Mayor Mat Siscoe asking city departments to prioritize work
Increased pressure is being put on the City of St. Catharines to speed up housing developments.
This is coming from Mayor Mat Siscoe, who has directed city staff to enhance working with developers to get work done, and speed up planning and development applications.
The city says this includes improved customer focus, such as picking up the phone and working with developers to get issues dealt with quickly and amicably.
All departments are being asked to prioritize development applications, and get residential and multi-use projects in front of city council quickly for approval.
City departments must also think of solutions to technical issues.
The mayor also hopes this advances federal funding, such as the Housing Accelerator Fund, to resolve a long-standing lack of engineering services, and expand the project expeditor program.

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