(Photo: Quinte News / File Photo)
Quinte West council wants the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to take a look at their process when it comes to environmental assessments.
Council agreed with the Ontario Good Roads Association that steps need to be take to speed up the response process for environmental assessments and reduce study costs.
Mayor Jim Harrison says right now it’s simply a lot of red tape that is delaying things and now is the time for their municipality to make this push.
Statistics show that some environmental approvals from the province are taking over two years to occur and that has caused caused costs to dramatically increase for the studies.
A construction organization estimates the time it takes to complete an environmental assessment has gone from 19 months to 26 months, with costs rising to almost $400,000 from just over $100,000.
