“We just aren’t equipped for the volume,” he told council members representing the waterfront community of close to 9,000. Not only has the number of requests increased, municipal responses are sometimes appealed, leading to more work, Sailland said. Administration staff are watching to see if the higher volume becomes the new norm, he said. Heather Svensen, Qualicum Beach’s corporate administrator, said she has never seen anything like it in her 17 years with the municipality. Appeals require the town to go through additional documents, she said, adding: “We are talking thousands and thousands of pages” in the past year and a half.