Guelph-Eramosa council considering changes to site plan application process
In order to make the planning process more streamlined and efficient for both applicants and staff, Guelph-Eramosa has created a proposed planning and site plan application bylaw review.
Proposed application
Standard planning and site plan application documents were created to increase the ease and efficiency of the application process, increase public accessibility to the planning process, clearly provide the requirements and township expectations to the applicant prior to the application’s submission and provide consistency in requirements between applications of a similar nature, according to the report.
The application form, site plan development guidelines, site plan landscape standards and zoning bylaw guide will all provide the information an applicant needs for an efficient process, the report said.
Councillor David Wolk asked whether this process would ever be reviewed to assess how successful the revisions and additions were.
“We could give that some thought as to what the most appropriate points would be in the process because larger projects go through an awful lot of steps and evolve over a longer period of time,” CAO Kim Wingrove said.
“In fairness if what we’re trying (is) to get a sense of what the application process was all about we might want to check in on that just at the time that the application itself is approved.”
Mayor Chris White said the township needs to be cautious in the feedback gathered.
“We need to be careful that we’re talking about things we can fix in the process,” he said, versus the aspects that are mandated by a different governing body like the province.
At the April 7 meeting, council received the planning and site plane application document revisions and endorsed the documents for adoption and use by staff.
