It’s been more than three years since city council eliminated the municipal planning commission, but a bylaw dealing with the group quietly sat on the books unbeknownst to municipal officials — until now.
Staff in the city clerk’s office have been conducting audits of bylaw files during the past few weeks and recently discovered that bylaw No. 5207, the municipal planning commission bylaw, still existed. Somehow, it had not been officially repealed after council disbanded the group in January 2020 and the provincial government officially approved that decision.
One reason for the commission’s elimination was there was very little citizen engagement — the last meeting was held in 2018 — and some meetings lasted only a few minutes even though reports took hours to create, a council report said.
With its elimination, all matters relating to the municipal planning commission would be placed on council’s agenda under Committee of the Whole, administration explained at the time. This would reduce a procedural step and enable decisions to come to council on a timely basis.
In those rare circumstances where additional background may be required, it would be appropriate to table that item to a subsequent executive committee meeting to obtain that information. Bringing most commission applications directly to council would also help reduce “red tape.”
After discovering that the bylaw still existed, city administration brought to the June 12 regular meeting a bylaw to repeal the legislation. Council gave three unanimous readings to the motion, which officially removed the municipal planning commission from city hall’s files.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, June 26.
