(file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Contracting out work

City to continue using planning consulting services

Mar 30, 2024 | 4:00 PM

The City of North Battleford will continue contracting out its senior planning services for the time being as it was unable to find a senior planner to hire to meet its requirements.

James Johansen, City Director of Engineering, Planning, Asset Management & Infrastructure, said in his recent report to council that in June 2023, the city hired Northbound Planning Ltd. to provide planning consulting services to the city for the remainder of that year.

While the city retained a recruitment firm in July 2023 to locate a Registered Professional Planner (RPP) to fill the vacant city planner position, it wasn’t able to find any candidates.

For a municipality to be eligible for Approving Authority Status, under the Planning and Development Act, it requires that the city employ or retain an RPP within six consecutive months of a registered planner vacancy or without a contractor.

As a result, the city hired a Junior Planner and will continue to retain the consulting services it has been using to meet the RPP requirements.

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Council approved the administration’s recommendation to retain Northbound Planning Ltd. to provide professional planning services to the city for 2024 at a cost not to exceed $60,000, including $3,396 PST.

Mayor David Gillan summed up that engaging Northbound Planning, together with the Junior Planner, allows the city to retain its Approving Authority Status.

City Manager Randy Patrick said the service will also help the city complete a number of large tasks over the next two years, starting in the remainder of 2024.

“[It] will be two years of change, in all of that,” he said. “Some of that is economic development, some of that is planning… There’s going to be a lot more [work] coming in the next six months, before it really gets going.”

Among the bigger projects the city will need to take on in the near future will be updating its Official Community Plan and looking at updating its zoning bylaw.

It was noted that the city’s Junior Planner will need to continue to update their qualifications to become a fully registered planner, which could take about three to four years, based on their current credentials.

Patrick said the city is also in the process of looking at hiring another junior planner as well, so the city would have two in this position if it works out.

“The benefit of the two is that they are a little less expensive,” he said. “We can actually afford to contract [part of the service], because the people aren’t as expensive as the full-timers we had budgeted. We’re basically using money that we’re saving from the [senior planner] position… We’re trying to keep the costs down.”

The savings from the junior positions will instead be used for the consulting service.

Council approved administration’s recommendation to retain the consultant for the year.

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW