Proposed Bylaw Amendments—Subdivision Servicing, Municipal Ticketing Information and Fees and Charges

Engineering Report

TO: Committee of the Whole
DATE: January 31, 2019
FROM: Michele Gill, Development & Asset Technologist
MEETING: February 12, 2019

Proposed Bylaw Amendments—Subdivision Servicing, Municipal Ticketing Information and Fees and Charges

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the Committee receive the Development & Asset Technologist’s January 2019 report entitled “Proposed Bylaw Amendments—Subdivision Servicing, Municipal Ticketing Information and Fees and Charges” for information”.

CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER’S COMMENTS: I concur with the recommendation.

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT SERVICES’ COMMENTS: I concur with the recommendation.

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE’S COMMENTS: I concur with the recommendation.

DIRECTOR OF PROTECTIVE SERVICES’ COMMENTS: I concur with the recommendation.

PURPOSE OF REPORT:

To update bylaws dealing with Subdivision and Servicing, Fees and Charges and Municipal Ticketing Information.

STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLICATIONS:

As described in the Strategic Plan: Community and Economic Growth Section, an identified goal is to make doing business in View Royal easier. Amending the Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw will provide clarity to the development community on the process of doing business in the Town.

BACKGROUND:

At the December Committee of the Whole meeting, a report was received from the Planner that described a series of required bylaw amendments. One of the bylaws requiring updates is the Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw No. 985, 2017.

The Subdivision Bylaw was adopted in 2017 but as a result of collapsing the old Land Use Bylaw and replacing the Streets and Traffic Bylaw there are items that need to be moved into this bylaw.

This is also an opportunity to add some items that make the process of servicing subdivisions and developments more clear to applicants and to remove redundancies with other bylaws.

DISCUSSION:

This report provides an overview of proposed updates to three existing bylaws, the Subdivision and Developing Servicing Bylaw, and ancillary to this, the Fees and Charges Bylaw, and the Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw. These updates are as follows:

1. Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw No 985, Amendment Bylaw No. 1014, 2019: In 2017 the Town adopted the Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw. The amendments to the Bylaw are items that have come to light since the adoption and need to be added or modified to provide clarity to developers working in the Town. The proposed bylaw is attached as Schedule 2 of this report and a tracked changes version is attached as Schedule 1 of this report.

The amendment will add three new definitions; two related to driveways and the other to define “Town Specifications” in anticipation of the new Streets Bylaw. The definition of “MMCD” is being modified to simplify it in relation to the Supplementary Specifications in the bylaw.

Section 2.7 is being updated to reflect the addition of Schedule F - Drawing Specifications. This schedule was developed to be consistent with drawing specifications for the District of Saanich and City of Victoria. As a result, submissions will provide consistency of presentation for Town staff during review and reduce the consulting engineers’ inventory of drawing templates to maintain.

Section 2.8 is redundant with the addition of “Town Specifications” and is being removed.

Part 4 is being changed to cover the procedure for making application for a subdivision that is not currently covered in the Development Procedures Bylaw. It is important for these procedures to reside in the Subdivision and Development Services Bylaw as the approving of subdivision reside with Approving Officer as the statutory authority for approval of subdivisions. Amended Part 4 will provide developers with clear expectations of what needs to be included in an application as well as timelines for completion and extensions.

The servicing requirements in Part 4 have been moved to Part 5 and Part 5 has been expanded to include driveways, municipal lighting, and non-municipal services such as power and telecommunications. This section also provides for the Town to collect cash-in-lieu of works where the Director of Engineering can determine it is in the Town’s interest to collect cash for planned upgrades being completed by the Town where upgrades are not foreseen to occur in the immediate future. At the September 25, 2018 Council meeting, Council gave three readings to Bylaw 1010 which amended Bylaw 985 to add a cash-in-lieu section. The Bylaw 1010 amendment has been revised and included in the proposed Bylaw 1014 and thus Bylaw 1010 will not need to be adopted.

Section 5.5 has been reworded to tie it to the new definition for “Town Specifications”

Section 5.6 has been added to be consistent with the Local Government Act section 506 (3).

Section 6.2 is redundant as this section is also in the Fees and Charges Bylaw and can be removed except, the last paragraph is being moved to section 7.3 under consulting engineer.

