Staff Report: Departmental Update

Background

This report provides the Community Advisory Committee with a comprehensive update on the current activities of the building, bylaw, and fire departments.

Building Department

• The Building Department anticipates another busy year. The Department remains committed to offering a high level of service in a professional, timely and courteous manner. The objective is to continue to build effective professional relationships with all parties involved in the construction process.
• Current staffing levels are: 4 full time Building Officials, 2 full time Building Assistants, 1 part time Building Assistant and 1 Manager.
• We are continuing our efforts to allow Electronic Plan Reviews, so applicants can submit permits and plans electronically through a link on the website. We are currently doing a soft launch of the program with success.

Community Safety and Municipal Bylaw Enforcement

• We are pleased to now have our summer bike patrol bike teams up and operational for the 2023 season. Our teams provide patrols and interaction with the public to ensure the areas of City Parks, Trails, the downtown core and other public spaces remain as trouble free as possible. Our entire team works closely with the Parks Department on a daily basis to report damages or maintenance issues for prompt attention.

• Homeless contacts made by our Officers increased in the early part of 2023 but have declined since the beginning of June. Feedback from some of the unhoused folk indicates that while they feel respected by the daily visits made by our Community Safety (Bylaw) Officers as we ensure shelters are dismantled as required under the Parks Regulation Bylaw, they are bothered by not being able to leave their shelters erected on site 24 hours each day. This diligence of our Officers to ensure the Bylaw is being followed may be a contributing factor in preventing entrenchment or increased numbers. On average, our Officers will deal with about three tents and 6 to 10 people in our daily (7days/week) sweeps. For maximum effect and staff safety, we assign at least two Officers each day for up to two hours to this task. While this represents significant expense and consumption of staff resources, and some opportunity costs by not being as readily able to address other forms of complaint, our management of the situation in this way provides the best balance to avoid entrenchment and the very significant implications that might otherwise follow.

• Sadly, during the period of June 5 to 7, our Officers learned that one of the familiar faces of the unhoused we’ve engaged with over many months, succumbed to a drug overdose and passed away despite efforts to intervene and assist (EHS).

• Our team continues to collaborate with Community Outreach Specialists from the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction in finding housing opportunities for those among our unhoused group who have a desire to find more permanent shelter.

• As much as we can, our officers in conjunction with the RCMP and SD 62 staff, continue to provide a presence at the Starlight Stadium and parks in the vicinity of Belmont High School during lunch recess. These daily visits by uniformed staff discourage large groups from congregating and we are seeing less litter and damage to city infrastructure as a result.

• Calls to the department for road traffic matters continue to account for approximately 90% of staff time, with illegally parked vehicles, blocked bike lanes, and long-term parking and storage of vehicles forming the bulk of these complaints.

• At the beginning of June, our department was requested to participate in providing a presentation to the members of the License Inspectors’ and Bylaw Officers’ Association of BC around Langford’s award-winning Community Safety (Officer) initiative. Our CSO program has been in place since 2005 and in recent years has been emulated by many other municipalities in BC.

• As of this writing, our department has opened 2,105 case files based on incoming complaints or by way of Officer observations made of unsafe situations, contrary to City Bylaws. This places us approximately 2-3 weeks ahead of this number over 2022 where the 2,105th case file was opened on the last day of June.

Fire Department

• The department suffered a tremendous loss in March with the passing of Assistant Chief Caven and is slowly healing. The line of duty death service was well attended by the fire service and public alike and was a fitting send off for someone who dedicated over 30 years of his life promoting fire and life safety to the residents of Langford.

• May saw the arrival of our new aerial ladder apparatus which is now in service for the community. There was a significant cost savings by purchasing a demonstration unit as well as being able to get it immediately, rather wait for a lengthy 2-3 year build time for a new unit. This apparatus will be in service for the next 20-25 years for Langford.

• A replacement engine was ordered in 2021 and will be completed by HUB Fire Apparatus at the beginning of July 2023. The new engine will be the front-line engine for Station 1 and we hope to have it fully in service by the end of summer.

• The end of Spring has seen a sudden increase in preventable fires caused by carelessly discarded smoking materials. A public education campaign was launched with the goal to raise awareness and reduce the occurrence of these types of fires.

• We are currently completing the conversion of our former Dispatch Center to a Department Operations Center/Level 1 Emergency Operations Center. We were successful in getting a UBCM grant to fund the upgrades and this site will be vital to respond to incidents requiring a larger amount of coordination such as wildfires, storm days and technical rescues. We expect to have the center fully operational by the end of June.

• With the approval of the 2023 Budget, we have an open competition to hire career firefighters from our existing volunteer members. The last stage of the competition will be mid-July with the hope to have them begin boot camp training on August 14. Once training is complete, we will be able to start posting firefighters at Station 2 with complete operations occurring by summer of 2025.

Options

Option 1
THAT the Community Advisory Committee receives the report for information.

Submitted By

SUBMITTED BY: Marie Watmough, Deputy Director of Corporate Services

Concurrence:
Chris Aubrey, Fire Chief
Concurrence:
Wayne Robinson, Manager of Building Inspection
Concurrence:
Lorne Fletcher, Manager of Community Safety and Municipal Enforcement
Concurrence:
Braden Hutchins, Director of Corporate Services
Concurrence:
Darren Kiedyk, Chief Administrative Officer