EDMONTON – The City of Edmonton’s Permit and Licensing Improvement (PLI) initiative has received an award in the Red Tape Reduction category in the Government of Alberta’s 2022 Municipal Excellence Awards.
Service improvements and timeline reductions in the PLI Initiative will save applicants $5.3 million and 67,600 days collectively each year, a City of Edmonton release stated.
“Building an Edmonton for all of us includes making it easy to do business here. I am proud of the work that the City of Edmonton has done in regards to red tape reductions for business owners, and am very pleased to see the Permit and Licensing Improvement Initiative being recognized for its positive impacts. We will continue to explore ways to remove barriers for the business community as we work towards our shared goal of economic recovery and growth here in Edmonton,” Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said in a statement.
The release stated the PLI implements improvements to provide customers with a more transparent, consistent and reliable experience which they can “more quickly and easily understand and navigate the zoning, permitting and licensing process to obtain what they need to renovate or build a home or expand or start a new business.”
Improvements achieved to date include:
- Processing over 90 per cent of permit and license applications online
- Reducing business license approval timelines by 50 per cent where a building permit is not required
- Granting partial commercial building permits for tenant improvements
- Reducing sign permit timelines by 50 per cent
- Expanding the expedited infill house permits program
- Automating residential permit reviews
- Implementing Safety Code Inspector optimization technology
- Enhancing eServices based on customer feedback
- Reducing zoning regulations
- Renewing the Business Licence Bylaw
If we won the award why are there so many unlicensed parking lots in the downtown core ???
Only to the select few !!!