Whistler’s bylaw department presented its annual report to elected officials earlier this month, and parking, animal responsibility and noise made up the top three calls for service in 2021.
Overall, calls for service for the year rose slightly from 819 in 2020 to 858, bringing the community closer in line to its pre-pandemic 2019 total of 854 calls. The number of bylaw tickets issued increased at an even higher rate, from 15,019 in 2020 to 17,676 last year. For comparison, there were 20,875 bylaw notices in 2019.
Eclipsing all other issues by a wide margin last year was parking and traffic, with 337 calls for service, more than triple the next most common call. Parking also made up the vast majority—about 99.1 per cent—of the 17,676 bylaw tickets issued last year. The 26 tickets issued last year for parks-related infractions were the next most common concern.
Pay parking represents a significant and steady revenue stream for the municipality, which saw its strongest Q3 parking revenue in history—$473,757—for the period ending Sept. 31, 2021. Since 2019, the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) has introduced hourly parking rates at electric-vehicle charging stations and increased parking rates at the day lots, the conference centre and library. The municipality also introduced pay parking in local parks last summer, a move that, while largely unpopular with residents, had its intended effect of increasing turnover in Whistler’s already overburdened parks, a strategy it also employs in the day lots.
“Pay parking is intended to increase availability by reducing the peak parking demand and also increase turnover,” explained Lindsay DeBou, the RMOW’s manager of protective services, in a presentation to mayor and council at the April 5 council meeting.
About $1 million in annual parking revenue from the day lots goes to Whistler’s community transportation initiative fund, DeBou added.
“Pay parking lots also help to offset the cost to maintain the parking lots,” she said.
“People also ask, ‘Why isn’t parking free?’ Well, it costs money to pave, it costs money to line-paint, snow removal, all of that. So we have a user-based pay-parking program to remove the fee from taxpayers and put the fee onto the people that are actually using the parking.”
To the dogs
Animal responsibility was next on the list of calls for service, with 99 for 2021, up from 89 the year prior and 72 in 2019. The RMOW adopted its new Animal Responsibility Bylaw in 2019, which, while similar in intent to its previous bylaw, was updated to include more specific language and a host of new fines for things like chasing, threatening or biting; leaving a dog in a hot car; and failure to control a dog in an off-leash area. A dozen tickets were issued last year in connection to the bylaw.
“A large number of the increase was actually due to barking dogs,” DeBou noted. “I think as people started working from home a little more, they could hear other people’s pets, so that was a big issue that we were dealing with last year.”
Identified by the public as the No. 1 concern during the engagement phase of the RMOW’s Recreation and Leisure Master Plan adopted in 2015, conflict with dogs has long been a thorny issue in a town with ample green space and an abundance of pets. The bylaw department has mostly taken an educational approach in dealing with the issue, preferring to speak with dog owners directly to spur compliance rather than issue a ticket. There were 19 dog bites reported to bylaw last year, and four so far in 2022. Of those cases, five tickets were issued for an animal at large, and five were issued for threatening, chasing or biting, along with several warnings. Four of the reports did not have sufficient evidence to follow up on.
Last summer also saw the expansion of the RMOW’s Parks Ambassador program, which has bylaw officers rotating through Whistler’s busiest parks and sections of the Valley Trail throughout the spring and summer to educate guests on proper parks etiquette and the applicable local bylaws. That program returns this month.
Noise rounded out the top three most common calls for service last year at 88, up from 55 the year prior and 60 in 2019, which may also have something to do with the prevalence of remote work in the pandemic.
“As people are more at home, they’re going to notice more noise around them … that is anecdotal, so we don’t know for certain, but yes, more people are working from home and there have been more noise complaints,” said DeBou, noting that construction was the most common noise complaint.
Bylaw is also tasked with enforcing against illegal nightly rentals, which resulted in 22 calls for service last year, exactly half of the number of complaints from 2020 and down from 59 in 2019. Of those reports, 17 resulted in fines, and all six of the tickets that were disputed last year were ultimately upheld in adjudication.
“The number of files investigated [since] 2019 has dropped significantly, which could be due to a couple factors, such as our level of enforcement and the impacts of the pandemic,” DeBou noted. “Staff continue to diligently respond to these complaints and proactively investigate as visitation is normalizing.”
Biz business
The bylaw department typically processes about 400 business licence applications in a year, with about 350 licences closing annually, which DeBou said is mostly to do with businesses leaving town or relocating elsewhere in the community, as well as short-term licences issued for things like construction projects. There are currently about 3,400 open business licenses, of which approximately one third are for home-based businesses.
The RMOW generated roughly $628,000 in licensing fees last year, up 13 per cent from 2020, due primarily to an increase in the annual business license fee from $165 to $190, along with the introduction of a standard $25 application fee for new licences.
Future trends
Looking ahead, the bylaw department expects Whistler’s growing visitor and traffic numbers post-pandemic will continue to “strain our resources,” all while the public demand for quick action and enforcement escalates, noted Juan Pineda, bylaw supervisor.
“We noticed that the use of social media has not only increased the speed of information sharing but it also increases the community desire for immediate service. The technology behind mobile phones and portable devices are constantly being developed to track and report bylaw infractions,” he added.
The RMOW is now working on a Good Neighbour campaign, a guide that will serve as part of a wider effort to help “residents and guests to better understand our bylaws,” Pineda said.
The department is also working on updating its noise bylaw and its commercial parking bylaw, and completing a minor amendment to its fire safety bylaw.
“We want to be known in the community for delivering proactive, responsive and exceptional customer service; that our bylaws and processes are easy to understand and legally sound and enforceable; and that public safety is enhanced and public spaces are being managed effectively through a more visible presence throughout the community,” said DeBou.
Covering a wide swath of community concerns, the bylaw department was commended by Whistler’s mayor at the April 5 council meeting.
“It is not easy work and you guys do it with a tremendous amount of professionalism and respect,” said Mayor Jack Crompton. “I’ve had a chance to walk the stroll with some of your team and they are pros and we’re grateful to have people that do that work in that fashion.”
