Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
The sad thing with this process is that the school closed down in 2000 after opening 42 years earlier. The site has sat empty for 10 years. No wonder there are all kinds of empty lots around the city.
|
Looking at this from the city perspective (I'm not speaking on behalf or HRM but as someone who is 'administration' in another city) - sometimes the delay falls mainly on the applicant. Here in Calgary we review a development permit and send out what's called a Detailed Team Review (DTR) which is the comments from planning, transportation, engineering and parks. Sometimes some of the stuff that engineering or transportation may require to move forward can take a lot of time - traffic impact assessments, wind tunnel studies - those things are very complex.
But there can be delays internally as well. Just as the information requested can be complex, if there is one person reviewing all the traffic impact assessments for every development - that can take time. It's not a perfect system in HRM nor in Calgary and we've been taking flack on our timelines for a while now. It wasn't uncommon last year when a rezoning went to our planning commission that if the file said 2006, 2007 or 2008 - the planners got a real grilling on why it took YEARS to get the application to commission. Fortunately, we were prepared with timelines to detail the delays and having been one of the planners involved in a 'delayed file', I took my licks for causing some delay (family issues - requiring me to fly home to Halifax).
But systems can be improved!