Delta council recently approved changes to support the city’s goal of increasing the number of development applications being processed every month.
The updated Subdivision and Development Standards Bylaw is aimed at further increasing review efficiency and decreasing processing times, substantive changes that the engineering department notes will address concerns from the development community and support the secondary suites program.
The updated bylaw simplifies servicing requirements, meets current technical standards as well as enables future updates of technical standards more rapidly.
A staff report notes that a comprehensive technical review is also currently being done to make further refinements and address industry concerns.
At council’s Feb. 12 meeting, Coun. Dylan Kruger explained that the streamlining means that as technical regulations change, such as the type of light bulbs used in streetlights or other fixtures, outdated standards won’t remain tied to the bylaw to make it outdated. He said it is a common sense approach already in place in other cities.
The staff report adds that among the other streamlining initiatives already having been undertaken by the city has been staffing resources in the engineering department reallocated to create a new development-focused team to centralize referrals, resulting in improved development application review times.
