Revelstoke granted $200,000 to rework development guidelines

The City of Revelstoke was awarded $200,000 through the Local Government Development Approvals Program, Monday, July 6 to support the municipality to streamline building processes. The city is one of 56 local governments to receive a portion of the $9 fund, and now has two years to rewrite development guidelines and associated bylaws.

Key tasks associated with the process include reviewing city development permit guidelines to clarify building requirements and processes to support developers, staff and the public, Paul Simon, director of development services explained. 

Current guidelines don’t provide enough details or resources to help developers know what to expect come approval time or give staff clear directions on what to recommend to council, he added.

As a result, during the development process for the Downie Street housing project and the Copeland Hotel McCarty House addition, council debated keeping Revelstoke’s character versus maintaining development timelines.

Delaying projects as staff and developers try to navigate vague terminology eventually costs the city and customers, Simon said.

“If the city’s process takes three years and [developers] carry the cost of the land through that, you bet your bottom dollar those costs are going to be translated to the end user,” he said.

Revelstoke’s development material history has focused on stone and wood over the decades, creating a particular building profile in the city, Simon said. As building materials such as metal become more of a focus, clearer guidelines can help with that transition, Simon explained.

“When we haven’t updated the policy in a way that the community is content with, then developers and proponents are already set up for failure in some instances,” he said, adding that developers and residents alike have voiced frustration that projects are approved without consistent parameters.

Once the guidelines have been rewritten, required bylaws will be updated. The City’s new development services website is nearing launch, and Simon hopes it will also give residents and developers clearer expectations and resources going forward.

“Having some guides that go along with our bylaw requirements will be quite important,” he said.

This is the second round of development approvals program funding the city has received, using nearly $400,000 in 2021 to evaluate and update the core approval review process.

“Not using the local tax base to do this, and getting the funding from the province is instrumental to make sure we can keep our bylaws up-to-date,” he said, adding that reworking guidelines and updating bylaws can be harder to sell to local tax payers.

“We know that our department isn’t building roads, waterlines, sewer, parks or those core services that your tax dollars go towards,” he said.

One more way Simon hopes to see the guideline updates impact Revelstoke’s taxpayer base is by reworking developer frontage requirements such as sidewalk repairs and drainage improvements.

“As the community is seeing new development, specifically with infill development, they are seeing meaningful contributions from those developments,” Simon said.