The City of North Vancouver may be re-examining its daycare approval policy after several city councillors described the current application process as "flawed."

Anyone hoping to open a daycare for more than eight children in a residential area of the city must comply with an array of requirements to obtain a business licence. They must develop a parking and traffic mitigation plan to the satisfaction of the city engineer, canvas all the neighbours with 100 metres for their opinion, and finally come before council to request the licence.

The bylaws were set up in April of 2009 in response to a long-running feud between a daycare and its neighbours over noise and traffic. The issue was hotly debated and finally passed by a 4-3 vote.

Daycares are also regulated by health authorities.

Last week, council heard the third application to be handled under the new rules. The previous two were both for expansions of existing daycares -- Future Scholars on Mahon Avenue and Kidsland on East Fifth Street -- and both were approved. The July 20 application was from Sybil Edwards, whose Great Beginnings daycare is looking for a new location after the lease expired on its current District of North Vancouver building.

She hopes to set up a daycare for 15 to 20 children at 248 East 19th St. after the landlord renovates the house.

The operator of Future Scholars had to contact 57 residents within a 100-metre radius, a process he described as "too long and kind of hard." The Kidsland daycare had 36 neighbours to try to reach. Because of the duplex zoning surrounding the proposed Great Beginnings house, Edwards had 93 separate residences to contact. Complicating this even further was the fact that some of the residents who expressed support for the daycare were renters and in some cases the property owner didn't share their tenants' opinion.

As in the Kidsland meeting, several residents told council that Edwards' colour-coded map of responses had misrepresented them.

"We've now seen this process is flawed," said Coun. Mary Trentadue. "It doesn't work that well. You go out and ask people's opinion about something and then they change their minds. They have a right to do that. Or they don't understand what you're asking, or they don't want to say no to you. The process we put out for applicants and the public is not working."

Coun. Rod Clark, a supporter of the 2009 regulations, agreed that the survey requirement "is indeed flawed," particularly in its handling of rented homes.

Coun. Craig Keating, perhaps the most vocal opponent of the daycare bylaws, said the city had "gone down a terrible road with the process we've got here.

"We used to spend most of our time not having applicants run around doing neighbourhood surveys but having applicants deal with issues as they came up," he said, adding that 900 North Vancouver families were unable to find spaces for their children.

"The biggest problem with daycares is there aren't enough of them," he said.

Mayor Darrell Mussatto, who also dissented in 2009, said Great Beginnings was in "an appropriate place."

"What, are we going to put them in industrial areas?" he said. "These are kids in our community."

Council voted 6-1 to approve the business licence, with Coun. Guy Heywood the lone vote against.