Burlington Council Approves Updated Red Tape Red Carpet Recommendations

At our Nov. 14 meeting, Burlington City Council approved the updated Red Tape Red Carpet (RTRC) recommendations from City staff and Burlington Economic Development and directed staff to report back in Q2 2024 with an implementation plan.See the approved full motion and My Take below, as well as the staff report, related appendices further down this post.APPROVED MOTION:

• Receive and file Burlington Economic Development report ECDEV-05-23 regarding Red Tape Red Carpet (RTRC) recommendations and associated appendices; and
• Direct the Executive Director of Burlington Economic Development, Executive Director of Community Planning Regulation and Mobility and Executive Director of Community Relations and Engagement to report back on the implementation plan in Q2 2024.

MY TAKE:I thank Deputy Mayor for Business & Red Tape Reduction Councillor Kelvin Galbraith for his willingness from Day 1 to start this journey and improve the overall process of doing business in Burlington. Thank you to staff at the City and Burlington Economic Development for working together on these updated recommendations that they've presented us. This will put us on a path to be more strategic in using our resources and staff time. We can prioritize files that need our immediate attention, particularly those that may have other levels of government funding attached to them. There are other considerations we need to be focused on - not just submission dates. I look forward to these recommendations being housed in our new Pipeline to Permit (P2P) Standing Committee. I also want to thank Landscape Ontario for sitting with our staff and giving their feedback on how we can improve our process. I think this is a great next step and appreciate everyone’s efforts that have brought us here.

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To read the staff report and related supporting documents, please click/tap the links below:

• Burlington Economic Development report: ECDEV 05-23 Red Tape Red Carpet Recommendations 2023.pdf
• Appendices:
  • ECDEV-05-23 Appendix A - RTRC Draft Recommendations June 2023
  • ECDEV-05-23 Appendix B - Updated RTRC Recommendations October 2023 v2
  • ECDEV-05-23 Appendix C - Landscape Ontario Meeting - Chart Notes
• Staff presentation: ECDEV-05-23 Staff presentation regarding Red Tape Red Carpet recommendations

BACKGROUND:In 2019, Mayor Marianne Meed Ward and Councilor Kelvin Galbraith launched and co-chaired the Red Tape Red Carpet Task Force initiative that led to 22 recommendations to better serve the business and development communities, and work has been undertaken toimplement those recommendations.In 2022, we entered the new term of council and engagement was undertaken with the business community to understand where we have improved, what issues they face in doing business in Burlington and how we can make it easier for them to start, locate and grow in Burlington.The engagement highlighted the need for ongoing work towards a more efficient, transparent, and customer-focused development process in Burlington that can provide faster turnaround times, improve communication, and facilitate business growth. Recommendations for draft prioritized actions for Red Tape Red Carpet for 2023 onwards can be found in Appendix B to the staff report.The purpose of this report is to provide an opportunity to engage with members of committee on issues identified and emerging opportunities to improve the customer experience. During Q3 2023 staff have continued to refine the recommendations andthis report outlines the evolution of the recommendations based on business engagement. One of the critical findings of the engagement was the need to ‘purpose-fit’ the methods of service to the varying needs of different business segments. To address this finding the following key initiatives have been identified:

• Continue to expand the functionality of the online portal, “MyFiles”, to cover more application types and full end to end process of those applications;
• Expand the services provided by Burlington Economic Development to better support small businesses and the development industry; and,
• Scope the opportunity for enhanced service offered by the Customer Experience Manager by implementing Hi-Impact criteria to identify those development proposals which address areas of critical need within the city (ex. Affordable housing, significant employment-related tax assessment growth).

Moving forward these recommendations will be the updated and evolved recommendations for Red Tape Red Carpet replacing the original 2019 recommendations moving forward.