I am a professional engineer…

I am a professional engineer engaged in the residential home building and land development business in the Belleville/Trenton area and have been frustrated with the lengthy time periods that it has always taken to obtain our ECA's (and the former C of A's). In addition to the lengthy period waiting for approvals, it is impossible to obtain a reasonable response to what the current approval time-frames are. It is therefore impossible to schedule our subdivision projects not knowing when our approval will be forthcoming.
The design for these works is carried out at the local level by licensed practicing engineering professionals, reviewed and approved by professional staff at both the municipality and local conservation authority, and this additional level of review and approval seems unnecessary and adds no value to the process. Typically out of the blue, months after submission, contact is made by a ministry approval staff member to our engineers with invariably some questions about the design and/or submitted supporting data. Never has the provincial review and approval resulted in any change to the design as submitted. We have no idea why the province would need to review and approve these works that they will have no ownership or investment in. The fees and the time delays involved in obtaining this unnecessary approval is a definite impediment to our business operations, with no benefit to anyone that we can ascertain.
We currently have an application for a residential subdivision in the system that was submitted in February and although we would like to commence work, we have no idea when our application will be reviewed and approved, and consequently cannot even begin to schedule our work. The fact that our area has a shortage of serviced residential building lots makes this situation very frustrating.