Whistler building permit fees to rise 30%

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) is raising the cost of building permits (among other things) by 30 per cent.

In a staff report presented at the Jan. 23 council meeting, staff rationalized the current building permit rates are out of line with other municipalities, and do not represent adequate cost-recovery to the level of service expected by the community.

With that in mind, staff recommended rates for permits across the building department jump by 30 per cent.

Building permit fees have stayed stagnant at the RMOW since the last change to the relevant bylaw in 2012.

The updated pricing has been on the to-do list for a year and a half; staff were first directed by council to prepare an update to the permit fee structure at the June 7, 2022 council meeting.

The 30-per-cent increase applies to a wide range of permits submitted to the building department: building, plumbing, demolition, fireplace and chimney, moving, foundation, plan processing, building inspection and other miscellaneous fees.

The cost of a building permit is linked to the proposed building cost being considered: Examples from the report say a $20,000 project would incur a $304.02 fee (up from $234); a $100,000 project would incur a $1,348.62 fee (up from $1,037.40); and a $2-million project would incur a $20,901.22 fee (up from $16,139.40).

Staff compared the RMOW building permit fees (of a $100,000-value build) to those in the District of Squamish and six municipalities within Metro Vancouver, finding the RMOW fees were, on average, 30 per cent below all selected municipalities going by 2022 rates.

The increase would place RMOW fees within the middle of the pack (again, by 2022 rates), making it more expensive than Squamish, where a $100,000-build would incur a $1,100 fee, the City of North Vancouver ($1,115.74) and Richmond ($1,341.99), but cheaper than Coquitlam ($1,573.54), Burnaby ($1,513.69) and the District of North Vancouver ($1,473.09).

According to the report, the higher fees are needed because of additional resources added to the building official team that allow it to review permit applications “within an acceptable timeframe.”

An equivalent of 5.5 full-time equivalent roles were added to the department as part of the 2024 budget.

“This reflects the volume, growing complexity, and additional review needed for applications,” reads the report.

The busyness of Whistler’s building department has been a hot topic in recent years, with the quarterly financial update at the Jan. 9 council meeting revealing in the first nine months of 2023, the department generated revenues 65-per-cent higher than during the same period in 2022 due to the number of applications coming across desks.

Also under the bylaw update, staff recommended a new fee for property record requests and the removal of fees related to microfilm requests (since everything is  now digitized). Fees for archiving, fire-suppression system permits, site-servicing inspections, and highway use, clearing and inspections will remain unchanged.

Councillor Cathy Jewett asked whether the building community was consulted rather than simply informed of the upcoming changes, as indicated in the staff report, and was told by staff the local chapter of the Canadian Home Builders Association was consulted “over the years.”

Coun. Jeff Murl asked about the makeup of permit applications (and was told it was mostly building and plumbing), as well as why it took 12 years to consider updating the fee structure, to which staff responded they will likely look into a more regular fee update structure moving forward.

Council voted unanimously to give the updated fee structure first, second and third reading. The new fees will not come into effect until after formal adoption at a future council meeting.