Newsletter August 29, 2020: Zoning, Suites and Tax Impacts
Oak Bay Watch received an overwhelming resident response to our August 22, 2020 Newsletter - Densification & Zoning (see Oak Bay Watch.com). Many respondents expressed their concerns and anxieties regarding these land-use issues.
The main concerns were: Council’s and the Planning Department’s failure to address the uncorrected Zoning Bylaw ahead of significant progress being made on infrastructure improvement. Also, the Planning Department’s pressing ahead with changes to Oak Bay’s present basement suite policy was considered ill advised in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
These concerns were expected given the year-after-year, survey-after-survey resident request for Council to prevent the overbuilding in Oak Bay’s neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the present suites are not creating the serious problems other Districts are struggling with.
Increasing the number of tenants in suites was also highlighted. The previous Mayor who was strongly committed to allowing many more suites (ignoring the fact most would be illegal), nonetheless recognized a number of the additional suite pitfalls that would follow. Many of the adverse impacts that would result from a suite zoning change were not provided to residents by the Planning Department in their early 2019 presentations or at the April 2019 basement suite open house.
Introducing a new suite system that would require hiring new enforcement staff and implementing a very expensive suite registration and inspections program during hard economic times, makes no sense. Particularly when many residents are struggling to pay their taxes. The District’s present suite policy provides for mainly untaxed, additional and substantial, suite rental income.
A much higher priority initiative at present would be to address the District’s Administration expenditures. Recently the District management decided that it needed a $100,000 communications specialist/ cum press secretary: it also needed a $179,000 Director of Strategic Initiatives and reintroduced a $100, 000 plus Deputy Director of Corporate Services position. This during at a time when municipal property taxes increases have been unprecedented and, as many residents have noticed, sky high.
Prior to this, the Chief Administrative Officer in 2015 decided (with Council support) to hire an Executive Assistant, a Manager of Human Resources and to create a second IT (intelligence information) position. These new staff expenditures significantly contributed to the year-after-year record tax increases. The cost of all of this group of new positions is a combined increase in administration salaries in the order of $600,000 – added to the annual District taxpayer bill.
Note: that to all five of these positions must be added the cost of benefits (pensions, employment insurance premiums, health plans etc.) typically in the range of 20 – 25% of salary. This would bring the 600K total to almost 3/4 of a million dollars.
The reasoning and necessity for bringing these expensive administrative staff aboard was not clearly defined. How did this workload get done in the previous 109 years following Oak Bay’s incorporation? Council reports and information indicate the Chief administrative Officer (CAO) previously undertook a lot of this work. For example, in the previous two Council terms the CAO provided the quarterly Strategic Priorities reports.
Her Strategic Priorities reports and information were provided 4-times a year in an updated pro-forma template. Very little detail was provided on the progress of each priority listed. The current Director of Strategic Initiatives Corporate Plan is much harder to follow and hasn’t improved on this shortcoming.
It was hoped the million-dollar plus administration hiring spree would mean that by hiring expertise “in house”, it would not be necessary to go outside for this help. With a Director of Strategic Initiatives who sets the planning stage, there are now three planning positions: A Director of Building and Planning, a Manager of Planning and a Planner - and the CAO has a planning background.
Unfortunately, this has not stemmed the tide of Consultant Contracts. Even with the volumes of basement suite reports and information available from other municipalities, it was deemed necessary to contract a Consultant for $150, 000.
Oak Bay Watch Perspective
What has changed since the October 2018 election and the elector dissatisfaction with the previous leadership and his densification initiatives? As indicated previously:
If the salaries of the HR Manager, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and the Executive Assistant are added to the Chief Administrative Officer’s salary, it means the same basic work the CAO did before 2015 has jumped from $182,000 to well over $450.000. By our reckoning the CAO position in effect, now represents a tax-increase of two percentage points.
Additionally, there is a Director of Corporate Services and a Deputy Director of Corporate Services whose combined salaries are in excess of $250,000, excluding the likely $50,000 in benefits, plus more expenditures for support staff. There is plenty of evidence to show that the Director was responsible for media contact.
The District website explains: the Director of Corporate Services is the “main link between Council and the public at large, and is the contact for information on all Council matters". Did the District really need a communications staff member? After all, a PR person is not going to critique the Administration that hired them and is responsible for their generous salary. The Average Communications Specialist Salary in Canada is C$55,142 www.payscale,com.
We suspect the taxpaying public almost surely will not get a neutral /independent reporting about Council and staff decisions or actions that turned out badly and/or were not in the best interests of residents. For a District that has had such a bad transparency record, adding more “spin” seems to be a step in the wrong direction.
There is no question that these are difficult times, but the District still has a full staff complement in place. A lot more administrative help has been hired. The public has been told this is to provide efficiencies, although as indicated, this has not resulted in any cost cutting, therefore, there is no reason the many important problems identified by residents during the last civic election could not be addressed.
________________________________
*******Please help us continue to provide you with information about Community concerns and Council decisions and actions. Oak Bay Watch members also help community groups with their specific development concerns. Donate to Oak Bay Watch - even $5 or $10 dollars provides expenses for door- to- door handouts and helps us maintain our website. Oak Bay Watch is committed to ensuring the Community gets the full range of information on budget, governance and all key development issues – a well informed opinion cannot be made without this.
(Please use Donate Button at bottom of oakbaywatch.com Home Page)
Keep informed and sign up for our newsletter – bottom of Newsletter Menu Item.
Oak Bay Watch received an overwhelming resident response to our August 22, 2020 Newsletter - Densification & Zoning (see Oak Bay Watch.com). Many respondents expressed their concerns and anxieties regarding these land-use issues.
