Service reductions at Land Registry Office irks council

Reductions in service levels seemed to have sparked a little angst amongst North Bay City Councillors.

With the movement of the city's Land Registry Offices to a conglomerated Provincial Office in Southern Ontario, many councillors are concerned about what they say will be inevitable construction delays and red tape that will undoubtedly stifle local development, investment and innovation.

With the land registry office now at such a distance, building and construction projects could be tied up, slowed down, even halted for weeks as land designations. Even simple modifications to things such as bed rock intrusions will wreak havoc on the ability of those building in Northern Ontario to make adjustments or complete projects in a timely manner.

“We can't have that,” says Councillor Dave Mendicino.

The City of North Bay is requesting the Minister of Government Services review and report on the changes being made to Ontario Land Registry Offices and further requests that the changes do not impact negatively on development through time delays or added costs to development in the North.

There are 54 Land Registry Offices in the Province of Ontario, only 11 of which are located in Northern Ontario.

Land Registry Offices play a key role in effectively and efficiently approving, registering, storing and managing documents such as subdivision plans, condominium plans, reference plans, deeds and mortgages.

Land Registry Offices have historically and promptly serviced the needs of a wide range of user groups including developers, lawyers, surveyors, freelance title searchers and the general public.

The Provincial Government has implemented an electronic registration of land-related documents.

While the electronic registration may have some benefits, the system has resulted in the downsizing of the Land Registry Office both in terms of size, personnel, service and availability of land related documents resulting in significant negative impacts to customer service.

While council understands how things work and change in the age of electronics, Mendicino says that things shouldn't change at the expense of reducing a level of service.

“We want the level of service to remain the same”, says Mendicino.

It is expected that in time the Nipissing Land Registry Office will be replaced with a kiosk which will take away a certain level of expertise.

These changes, coupled with the loss of a local Land Registrar, the loss of availability of land related documents on site for the purposes of searching and the loss of ability to have reference plans, subdivision plans or condominium plans pre-approved, processed and registered locally in a timely and cost effective manner will further erode service delivery.

Mendicino says that whereas it used to take a week to register something, it should still take no more than a week right now.

“We're talking about a short building season,” he says, “if we're having circumstances where plans with subdivisions are taking 4 to 6 months to register in March or April, that could potentially be an entire building season that is lost to that developer and consequently, it's revenue to the city that is lost as well.

“We're going to try to hold the government's feet to the fire on this one and we'll see what happens.”