The city isn't taking advantage of a tool already in place to cut down on the amount of application that come before council, according to a local city board member.
City staff are currently working on redrafting bylaws to address the sometimes piecemeal nature of zoning requirements that prompt many property owners to have to come before council for minor variances.
But Willow Arune said the city's unused volunteer board of variance could deal with those issues faster and less expensively.
Arune was last re-appointed to the board in 2012 for a three-year term. Since her first appointment to the body prior to 2010, the board has never been convened.
Initially she applied for a seat because of an interest in zoning. But she was surprised to learn that the board was mainly there in name only.
"I went over to city hall thinking, well if I'm a member of the board of variance they're going to give me a copy of the zoning bylaw and community plan and things like that to read. And they looked at me as if I was some strange creature and said the board of variance hasn't met in years and we don't intend it to meet. Subsequently I found out that was indeed true."
Municipalities are required to have a board of variance who can grant minor changes under the city's zoning bylaw as legislated by the Local Government Act. A $300 fee is attached to making an application to the board.
"It saves so much time for council and it also saves a heck of a lot of money for people applying," Arune said of her observation of boards in other B.C. municipalities.
According to the local board of variance bylaw, once an appeal has been made the board has to meet on the matter within 40 days. A decision on the issue has to be handed down within seven days of the hearing.
"I just can't understand it," said Arune. "I never have."
According to city current planning supervisor Pam Hext, it's actually easier for applicants to have their variances go through council.
"With the board of variance, you have to show hardship," she said, which isn't required for development variance permits received by council directive.
In an example given by the ministry of responsible for local government, such a hardship could be having a big rock on one's property that would make it difficult to place a house within the limits of the specified setback rules.
The city's current board of variance bylaw was adopted in 1993. It was slated for review through the recommendation of the governance review select committee in 2011, but that work has yet to be completed.
