Builders bemoan red tape at city hall

Mike Borkristl gave the city plans for three virtually identical fourplex homes in northwest Calgary this summer, and then waited.
A city planner’s review of one project took three days. Another took 21/2 months.
Building a house in a southwest neighbourhood has cost Borkristl’s client more than $100,000 in applications, appeal fights and backfilling the construction hole until next spring – all because, ultimately, a window should have been frosted to fit into the right permit category.
A co-worker brought in a client’s letter of authorization, and was told the memo needed its own letter of authorization.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi threw Calgary developers a curveball last week when he warned that the city would cut development “red tape” but not “if you’re bringing us crap.”
Borkristl, president of Tricor Design Group, might use that same term to describe the process grit that thwarts his small home-planning firm’s work.
“The system is so broken and disjointed and inconsistent,” said Borkristl, who reasoned clients would be willing to pay higher permit fees if the problems eased.
“They would easily pay more for approvals if they could get building in a month.”
The mayor has focused his “cut red tape” initiative on the planning sector – where the complaints are most common – and the administration has brought in a new chief planner and head of approvals to spearhead an overhaul.
“He said we’ll fix it,” Borkristl recalled the mayor saying at a 2010 home builders’ gathering. “Well, fix it. In a year and a half since, it’s gotten worse.”
While Nenshi’s “crap” remark was mainly aimed at suburban retail or housing projects that don’t meet pedestrian-friendly guidelines, Borkristl’s firm focuses on the sort of projects city hall encourages to limit outward sprawl: inner-city duplexes and other multi-family or smaller homes on former bungalow lots that subtly add density in old communities.
Joel Silverman, a developer who builds similar homes in Calgary and Vancouver – where infill projects are the only kind that exist – said the Cow-town rules are much clunkier and harder to interpret.
“Calgary’s much more geared to large subdivision-type projects. Inner-city stuff is problematic,” he said.
“The actions and policy aren’t consistent with rhetoric.”
Nenshi – who contends feedback on his “crap” comment has been mostly positive – admits there’s still a culture that can make building a fast food drive-thru near an LRT station easier than building transit-friendly condos or office buildings there.
“We’re good at talking about mixed-use and different kinds of development, but our processes are aligned to approving the same thing we’ve always approved,” So it’s not just the developer’s fault on this, and that was never my intent to say that,” he added, referring to his comment.
Borkristl said the crap remark was widely viewed as an insult.
“You can’t believe how riled the community is on that one. The way he said it lumped everyone in together,” he said.
The first key reform under new planning general man-ager Rollin Stanley this summer was a developer crowd-pleaser: replacing the director of development and building approvals.
Stuart Dalgleish, the new director, is overseeing a major planning process review that has started looking at changes.
They’re already considering melding the development and building permits into one.
“Not only combine the applications from a customer perspective, but also more co-ordination internally for us, in how we look at them, review them and finally approve them,” Dalgleish said.
He said some recent changes are already making business easier, and there’s high satisfaction with most of the permits Calgarians apply for.
“We’re doing things in relatively quick turnaround times and providing prompt and good service.”
Developers often get frustrated with delays linked to community consultation, Dalgleish acknowledged.
That, to many inner-city builders, has become one of the most nagging hurdles to development. Builders learn which picky community associations to avoid building in, to save hassle and give investors more certainty, Silverman said.
Borkristl had applied to build a new house on subdivided lot in Richmond, near 33rd Avenue S.W. and Crow-child Trail.
What he thought was an un-appealable permit, approved by the city, wound up being overturned by the subdivision and development appeal board after the community association appealed and a planner’s error was spotted.
Borkristl reapplied months later, and it was again appealed and revoked, on a timing technicality the city disagreed with.
He’ll reapply in December for the same house – now with frosted windows – but will have to redig the basement and foundation that inspectors ordered him to fill in for the winter.
Doug Roberts, development chairman of the Richmond-Knob Hill Community Association, has been one of the appeal board’s most frequent visitors.
He expresses neighbourhood concerns the city may have overlooked, from tree preservation and shadowing to drainage sloping on new projects.
“We don’t just appeal everything willy-nilly, although some people seem to suggest we’re getting a reputation for that,” Roberts said.
“We encourage the redevelopment. We just ask that the redevelopment be respectful.”
Ald. Druh Farrell, who chairs the city’s planning committee, has requested a review the appeal system in hope of easing delays and reconsidering the standard $25 appeal fee that can pause any project, regardless of its size.