Why Bay Bulls is shifting shed approvals to town manager

A recent move by the Town of Bay Bulls is something it hopes will free up council for other matters.

During its Sept. 15 meeting, the town council voted to give its town manager the power to approve sheds and other auxiliary buildings when applications come to council.

According to Mayor Keith O’Driscoll, the delegation of authority is about freeing up his council to tackle other more timely issues in town.

It’ll also get permits and such into the hands of residents quicker, he says.

“This is mainly just to streamline those cookie-cutter buildings that residents are trying to move along because they’re in a short window or whatever the issue may be,” said O’Driscoll.

Currently, council meets once a month.

That means, depending on when the application gets filled out and appears on an agenda, it could be more than a month before work can start.

Bay Bulls felt like that handcuffed a resident’s ability to move ahead with a project on their property.

With such a short building season, it made sense for them to delegate that authority to manager Ashley Wakeham and her team.

For a town that is filled with a workforce that goes offshore or does turnaround shifts on the mainland, the policy change will help them get to their projects quicker.

“There’s a window of opportunity to do any type of build if that’s the case, and we’re just trying to help our residents more than anything else,” said O’Driscoll.

All future applications for auxiliary buildings in Bay Bulls are still subject to the regulations they already have in place.

On top of that, any decision that the town manager and her team make on structures will still have the regular oversight. All approvals will still go back to council for final approval, while another application that needs additional work or policy direction still gets brought to the table.

There are also no changes to the town’s regulations.

“All the procedures that they need to meet, their setbacks, size, yardage, heights, all that stuff, that’s already identified in the application,” said O’Driscoll.

The way O’Driscoll sees it, the move to delegate the authority around auxiliary buildings will speed up the process and free council up to tackle other matters.

It’s budget season for towns across the province, and by having some extra time, the mayor and his council can get deep into that now without having to worry about making time for small building applications.

“We’re all volunteers, and it’s just we’re just trying to make it work better for our residents, and residents actually love it,” said O’Driscoll.