The Council of the Township of Whitewater Region heard a motion to:
Approve making the contract Building Inspector/Plans Examiner a permanent full-time position effective March 28, 2022.
Approve the setting of deposits for building permit applications.
Approve entering into a service agreement with the Township of Bonnechere Valley and Town of Petawawa for the provision of temporary building inspection/plans examination services by Whitewater Region staff.Planner Ivan Burton said that the township processed about “upwards of 300 building permits a year.”, taking a total of 3800 hours of work.
He said the plan would acknowledge that and would increase the Inspector contract position “to full time” for the building examiner as of March 28 of 2022.
He said that there were 200 outstanding building permits, from submitters who ‘had not called back’ that they had reached out.
He said that they planned to require a deposit for building permits to “put the onus on the applicant.” to follow up.
“I think we come first regarding sharing everything.” Councillor Jackson said.
“This a banner year on top of a banner year on top of a banner year.” Councillor Olmstead said. “There seems to be no end to it. The contractors were limited by how many they can bring in. That’s the bottleneck.”
He said that there were ‘six positions for CBOs’ coming up in surrounding regions.
Councillor Olmstead also cited that contracting works can easily take longer than two years due to contracting times. “I think the two years isn’t long enough which I never thought I’d say.”
Councillor Nicholson said he supports the motions and asked if they could ‘extend beyond the two years.”
Burton said that they would have to go to a public meeting to get public comments if the motion was approved.
Councillor McLaughlin asked if CBO Doug Shultz had any comments.
“It’s been a very busy year the last couple of years, and it’s not going to slow down any.” Shultz said. “I know for sure that there’s 19 houses being built right now from 2 different contractors.”
“We have an opportunity with Sam [Buttle] that he’s willing to learn and I think he will form into a good building official.”
The motion was carried.
