Community and Protective Services Committee

WHEREAS By-law and Regulatory Services is responsible for the enforcement and administration of more than 50 municipal by-laws and a number of provincial Acts, as well as the delivery of associated programs in the City of Ottawa; and, WHEREAS By-law and Regulatory Services strives to provide a level of service and performance that meets and exceeds the expectations of the residents and visitors to Ottawa; and, WHEREAS service request volume has increased by an average of nine per cent per year over the past five years (excluding COVID-related service requests); and, WHEREAS the increase in demand for by-law services is impacted by population (human and animal) growth, intensification, aging infrastructure and other factors, and is unsustainable at the current rate of increase; and, WHEREAS service requests are assigned a priority level based on call type and service standards have been established in order to meet service delivery demands; and, WHEREAS understanding that municipalities have different metrics, the average service requests per Officer per year in other comparable Ontario municipalities surveyed ranges from 400-600, while in Ottawa, it is 866 service requests per Officer per year; and, WHEREAS this pressure results in a need to increase staffing resources in By-law and Regulatory Services in order to achieve a more reasonable volume of service requests per Officer to better enable sustainable service delivery to residents and visitors; and, THEREFORE BE IT RESOL