Rhino’s Ramblings - Council Rumoured Set To Take On Planning Department Woes Part Trois
By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary
It’s an open sore that’s been festering for months and now it appears Council is set to pour extra strength iodine on the wound.
The festering wound is the City’s plagued Planning Department and the myriad of troubles it’s been experiencing for months.
For those of you not in the know the department, formerly staffed by only City permit employees, has run aground.
Allegations arose that many permits were issued that did not follow the applicable building codes.
An employee resigned, allegations swirled that computer files had been deleted, other City employees began talking about it between the sheets with jaded lovers that leaked the details and finally development - both commercial and residential - ground to a halt.
You’ll see it there in the anemic number of new housing starts this year. It’s never been this bad since the economic downturn of the early 1990’s.
It’s just plain ugly.
But, like so often in Moose Jaw, things get worse.
I’ve learnt that there is at least one large local developer that has held off doing any development until after the whole matter is fixed once and for all.
How big of a deal is it?
Well about $20 million worth of development. Development that included new single family dwellings in the West Park neighbourhood and a multi-family apartment style dwelling just outside of the downtown.
Construction and development the city could have used - if not for the employment the prestige to say something is going on here.
At the present time the development community should be up in arms ready to storm City Hall but they aren’t.
The reason I found is many of them are scared.
Scared because they got away with cutting corners and now have to make costly repairs by drawing attention to themselves- perhaps.
But for many they tell me they fear by raising complaints they’ll have a building inspector paying them a visit and finding something that suddenly needs to be fixed.
In my opinion they’re scared.
Perhaps there is some basis for it as the Chez Nous redevelopment is now doing asbestos remediation to some extent.
This after a neighbourhood group raised their safety concerns about asbestos not being removed when the building was renovated.
A letter from a City hired lawyer dismissed the neighbourhood’s concerns about asbestos as unfounded but now at least some of it is being removed.
Double bagged asbestos waste site outside Chez Nous
I have heard concerns being raised about the City’s contracted building inspector by developers may finally be driving some results.
A source in City Hall tells me at the next regular Council meeting there will be a vote which will allow developers to chose between one of two firms contracted to provide building inspection services.
Yes developers if this goes through will now be able to seemingly chose a Whopper or a Double Quarter Pounder from the same take out window when it comes to building permits.
My source at City Hall goes on to say in their opinion if Council decides upon the two contractors for building permit services that one firm is prepared to walk away.
My what a mess they’ve gotten into.