City hall concièrge program extended

The city is expanding a special initiative that provides developers with a concièrge in the planning department to representatives from community associations.

Last summer, city officials recruited staff to act as “client relationship leaders” — a bureaucratic term for people assigned to work one-on-one with two dozen of the busiest development companies in Ottawa to improve communica- tion and identify ways to improve the city’s planning processes.

While planning committee chair Jan Harder and others said the goal of the six-month pilot project was improving customer service and moving applications through the system in a timely fashion, several councillors and community association leaders questioned the need for the initiative, saying developers don’t seem to have any trouble navigating city hall.

Many participants felt six months wasn’t long enough to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, so planning department officials decided to extend it until the end of this year.

And based on feedback from community associations — many of whom said they might also benefit from the assistance of a staff member specifically assigned to quickly answer their questions — concièrges will now be available to them as well.

The city will decide in December whether to continue the program or kill it.

Meanwhile, another planning department pilot project — this one designed to provide increased transparency during the early stages of the development review process by inviting representatives from relevant community associations in Capital ward to sit in on the proceedings between city officials and developers — will be extended to four additional urban wards: Rideau-Rockcliffe, Rideau-Vanier, Somerset and Kitchissippi.