WHEREAS local governments expend significant staff resources in order to respond to referrals and requests for comments related to applications within their boundaries from various provincial ministries related to forest fertilization, mining, logging, foreshore leases, licenses of occupation, water licenses, etc.; AND WHEREAS local governments face an ongoing struggle to balance budgets and respond to workload issues: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities lobby the provincial government to provide funding to offset the costs of responding to the large number of referrals.
INTEGRATED LAND MANAGEMENT BUREAU All levels of government are experiencing similar resourcing challenges, particularly in urban areas. The Integrated Land Management Bureau ILMB, like all natural resource agencies, lacks the resources to provide funding to local governments. Through programs like FrontCounter BC, the Resource Management Coordination Project, and Natural Resource Authorization Coordination, ILMB strives to streamline applications to reduce the financial burden associated with processing referrals for all parties. There may be additional opportunities to reduce costs by developing common sources of information and data. Federal-provincial databases have been used in the past for coordinating referrals in the lower mainland. Broadening these systems to provide access to local governments could be mutually beneficial.