (2 weeks). So if I go back to my example of Calgary - depending on the public hearing date - it could be over a month because of internal processes to get a report to public hearing. Here is an example (taken from
The Calgary Planning Commission meeting schedule). In order to make it to the public hearing on July 5, the item would've had to be at the
May 13 CPC meeting for advertising in June. So in this case, almost 2 months.
So I can only assume that in order for some projects to make it through committees and then to council; there can be similar delays. Much like say the Heritage committee for HRM - Calgary Planning commission gives city council a recommendation based on their evaluation of the proposal. Of course Council is not bound by it. So I'm assuming somewhere, direction has been given to administration that certain committees must have an opportunity to evaluate the application. Added to that now is probably the design committee as well - which will add time. Keep in mind, HRM sends the planner involved to present - so that person can't be in 4 places at once; so one meeting - one planner. But; there may be a way to cut the time down if meetings could be organized a little better.
Btw, if anyone is bored enough on July 5th; they can see me present at COC public hearing (not sure when). But the hearing is broadcast on the website. But trust me; it's nothing special lol.
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