The City of Grande Prairie proudly accepted the 2025 Minister’s Award for Municipal Excellence at the City Council meeting held September 8, 2025 for work done to streamline the development permitting process.

The City won in the Red Tape Reduction or Service Delivery Enhancement award category for streamlining the permitting process by consolidating three separate applications - development permit, building permit, and civil site work - into a single, unified application and moving to a digital platform. 

This transformation simplifies the user experience, reduces duplication, and accelerates processing times. By enabling concurrent review of all components, the City has significantly improved efficiency, reduced red tape, and enhanced clarity for applicants - demonstrating a strong commitment to innovation and responsive service delivery.

“The City of Grande Prairie is grateful to receive the 2025 Minister’s Award for Municipal Excellence for our work in Red Tape Reduction and as recognition of our ongoing spirit of innovation and continuous improvement for service delivery and support. The work done by Administration to streamline and optimize our permitting process is already making a significant difference in improving application submissions, turnaround times and customer satisfaction, in turn helping developers get shovels in the ground and supporting our economic and community growth. We’re thankful for everyone involved in making this project a success and this award possible,” said Mayor Jackie Clayton. 

"As a builder in Grande Prairie, I genuinely appreciate the City's efforts to collaborate too improve the systems we use. Despite the inherent limitations, I feel they have actively listened to us and implemented the most beneficial changes. I am very pleased to see the individuals involved receive recognition for their hard work,” said Jordan Gregson, President of BILD Grande Prairie.

About the Initiative

The primary goal of the initiative was to create a more efficient, user-friendly, and transparent permitting process that supports development and enhances the customer experience. Key desired outcomes included:

• Streamlining the Application Process: Replace three separate applications with a single, consolidated form to reduce redundancy, eliminate duplicated information entry, and simplify the process for applicants.
• Reducing Processing Times: Enable concurrent reviews of development, building, and civil site work applications to significantly shorten the overall permitting timeline.
• Digitizing and Automating Services: Transition from a paper-based system to an electronic submission platform to increase accessibility, reduce physical handling, and allow for more efficient tracking and communication.
• Improving Customer Satisfaction: Make the process easier to navigate, more predictable, and less time-consuming for developers, businesses, and residents.
• Enhancing Internal Efficiency: Reduce administrative workload and manual data entry for staff, allowing them to focus on value-added tasks and provide more responsive service.
• Supporting Economic Growth: Enable faster project approvals, helping developers bring projects to market more quickly and supporting broader community development goals.

The City of Grande Prairie has seen measurable and meaningful results following the implementation of its streamlined, single-application permitting process. The initiative has delivered significant efficiency gains for both applicants and internal staff, with the following key performance indicators:

• Reduction in turnaround time for permitting approvals from 10 business days to 2-5 business days 
• Time and cost savings for applicants
• Internal efficiency gain of 45 minutes of staff review time per application 
• Increase in digital submissions 
• Improved customer experience based on feedback from stakeholders
• Province-leading turnaround time based on the Alberta Municipal Indicators dashboard 

These outcomes reflect the City of Grande Prairie’s commitment to innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement in municipal service delivery.

The City of Grande Prairie is thankful to all the stakeholders, customers and staff for their feedback and engagement in making this initiative possible. 

About the Minister’s Award for Municipal Excellence

The Minister’s Award for Municipal Excellence recognizes initiatives that demonstrate a first-time or unique use of an idea in Alberta. The Red Tape Reduction or Service Delivery Enhancement is awarded for an initiative that exemplifies: 

• Improving upon or presenting a new approach to how a municipality can deliver a program or service
• Streamlining processes and reducing administrative requirements, leading to more efficient service delivery
• Saving time, money, and/or resources by implementing practices that enhance operational effectiveness
• Reducing regulatory, policy, or procedural requirements to simplify access to municipal services for residents and businesses, and/or
• Promoting transparency and accountability in municipal operations, fostering trust within the community.