Council decides to move forward with public consultation about a change to permit earlier construction start times

Photo: Luc Rempel

Despite cooler winter temperatures outside city hall, inside council chambers Salmon Arm city council made a move to help construction workers during increasingly hot weather.

At the Jan. 27 city council meeting Gary Buxton, director of planning and community services presented council with a report on changing the noise prevention bylaw to allow construction workers to begin work earlier in the morning during hot summer weather.

Buxton told council city staff had contacted the local construction industry organization, Shuswap Construction Industry Professionals(SCIP). SCIP polled their members to see if there was interest in allowing for an earlier start during hot weather.

SCIP received 56 responses from their members with 40 members voting in favour of allowing an earlier start and only 2 members voting against it.

“The request is to allow construction hours to start earlier in the day, when the temperature is less and avoid the hotter hours in the afternoon, when in some cases, it is not physically safe to be out performing work,” Buxton said.

He explained that with the current noise bylaw construction noise is allowed from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. and staff is proposing a change to allow construction to start an hour earlier and end an hour earlier from May until September.

“There has been some discussion as to whether or not the bylaw could kick in when temperatures reach a certain level, but that gets complex,” he added. “On what day? At what point in the day? Who's measuring? How accurate is that measurement?”

Buxton said staff proposed the simpler summer months based approach and recommended council move forward to public consultation if they were interested in making the change.

Coun. Kevin Flynn made an amendment to have the change take place from June 1 to August 31 and forgo changing May and September based on the reasoning it's usually cooler during those months.

As far as public consultation goes Buxton said the plan would be to start with a simple poll on the city’s website and allow people to vote yes or no as to whether they would support the change.

Mayor Alan Harrison proposed allowing public feedback during the public input session of a council meeting before the bylaw gets amended.

“I think the survey idea is a great idea,” said Mayor Harrison. “But I also think it would be important for residents to have an opportunity to come and speak to council.”

“You can only say so much in the yes, no, and we want to make sure we have all the information here at the table,” he added.

Coun. Tim Lavery proposed that if the bylaw is amended that council should review it one year later in order to gauge public feedback after it has been implemented.

The amended motion to have staff start public consultation about the proposed change passed unanimously.

In the report staff said they would begin public consultation in March or April once the Official Community Plan review process has largely been completed.