The City of Whitehorse is continuing its search for building inspectors.
Staff shortages led to lengthy delays for builders waiting to receive permits this summer, as the News reported in July.
At a Sept. 3 city council standing committee meeting, Mike Gau, the development services director for the City of Whitehorse said wait times had returned to a normal two to three weeks for residential builds, and three to four weeks for commercial and industrial applications.
The city started off the year with three out of the five existing building inspector positions filled, but only recently hired the fourth building inspector, Gau told the News on Oct. 30.
Council approved funding for an additional building inspector over the summer, Gau said in a Oct. 29 interview.
That leaves two open positions which need to be filled, said Gau.
The News reported previously that builders in the city saw lengthy delays of eight weeks when applying for permits this summer. Staffing problems, a new, more demanding checklist and a high volume of applications from both the 2023 and 2024 Yukon land lotteries all led to the delays, according to a September 2024 report from the city’s housing and land development advisory committee.
According to the city’s website, there were 407 permit applications received by Aug 30. 2024, as opposed to 401 received in all of 2023.
To help deal with the glut of applications, Gau said the city tapped consultants who they maintained on contingency. Gau said the city intends to keep a “roster of consultants” moving forward.
“We want to have a contingency in place and to keep the service level up and to avoid any problems into next year,” said Gau.
Two building official positions remain open, and Gau said it has been extremely hard to fill them. He said it is a nation-wide issue.
“...there are job postings for building inspectors across the country. That is a very hard position to fill, and there's no building official school, right?” said Gau. “So, we're not getting graduates coming out of any universities with a degree in building officials.”
Gau said the city must instead try to recruit Red Seal contractors like carpenters. He said that’s prompted some creative strategies to find candidates. For example, he said the City has contacted the worker’s compensation board to see if there were any contractors unable to carry out building duties but are able to use their knowledge of the building process to be an inspector.
Gau said they’ve also been advertising for the positions and using a recruiting agency since February 2024.
They also updated the salary and benefits package in the spring, said Gau. “That was one of the first things we did, too, because we knew we had to be an attractive employer.”
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
