It’s back to the drawing board for Kenora’s Official Plan and Zoning by-law.

The city last submitted an official plan to the province back in 2020, but it languished on provincial desks for two years.

The city’s Chief Administrative Officer Kyle Attanasio says they are now putting out a contract to do a new Official plan.

“We just want to make sure we do that right,” Attanasio told council’s Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday morning.

“Right now, this trying to do these one-off amendments, putting band-aids, on band-aids, on band-aids, we really need a clean slate and we need a fresh Official Plan and Zoning By-Law from which to work.”

The city is working with the 2015 Official Plan, which Attanasio says is significantly out of date.

The contract is worth $100,000 dollars, but Attanasio doesn’t believe the city has enough staff to do it properly in-house.

“I can tell you that I hear loudly and clearly from members of the community that we need to make sure that our Planning and Building departments are moving quickly and smoothly.  It would be a risk to the city and it’s ability to keep Planning and Building applications moving smoothly, if we decided to keep this in-house.”

In a report to council, the Planning department says, “In late 2022, the Planning and Building Department’s strategy was to conduct the Official Plan review using internal staff resources. Upon further review, that strategy will take longer to complete.”

Attanasio told council he believes it would take another 12 to 14 month to have an Official Plan ready to go even if a private contractor develops it.