Clear Activity Classification and Decision Rules

Replace ad hoc classification with a short operational guide that helps staff place each business in the correct activity class. The guide should handle common borderline cases, mixed activities, home-based businesses, and seasonal operations in a predictable way. This improves fairness, reduces argument at the counter, and makes the written fee schedule usable in day-to-day practice.

• Similar businesses are being charged differently across wards or counters.

• Frontline staff rely heavily on personal judgment when assigning categories.

• Disputes about the right class are common and slow down registration or renewal.

The municipality needs authority to issue administrative guidance under the existing schedule. In most cases this does not require rewriting the underlying fee structure.

Prepare a short decision tree with worked examples, brief staff training, and supervisor review for complex cases. Keep the guide updated as new case types appear.

• The approved schedule is itself so vague or contradictory that no practical decision guide can solve the problem without a legal change.

Replace ad hoc classification with a short operational guide that helps staff place each business in the correct activity class. The guide should handle common borderline cases, mixed activities, home-based businesses, and seasonal operations in a predictable way. This improves fairness, reduces argument at the counter, and makes the written fee schedule usable in day-to-day practice.

• Review the existing schedule and identify the classification decisions that create the most confusion, especially mixed activities, home-based firms, and borderline cases.

• Turn that review into a short operational guide with examples, a decision tree, and a small number of mandatory evidence checks.

• Train frontline staff and supervisors together so appeals and counter decisions are based on the same logic.

• Require second-level review for difficult or high-value cases and revise the guide every year as new business models appear.

The municipality needs authority to issue administrative guidance under the existing schedule. In most cases this does not require rewriting the underlying fee structure.

Prepare a short decision tree with worked examples, brief staff training, and supervisor review for complex cases. Keep the guide updated as new case types appear.

• Similar businesses are being charged differently across wards or counters.

• Frontline staff rely heavily on personal judgment when assigning categories.

• Disputes about the right class are common and slow down registration or renewal.

• The approved schedule is itself so vague or contradictory that no practical decision guide can solve the problem without a legal change.

• The city cannot yet prove the charging basis well enough to defend corrections and explain them clearly to affected users.

• The main operational risk is uneven treatment. Similar businesses should not be reclassified differently because different officers handle them.

• Where politically connected firms are part of the problem, start with sectors where the legal evidence is strongest and the public case is easiest to defend.