6. HIRING OUTSIDE CONSULTANTS
EMBAUCHE D’EXPERTS-CONSEILS
EXTERNES
That Council:
1.
Approve
to permit the City to contract the services of consultants to carry out
technical reviews of development applications in Barrhaven South, where
necessary, to address high volumes, without being subject to the specific
provision of the City's Purchasing By-law outlined in this report; and
2.
Approve
to permit the City to hire Stantec Consulting Ltd. to undertake the 2010 update
to the Gloucester East Urban Community Infrastructure Servicing Study.
Que
le Conseil:
Documentation
1. Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee report dated 19 February 2010 (ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0013).
2. Extract of Draft Minute, 2 March 2010.
Report to/Rapport au :
Corporate Services and
Economic Development Committee
Comité des services organisationnels et du développement économique
and Council / et au Conseil
19 February 2010
/ le 19 février 2010
Submitted by/Soumis par : Councillor/Conseiller
Rainer Bloess, Innes Ward/quartier and / et Councillor/Conseillère Jan Harder,
Barrhaven Ward/quartier
Contact Person/Personne ressource : Rainer Bloess,
Councillor, Innes Ward / conseiller, quartier Innes
(613) 580-2472, rainer.bloess@ottawa.ca
SUBJECT:
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OBJET :
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That
the Corporate Services & Economic Development Committee recommend to City
Council:
1.
To
permit the City to contract the services of consultants to carry out technical
reviews of development applications in Barrhaven South, where necessary, to
address high volumes, without being subject to the specific provision of the
City's Purchasing By-law outlined in this report; and
2.
To
permit the City to hire Stantec Consulting Ltd. to undertake the 2010 update to
the Gloucester East Urban Community Infrastructure Servicing Study.
Que
le Comité des services organisationnels et du développement économique
recommande au Conseil d'approuver les mesures suivantes :
Councillor Harder’s comments
As a City we are growing by leaps and bounds. This is not mere conjecture; it is fact in the
case of Barrhaven. Our largest
developers have addressed the City with their concerns as to our ability to
service their sites in a timely fashion.
Internally we question our ability to “do it all”. This motion is strictly to confirm that
should we need an outside agency to support our engineering departmental review
of growth in Barrhaven. It is not just
Barrhaven, it is many communities in this City and it makes no sense to refuse
outside help when the result will be reduced pressure on City sites.
WHEREAS it is becoming increasingly difficult to find consultants that
are not working for developers in some capacity, given the relatively small
consulting community in Ottawa; and
WHEREAS the City occasionally utilizes the services of consultants to
assist in technical peer reviews of development applications to respond to
higher volumes of development applications than staff can review within
specified timelines, including legislated timelines pursuant to the Planning
Act; and
WHEREAS the anticipated development activity in Barrhaven South is forecast
to exceed normal levels to the extent that it may be necessary for the City to
utilize the services of consultants, in addition to existing staff resources,
in order to carry out technical reviews of development applications; and
WHEREAS Stantec Consulting Ltd. completed the Gloucester East Urban Community
Infrastructure Servicing Study Update for the City of Ottawa in 2005 that
outlined the servicing requirements for the entire East Urban Community (EUC)
to support the EUC Phase 1 area Community Design Plan; and
WHEREAS the Community Design Plan for the Phase 2 area of the EUC is
now underway which necessitates an update to the Infrastructure Servicing Study
given that the roadway layout has changed from what was considered in 2005; and
WHEREAS the City’s Purchasing By-law was amended during this term of
Council such that, “No person shall provide Consulting Services or Professional
Services to both the City and a private sector developer on the same or related
project”; and
WHEREAS the major landholder in the Phase II area has hired Stantec
Consulting Ltd. as their design engineers; and
WHEREAS, given the historical knowledge and modeling data held by
Stantec Consulting Ltd., the City would benefit from a lower project cost,
shorter production timeline and lower required level of effort from staff
should Stantec Consulting Ltd. be hired to undertake the 2010 update;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Corporate Services and Economic
Development Committee recommend that City Council approve that:
1.
The City
be permitted to contract the services of consultants to carry out technical
reviews of development applications in Barrhaven South, where necessary, to
address high volumes, without being subject to the specific provision of the
City's Purchasing By-law outlined in this report; and
2.
The City
be permitted to hire Stantec Consulting Ltd. to undertake the 2010 update to
the Gloucester East Urban Community Infrastructure Servicing Study.
Infrastructure
Services & Community Sustainability
The consulting community in Ottawa is a relatively small one. In order
to continue to generate positive revenues, consultants pursue all work,
and rarely choose to only work for either the City or land developers. The
trend over the past few years has also seen larger consulting firms acquiring
smaller firms, while other firms form partnerships and create
mergers. As a consequence, the already limited pool of consultants in Ottawa, continues
to become smaller. It has been and continues to be a challenge for the
City to find consultants with local experience and knowledge, but who have
not worked for developers. All indications are pointing to an upswing in
development pressures for 2010, which will have an effect of making it
increasingly more difficult to find firms with
experience in the Ottawa area who have no business ties with land
developers. Staff therefore, support the motion.
