An April 3 memo circulated by Brenda Prosken, general manager of community services for the City of Vancouver, finally contained the news plumbers, contractors and other mobile businesses in the Lower Mainland have long been waiting for: six municipalities – Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminster and Delta – are working out the details of a new inter-municipal business licence pilot project.
City staff are expected to report to council in June 2013 on the required bylaw changes, and the goal is to start the pilot in late fall. The program would allow businesses to buy a single licence that allows them to work across municipal boundaries rather than having to secure a licence for each municipality. It would reduce administration and licensing costs and red tape.
“It’s for the benefit of contractors and supporting commerce and streamlining regulations for business, to make it easier for businesses to do work in the Lower Mainland,” said Tom Hammel, deputy chief licence inspector for the City of Vancouver.
This program has been in the pipeline for a while. On January 15, Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs brought forth a motion directing city staff to report on the feasibility of a pilot program.
Hammel said the goal is to implement the program in a way that doesn’t erode municipal licence revenue, and the city is working with Victoria on this.
“The Ministry of Jobs, Innovation and Tourism is supporting us on this by doing a data analysis of the city’s business licence data,” said Hammel. “They’re coming up with analysis of how the licensing is going to change and also to identify a fee that will result in a revenue-neutral situation.”
Anita Huberman, CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade, said the municipalities should look to what has been done in other regions as an example of how the program should be implemented (see “Region-wide municipal business licence zone pushed” – issue 1206, December 4, 2012).
“Each of the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond should align and expedite their mobile business licence model with that of the South Fraser Business Mobile Licence project,” she said. “It is good business and reduces red tape, allowing business to do business, make money and contribute to our local economy.”
While the program is still subject to final approval, Hammel said the cities have met to discuss the implementation details. Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond and Burnaby are on board; Delta and New Westminster are still at the discussion stage.
Meggs said the goal is to eventually involve the entire Metro region.“Once we get it started, I can’t see any reason why others wouldn’t come on.”
