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By Fraser Valley Today Staff

Building approvals

Abbotsford Mayor promises improvements in permit wait times

Nov 12, 2022 | 6:00 AM

ABBOTSFORD — The acute labour shortage that has swept across many industries across the country has impacted the pace of development in Abbotsford. Before project managers could struggle with finding tradespeople to make their designs a reality, they were struggling to get construction permit approvals from City Hall.

According to civic officials, some projects have been forced to wait 20 weeks for approvals because of a backlog created by a staffing shortage in the Abbotsford building permit department. That’s a far cry from the average six-week wait time developers could expect in 2016.

The lengthy delay has clearly caught the attention of newly elected mayor Ross Siemens. Siemens, who served as a city councillor for eight years before his election, made a point of bringing it up during his mayor’s address at Monday’s (Nov. 7) Inaugural Meeting.

“I know firsthand how hard city staff are working to streamline our processes,” said Siemens. “Like many other municipalities, we have had staff vacancies.”

Siemens says a building boom in the last few years, began to attract workers from government offices into the private sector. And often a person hired into one municipality would come from another municipality, creating a domino effect through communities.

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However, Siemens is confident the lengthy delays will soon be a thing of the past. “I am very pleased to say that for the first time in five years, our building permit department is fully staffed, which we anticipate will drive down those wait times,” said Siemens.

“Not only do delays cost the developer or the proponent money, it costs the City money in lost revenue,” said Siemens. “Nobody takes pride in having to make people wait longer than they need to.”

Officials point out that the complexity of the projects has also increased over the last six years, extending the length of time each project is examined before final approval can be granted.

The mayor didn’t put a timeline on it but Siemens wants to see the wait times cut dramatically. “Ideally, we’d like to see it in the four to six-week bracket,” said Siemens. “If we have to add resources or more staffing, then that’s always a decision of council.”

Despite the delays facing developers, civic officials report construction values over the first 10 months of 2022 have outpaced 2021 by $150 million, for a total of more than $445 million.