This item will be advertised in the local dailies as part of the Public Meeting Advertisement on Friday preceding the Community and Protective Services Committee Meeting.
There are no significant Legal/Risk Management Implications to this
report. To the extent the two assignments will require work to
be done by Professional Engineers, such Engineers are required by the following
sections of the Professional Code of Conduct of the Professional Engineers
of Ontario, as set out in Section 77 of Ontario Regulation 941, to
disclose any conflicts of interest to the City.
There are no financial implications
with the approval of the recommendations contained in this report.
Funding for the technical reviews of
development applications in Barrhaven South is available within Planning and
Growth Management’s operating budget. Funding for the Gloucester East Urban
Community Infrastructure Servicing Study is available within Capital Projects
Planning Studies Development and Servicing Studies Development.
Staff to take appropriate action as directed by the Committee and Council.
HIRING OUTSIDE CONSULTANTS
EMBAUCHE
D’EXPERTS-CONSEILS EXTERNES
ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0013 INNES (2) BARRHAVEN (3)
Clarence Dungey,
representative of CUPE Local 503, indicated the union was not opposed to
this and understood the rationale for it.
However, he suggested the public perception was that consultants and
developers made the decisions as opposed to Councillors. He believed clarity was important and the
more clarity that was brought forward, the less confusion there would be
amongst the general public. He recommended
that staff review all consulting costs from the past five years, which he
believed would assist the public in understanding this issue. He proposed a comparison of the feasibility
and, if it made sense and saved money, then that should be the direction taken. He believed this would help eliminate the
perception that other people were governing the City.
He remarked that
with moving into an election year, he always heard the public commenting about
staff being over-paid and suggesting that the City should be privatized. He believed the review he had recommended
would show that this did not make sense and it would put Council in a position
of being able to explain this to residents.
Chair Jellett asked staff if such analysis had already been done. Ms. Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager of Infrastructure Services and Community Sustainability, confirmed that the Director of Infrastructure Design and Construction Services and his team had done such an analysis in terms of the cost effectiveness of in-house versus the use of consultants. She explained this had been part of a review and assessment on the City’s competitive assessment in terms of cost effective services. She offered to revisit this but indicated the exercise was done within the last 18 months.
Chair Jellett remarked that the results were obviously not well communicated, given that Mr. Dungey was not aware of the analysis. He suggested staff improve the communication of such information to the public.
Councillor Harder referred to a document that had come from staff to herself and Councillor Bloess. To put it in perspective, she explained that in her case, this had come about because she had been talking to the Chief Building Inspector about the volume of work being done in Barrhaven. She noted that planning applications were up 30% over last year and in Barrhaven, this growth was even higher, which meant it would be many months. As a result, there had been some discussions about how best to handle the volume of work. She stressed the need for people who knew the lay of the land. She referred to the small group of consultants in the industry and the fact that some had worked for the City and/or the former municipalities. She maintained the work referenced in the current report related to small assignments; $3,500 to $7,500 each. She felt it would not make sense to go out and tender for these small jobs. She submitted this was a problem that could be fixed easily and provide customer services. Further, she noted that the Planning Act required that applications be processed within legislated timeframes and this proposal would allow the City to do just that.
Councillor Bloess noted
that there were certain growth areas and work had been done in these areas
already. He reported that when he
checked with City staff about the progress of work in the east urban community,
he was advised that phase 1 was completed but that the City needed to get
someone in to do some updates. He
advised that in this particular case, Stantec had done the original modelling
and a lot of the work for phase 1. He
explained that at this point, it needed to be updated and brought into conformity. He submitted that when Council passed a
motion saying there should be no conflict between a developer and a consulting
firm to do work, but that they could not work for the City at the same time,
this was in reaction to one particular case.
He believed a better way needed to be found because not every case would
result in controversy or conflict. He
felt that in these instances, it was a natural evolution where someone had
already done the work and it did not make sense to hire an external consultant
or start over again. He thought the
motion approved by Council could be followed for the remainder of the term of Council,
but suggested that Ms. Schepers prepare a practical application of what Council
was trying to do without requiring approval every time.
Following these
exchanges, Committee voted on the recommendations.
That the Corporate Services & Economic
Development Committee recommend to City Council:
1.
Approve
to permit the City to contract the services of consultants to carry out
technical reviews of development applications in Barrhaven South, where
necessary, to address high volumes, without being subject to the specific
provision of the City's Purchasing By-law outlined in this report; and
2.
Approve
to permit the City to hire Stantec Consulting Ltd. to undertake the 2010 update
to the Gloucester East Urban Community Infrastructure Servicing Study.
CARRIED