Dan Fumano: ‘Overloaded’ by developer interest, city hall seeks to prioritize

Vancouver’s city planners, overloaded by a high volume of often-complex development applications, are asking city council to set priorities.

“Recognizing that rezoning is often the first regulatory step in the bringing of much needed housing to market, it is important to note that the current volume and types of rezoning applications have overloaded staff operating capacity,” a report from the planning department says.

“This has resulted in slower processing times, delayed response times, staff burnout and customer frustrations,” the report to city council says.

City hall currently has 120 rezoning inquiries and 100 rezoning applications — more than double the normal workload.

These applications involve a total of more than 35,000 housing units and more than 8.7 million square feet of job space.