One of mayor-elect Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver’s most notable campaign promises was a “3-3-3-1 plan” to significantly speed up Vancouver’s housing permitting process and address a backlog of requests.
The initiative would see home renovations approved in three days; single-family homes and townhouses in three weeks; professionally designed multi-family and mid-rise projects within existing zoning in three months; and high-rise or large-scale projects in a year.
The feasibility of the plan has been met with skepticism by political opponents, but some experts say improvements to the city’s housing approvals system can be made under Sim’s government.
“I joke that the process at the moment, in many respects, is so bad that it’s almost impossible not to speed it up,” said Michael Geller, president of the Geller Group who sat on the city’s Urban Design Panel and advised its Development Permit Board.
Issues affecting permitting in Vancouver include a backlog of requests, out-of-date zoning bylaws, conflicting departmental requirements and a need to digitize the system. Many of these problems are not new: Plans to reform them were outlined in a 2012 report from former mayor Gregor Robertson’s Task Force on Housing Affordability.
To make a difference, the first thing Sim will need to tackle is the backlogs, according to Geller.
“It’s important to distinguish between the amount of time it takes to actually review the application and the amount of time it will take to begin to review the application,” he said. “When you send in an application to the city, they don’t start reviewing it the next day. There’s just too many other applications ahead of it. That will have to be addressed.”
Sim will also need to reform rezoning in Vancouver – specifically the current reliance on spot rezoning – to achieve his “3 3 3 1 plan,” Geller said.
“One of the problems in Vancouver is that our zoning bylaw, which dates back to the 1960s, doesn’t always allow or clearly allow the types of developments that many people now want to build in a particular location,” Geller said.
At present, rezoning efforts do not address large areas of land. Instead, rezoning applications tend to address specific land parcels
“We’ve all witnessed the conflicts created by the current public hearing process between existing residents and those looking for a home. One solution to this problem would be to prezone areas of the city,” said Anne McMullin, president and CEO of the Urban Development Institute (UDI).
An example of this is the Cambie Corridor Plan, which individually rezoned all bungalow houses along the corridor to make way for multi-family, multi-unit apartment buildings. In many cases, these rezonings took years due in part to request backlogs, Geller said.
According to McMullin, municipal staff capacity is another constraint. Utilizing certified professionals, she said, could help.
“UDI has long advocated for both the provincial and municipal governments to allow proponents to tap into the experience of independent and accredited engineering or architects to ensure projects meet policies and guidelines,” McMullin said.
Hiring a mediator to solve interdepartmental conflicts could also help address differing departmental requirements, and speed up the overall permitting process. Another idea is to create a “Nexus lane” for developers based on past performance – something that was explored in the 2012 Task Force on Housing Affordability report, but never implemented.
When it comes to overall efficiency, Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, says the system needs to be digitized.
“Our processes are surprisingly stuck in the 1970s,” he said. “With the amount of paperwork, the role of digitization and automation could help.”
Yan said he has hope Sim, with his business background, can reconceptualize the system and how it can be improved upon. “It’s a large system and it demands a systems approach. There’s a whole bunch of separate distinct processes that are kind of connected, but are really for somebody with a good business head,” he said.
Sim’s team declined to comment on this story.
