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The Red Tape Red Carpet Task Force seeks to identify and eliminate barriers to new business and business growth in the City of Burlington.

We have two categories of recommendations. Cutting the red tape involves simplifying and streamlining the processes in starting and operating a business. Rolling out the red carpet involves strategies to attract new business to Burlington.

New businesses can face many barriers, or “red tape”, in the process of starting up. These recommendations aim to address and remove barriers to make this process simpler and more efficient. They include:

Improving agricultural business will involve:

We aim to increase efficiency by streamlining our processes and prioritizing timeline goals, such as:

We will be able to further increase efficiency by allowing more flexibility in certain areas. One way we can do this is by allowing an acceptable standard deviation for development related plans and drawings that better accounts for the use of imperial measurements.

We can provide better direction for staff by emphasizing progress tracking and reporting, such as:

We aim to make our technology more intuitive and streamlined by:

These recommendations aim to brand our City as a place where businesses can thrive in order to attract new business. They include:

We aim to establish a strong, recognizable brand for the City by:

There are many ways we can actively encourage and attract business, such as:

We can adjust our organizational structures to prioritize our business attraction goals by:

The Red Tape Red Carpet Task Force initiative was announced in January 2019. We gathered feedback from hundreds of local business owners, city partners and staff through:

Using your ideas and insight, we created 22 actionable recommendations that were approved by Council in September 2019.

We are tracking our progress in meeting our recommendations with monthly updates.

We welcome ongoing feedback from the business community. Share your ideas on where you see areas for improvement on Get Involved Burlington.

426 Brant Street, PO Box 5013, Burlington, Ontario L7R 3Z6

Email: city@burlington.ca Phone: 905-335-7777

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