OLDS — The Town of Olds issued more building permits for projects collectively worth more money during the past two months, compared to January and February last year.
The municipality's infrastructure director Adrian Pedro unveiled the stats during a recent town council meeting.
Statistics show that in January this year, 11 building permits were issued for projects worth a total of $4.2 million. Five permits were issued in February for projects worth a total of $1.2 million.
Last year, three permits were issued in January for projects worth a total of $425,000 and nine permits were issued in February for projects worth a total of $517,135.
Four of the 11 building permits issued in January this year were for single detached homes.
Four were classified as “other,” containing four units each. Another was for a residential accessory building. Two other permits were for commercial and institutional projects.
Last month, two permits were issued for detached homes. Two others were for accessory residential buildings and one was for a project in the institutional category.
“What we are seeing is that both development permits and building permits are trending higher than 2024,” Pedro said.
“We're hoping this translates in into another record setting year. That remains to be seen.”
Pedro said another positive development is that approval timelines for building and development permits are getting shorter.
A chart in Pedro’s first quarter report to council showed that in January and February, the processing time from date of application was 8.3 days and the processing time from the deemed completion date was 1.6 days.
The processing time from application date for potential projects needing council approval was 21.3 days and the processing time from deemed completion date for an application taken to council was 20.3 days.
Pedro said stats for council approval are “skewed a little bit” because two of the three applications considered by council came before the Christmas break.
“Now is there room for improvement,” Pedro asked. “Perhaps, but it's as I mentioned in other quarterly updates, it's difficult, depending on when we receive those permits.”
Coun. Wanda Blatz asked how Olds’ turnaround dates for permits align with other comparable municipalities.
Pedro said, “I don't have our immediate comparables on hand. I will state from experience in other areas of the province, internally, we're quite quick.
“To have 8.3 days for processing time from the application date is, I think, fairly decent, and to have 1.6 after it's deemed complete, is quite expedient.”
Blatz said, “I just don't want to see us be taking too long and losing potential development.
“I realize that we're looking at our land use bylaw as well, and some tweaks will be made there, but I just want to ensure that we're on par.”