In Part 8 Stop Work Orders are included in the Subdivision Bylaw, however the Building Bylaw already addresses any concerns related to construction on site, therefore Stop Work Orders in the Subdivision Bylaw are redundant. If there is an issue related to off-site works, it is handled through the servicing agreement. Therefore, Section 8.3 Stop Work Order is proposed to be deleted and Section 8.4 renumbered to 8.3.

Supplemental detail drawings related to driveways are being added as standards. The current Street and Traffic Regulation Bylaw 609, is silent on driveway size, location, and configuration, as this was located in the old Land Use Bylaw but was lost during an amendment of the Land Use Bylaw. A pavement restoration detail to provide clarity to contractors on the expectations of road restoration during construction has been added. A sample site servicing drawing has been added to provide a sample to contractors and builders of the requirements of a building permit. The hope is this will speed up the building permit application for builders, as they will know what to provide for a site servicing plan. These drawings will be in Schedule D.

2. Fees and Charges Bylaw No 958, Amendment Bylaw No. 1015, 2019 a. The current Fees and Charges Bylaw does not envision air space parcel subdivisions. These are complex three dimensional, volumetric subdivisions requiring an extensive amount of staff time and expertise.

The Town has not had an application for an air space parcel, but we are looking into the future to when there may be an application.

The fees for air space parcel subdivision applications have been researched and found to range from $300 in the City of Victoria, which is the cost of any subdivision, to $81,400 at the City of Vancouver, which is air space parcel specific. The District of Saanich charges $5,000 for air space subdivisions and the City of Colwood has no specific fee.

The recommendation is the fee be $10,000, as discussions with Saanich indicated that given the amount of staff time, including legal expertise, it takes to process these types of subdivisions, $5,000 was insufficient.

b. A fee for a phased strata plan approval is not accounted for in the Fees and Charges Bylaw. Staff time is needed to evaluate proposed phasing plans by the Approving Officer prior to registration with the Land Title and Survey Authority. Therefore, staff is recommending a fee of $500 be added to the Fees and Charges Bylaw for a phased strata plan, Form P review and approval.

c. An increase in the fees for Subdivision Application and Final Approval of Subdivision from $50 to $100 per each new lot accounts for increased staff time as subdivisions become larger and more complex.

d. Staff reviewed Engineering Administration and Inspection fees internally and with neighbouring municipalities, to ensure the Town is consistent in the region in application of the fee.

Currently, the Town’s stepped fee structure can result in a lower fee being charged by the Town when the estimated cost of works is higher in an almost identical project (see example below).

The proposal is to have a flat rate of 4%. This is slightly lower than our neighbour, the District of Saanich, where the fee is 4.5%. The fee is a simple solution from the Town’s current stepped system of 2%, 3% or 4%, and the sliding scale of the other communities of Langford and Colwood. The increase is not unreasonable given that larger projects impact the broader community. Larger projects generate more involvement of staff to handle not only the directly related inspections, but to field community questions and concerns related to issues beyond the immediate construction area such as construction traffic back-ups into other neighbourhoods as was the case during the Eagle Creek construction.

In the past few years, 60% of development projects in the Town have had an estimated off-site works value of under $200,000. Twenty-seven percent fall into the $200,000 to $450,000 range and two projects were over $450,000 for off-site works.

Staff is also recommending a minimum Engineering Administration and Inspection fee of $300. This would mean any project with off-site works worth under $7,500 would pay $300. This will help offset the costs for staff to review, comment, approve designs, and provide inspections for very small projects.

The proposed bylaw amendment is attached to this report as Schedule 3.

3. Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw No 643, Amendment Bylaw No. 2016, 2019 The Municipal Ticket Bylaw did not envision the Subdivision Servicing Bylaw; therefore, there is no opportunity for enforcement other than to take an infraction to court. This amendment will allow for a ticket for obstructing entry of an authorized official at $100. This fee is consistent with the Building Bylaw in both terminology and penalty.

The proposed bylaw amendment is attached to this report as Schedule 4.

BUDGET IMPLICATIONS:

While there are no financial implications, the intent to adjust the fees to ensure there is a cost recovery paid by the developers to off-set staff time.

NEXT STEPS:

Forward the three proposed bylaw amendments to Council for consideration of readings.

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the Committee receive the Development & Asset Technologist’s January 2019 report entitled “ Proposed Bylaw Amendments—Subdivision Servicing, Municipal Ticketing Information and Fees and Charges” for information”.

SUBMITTED BY: M Gill, Development and Asset Technologist

REVIEWED BY: J Rosenberg, Director of Engineering