New Pathways to Approvals: Developing Better Communities Together (2021)

289 pages

I have been on three sides of the application and approvals process over the past 40 years. First, I was on the development side, then I was on the City of Vancouver side, and now for the past 20 years I’ve been on the private consulting, financing, and teaching side. During the scope of my career, I’ve worked across Canada, the United States, and internationally, and I’ve seen much development, and I know what works and doesn’t work. Today, because I have both private and public clients, I still see both sides of the coin. I even facilitate strategic workshop sessions with governing councils and so am able to observe processes that occur at the highest level of approvals.

I have also had the privilege of developing and facilitating the sought-after FortisBC School of Development courses for the Urban Development Institute (UDI) Pacific Region, over the last 20 years. The support and generosity of UDI, FortisBC, and the development community for this program have been outstanding. Without them, and our team approach, the UDI FortisBC School of Development would not continue to grow and prosper. We strive to make content rich, progressive, and relevant by bringing in new faculty and current projects in rotation. One example is a course we developed in the early 2000s called The Art of Approvals. This course emphasizes the importance of the technical and process side of development applications and approvals. Many students still come to me after the course and tell me the course was amazing, and then they ask, “But how can I learn more?”

In 2019, the Province of British Columbia stepped up and completed a Development Approvals Process Review that reinforced my observations. This study exemplifies a concerted effort to highlight the challenges and opportunities affecting development approvals today.

This book takes the provincial study a few steps further. It not only explains the why and the what of approvals, but it offers ideas on how to improve this challenged and conflicted landscape. However, we need the cooperation and support of all those involved in approvals processes to make improvement happen. Ultimately, improved approvals are really about building mutually beneficial, trusting relationships with a common end goal of creating great communities. This book is hopefully part of shaping those New Pathways to Approvals.

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