Photo: File photo

City of Vernon staff make changes to speed up the process of dealing with the city.

City staff have implemented a number of changes which has made it faster to deal with the municipality.

At their regular meeting Monday, Vernon city council will receive a report outlining the changes and the impact it has had.

"Under the Economic Development and Partnerships Department, the Planning and Community Services (PCS) Division continuously tracks a number of data sources in an ongoing effort to understand economic trends and activity in Vernon," the report says.

"This information is used for internal and external purposes, including background information for City reports and studies, sharing with partner organizations, and presenting to investors and local business groups."

In 2024, PCS identified and implemented a number of process improvements focused on reducing processing times and increasing reliability in permitting.

These process improvements included:

• Council delegation of issuing, amending or cancelling minor variances to staff has reduced Development Variance Permit processing times from 8-10 months to 6-8 weeks. Of the 21 minor variance applications received in 2024, 19 were approved under this new process, resulting in saved time, energy and cost for the development community.
• A new online Current Development Application Map Viewer that allows members of the public to learn about development activities occurring in the community
• A new file circulation process that has reduced review times for most files from 30 days to 10 days.
• Continual improvement on team culture that features customer service and responsive file direction. Adoption of a new Zoning Bylaw that modernized and streamlined use categories and the number of zones, which reduced the amount of rezoning applications.
• Completion of an archiving project which digitally scanned all paper files and development applications from the last 20 years which were held in file cabinets. This resulted in both space savings in the CSB building, and increased customer service response times for record requests as these files are now digitally accessible.

“These improvements have contributed to a stronger start to development and construction activity in 2025 due to faster and more predictable development application process. In the first quarter of 2025, there was $54.4M of new investment compared to $20M in 2024 and 53 new residential units approved for construction compared to 20 in the first quarter of 2024,” the report says.

Further process improvements are underway by the PCS Division to support continued community investment.

To read the full report, click here.