To: Mayor and Members of Fernie City Council

Cc: Michael Boronowski, Chief Administrative Officer, City of Fernie

From: Members of the Fernie Building and Development Community

We, the undersigned members of Fernie’s building, development and business community, are calling on Fernie City Council to take immediate and transparent action to address an ongoing dysfunction in the City’s building permit processing system.

For years, local builders, contractors, and property owners have experienced excessive delays and a lack of reliable forecasting in the issuance of permits. This issue continues to go unresolved, despite repeated outreach, industry engagement, and the findings of a publicly funded review process.

The Development Approvals Enhancement Project, undertaken with industry participation and public investment, clearly identified the systemic challenges and provided practical recommendations. More than two years later, very few of these recommendations appear to have been implemented, and there is no consistent public reporting on progress.

The consequences of this continued inaction are significant:

• Permits frequently take 12 weeks or longer to process, with unaccountable delays and no clear or reliable timelines.
• Seasonal construction windows are missed, resulting in delayed projects, budget overruns, and unnecessary risk.
• Subcontractors and tradespeople are left without work. Employers are forced into unplanned layoffs and constant schedule disruptions.
• Clients increasingly hesitate to build in Fernie due to financial uncertainty, risk exposure, and unreliable timelines.
• A growing and damaging perception that the City of Fernie is extremely slow, anti-development, and obstructionist.

This issue is harming Fernie’s economy and stifling growth. It undermines our community’s attractiveness to investors, professionals, and families alike and weakening the very housing and infrastructure development our community needs.

We respectfully urge Council to:

1. Provide the direction, resources, and leadership necessary to ensure building permits are issued within a clearly defined and consistently reliable timeframe.
2. Ensure full and timely implementation of the recommendations from the Development Approvals Enhancement Project.
3. Establish transparent, public reporting on progress — including which recommendations have been implemented, which are underway, and what actions are scheduled going forward.

We ask Council to act now, with urgency and transparency, to restore confidence and ensure Fernie’s permitting process supports, rather than undermines, our shared future.