The main concerns were: Council’s and the Planning Department’s failure to address the uncorrected Zoning Bylaw ahead of significant progress being made on infrastructure improvement. Also, the Planning Department’s pressing ahead with changes to Oak Bay’s present basement suite policy was considered ill advised in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
These concerns were expected given the year-after-year, survey-after-survey resident request for Council to prevent the overbuilding in Oak Bay’s neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the present suites are not creating the serious problems other Districts are struggling with.
Increasing the number of tenants in suites was also highlighted. The previous Mayor who was strongly committed to allowing many more suites (ignoring the fact most would be illegal), nonetheless recognized a number of the additional suite pitfalls that would follow. Many of the adverse impacts that would result from a suite zoning change were not provided to residents by the Planning Department in their early 2019 presentations or at the April 2019 basement suite open house.
Introducing a new suite system that would require hiring new enforcement staff and implementing a very expensive suite registration and inspections program during hard economic times, makes no sense. Particularly when many residents are struggling to pay their taxes. The District’s present suite policy provides for mainly untaxed, additional and substantial, suite rental income.
A much higher priority initiative at present would be to address the District’s Administration expenditures. Recently the District management decided that it needed a $100,000 communications specialist/ cum press secretary: it also needed a $179,000 Director of Strategic Initiatives and reintroduced a $100, 000 plus Deputy Director of Corporate Services position. This during at a time when municipal property taxes increases have been unprecedented and, as many residents have noticed, sky high.
Prior to this, the Chief Administrative Officer in 2015 decided (with Council support) to hire an Executive Assistant, a Manager of Human Resources and to create a second IT (intelligence information) position. These new staff expenditures significantly contributed to the year-after-year record tax increases. The cost of all of this group of new positions is a combined increase in administration salaries in the order of $600,000 – added to the annual District taxpayer bill.
Note: that to all five of these positions must be added the cost of benefits (pensions, employment insurance premiums, health plans etc.) typically in the range of 20 – 25% of salary. This would bring the 600K total to almost 3/4 of a million dollars.
The reasoning and necessity for bringing these expensive administrative staff aboard was not clearly defined. How did this workload get done in the previous 109 years following Oak Bay’s incorporation? Council reports and information indicate the Chief administrative Officer (CAO) previously undertook a lot of this work. For example, in the previous two Council terms the CAO provided the quarterly Strategic Priorities reports.
Her Strategic Priorities reports and information were provided 4-times a year in an updated pro-forma template. Very little detail was provided on the progress of each priority listed. The current Director of Strategic Initiatives Corporate Plan is much harder to follow and hasn’t improved on this shortcoming.
It was hoped the million-dollar plus administration hiring spree would mean that by hiring expertise “in house”, it would not be necessary to go outside for this help. With a Director of Strategic Initiatives who sets the planning stage, there are now three planning positions: A Director of Building and Planning, a Manager of Planning and a Planner - and the CAO has a planning background.
Unfortunately, this has not stemmed the tide of Consultant Contracts. Even with the volumes of basement suite reports and information available from other municipalities, it was deemed necessary to contract a Consultant for $150, 000.
Oak Bay Watch Perspective
What has changed since the October 2018 election and the elector dissatisfaction with the previous leadership and his densification initiatives? As indicated previously:
- Council is continuing to add new high-salaried personnel to its administrative staff complement
- Clear cutting of lots is still evident in all neighbourhoods with no guarantee a zoning review, now postponed to 2023, will fix this
- Although there is a slight improvement in providing council meeting agendas, many important Council meetings are still poorly advertised
- The significant resident opposition to a basement-suite initiative to increase the number of tenants has not been recognized - even though this issue was described by the outgoing previous mayor as, “a matter of no small controversy”.
- Increased transparency and the public engagement platforms of Mayor and Council remain unfulfilled – the 2018 public engagement task Force recommendations have not been implemented or prioritized.
- The real environmental impacts and proposed impacts have not been addressed or considered.
If the salaries of the HR Manager, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and the Executive Assistant are added to the Chief Administrative Officer’s salary, it means the same basic work the CAO did before 2015 has jumped from $182,000 to well over $450.000. By our reckoning the CAO position in effect, now represents a tax-increase of two percentage points.
Additionally, there is a Director of Corporate Services and a Deputy Director of Corporate Services whose combined salaries are in excess of $250,000, excluding the likely $50,000 in benefits, plus more expenditures for support staff. There is plenty of evidence to show that the Director was responsible for media contact.
The District website explains: the Director of Corporate Services is the “main link between Council and the public at large, and is the contact for information on all Council matters". Did the District really need a communications staff member? After all, a PR person is not going to critique the Administration that hired them and is responsible for their generous salary. The Average Communications Specialist Salary in Canada is C$55,142 www.payscale,com.
We suspect the taxpaying public almost surely will not get a neutral /independent reporting about Council and staff decisions or actions that turned out badly and/or were not in the best interests of residents. For a District that has had such a bad transparency record, adding more “spin” seems to be a step in the wrong direction.
There is no question that these are difficult times, but the District still has a full staff complement in place. A lot more administrative help has been hired. The public has been told this is to provide efficiencies, although as indicated, this has not resulted in any cost cutting, therefore, there is no reason the many important problems identified by residents during the last civic election could not be addressed.
________________________________
*******Please help us continue to provide you with information about Community concerns and Council decisions and actions. Oak Bay Watch members also help community groups with their specific development concerns. Donate to Oak Bay Watch - even $5 or $10 dollars provides expenses for door- to- door handouts and helps us maintain our website. Oak Bay Watch is committed to ensuring the Community gets the full range of information on budget, governance and all key development issues – a well informed opinion cannot be made without this.
(Please use Donate Button at bottom of oakbaywatch.com Home Page)
Keep informed and sign up for our newsletter – bottom of Newsletter Menu Item.