At Council-in-Committee (CiC) on November 6^th, Council received a report for information on proposed new initiatives and actions related to strengthening the City’s approach to managing the impacts of construction.

In recognition that increasing construction activity is occurring within established neighbourhoods, particularly where multiple adjacent construction projects are occurring simultaneously, Council previously directed staff to expand the City's role beyond its historical focus on building and construction safety, to include more proactively managing the broader construction process and working to minimize the societal and nuisance impacts to residents. Proposed new initiatives and actions are focused on proactive neighbourhood outreach, preparing for legitimate construction activities, and mitigating legitimate impacts during construction.

Targeted improvements to improve the development of Construction Management Plans (CMPs) and associated Traffic Management Plans
(TMPs) include:

• A new CMP template and checklist to clearly outline expectations on submissions to the City, and provide greater consistency across each project. This will improve the City's ability to assess for compliance when taking enforcement action;
• Prioritizing pedestrian and micromobility connections by requiring construction sites to maintain existing pedestrian and micromobility (cycling) connections and to provide these connections if non-existent, through improved construction fencing or hoarding design. Closures will be limited and temporary/short duration as needed;
• Expanding TMPs to include information related to timing and coordination of material deliveries, truck staging locations and existing adjacent construction site management plans, to better plan for concurrent construction activity.

Targeted improvements to help with mitigating legitimate impacts during construction include:

• Expanding trades parking plans to require additional details to ensure they are attainable and will include demonstrating use of adjacent development sites, the temporary use of nearby vacant property, and leasing of City owned lots and /or on-street parking spaces if no private lots are available;
• Expanding the requirement for all construction sites to install real time water quality monitoring equipment to help protect watersheds in areas undergoing significant development activity;
• Reviewing Road Use and Closure fees to assess the way in which fees for use of public roads are calculated, with the possibility of initiating "hot spot" charges to areas with high levels of construction activity to incentivize shorter interruptions of key streets in areas undergoing significant change.

As next steps, Construction Site Impact Mitigation Initiatives is proposed as a 2024 Business Plan item. City staff will explore undertaking new initiatives identified in this report and intend to report back to Council in 2024 with a progress update.

More information can be found in the full report by City staff.