HomeMy WebLinkAbout13 - Planning Department Staffing and OrganizationCITY OF NEWPORT BEACH
CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT
Agenda Item No. 13
January 9, 2007
TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL
FROM: City Manager's Office
Homer Bludau, City Manager, 949 -644 -3000
hbldau@city.newport-beach.ca.us
Sharon Wood, Assistant City Manager, 949 -644 -3222
swood(cD-city. newport- beach.ca. us
Planning Department
David Lepo, Planning Director, 949 -644 -3285
dlepo@city.newport-beach.ca.us
SUBJECT: Planning Department Staffing and Organization
ISSUE:
How should the Planning Department be staffed and the City's development review and
plan checking functions be organized to provide good service to customers in
development review and plan check?
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Approve the addition of four positions in the Planning Department: one Associate
Planner, two Assistant Planners, and one Planning Technician.
2. Approve a budget amendment transferring $189,025 from unappropriated
General Fund reserve to the Planning Department budget, as follows:
a. $128,125 to 2710 -7000 Salaries
b. $10,900 to 2710 -9000 Office Equipment for additional staff
c. $50,000 to 2710 -8080 Professional and Technical Services for document
imaging
DISCUSSION:
The City Council received a report evaluating the development review and plan
checking processes at their study session of September 26, 2006. One of the problems
Planning Department Staffing and Organization
January 9, 2007
Page 2
identified in the evaluation is the lack of timeliness on the part of the Planning
Department, because the staffing level has not kept up with the increased workload.
The City Council directed staff to evaluate the need for additional Planning Department
staff and provide specific recommendations to the Council.
A staffing analysis was not part of Hogle- Ireland's scope of work for the study presented
in September, but their observations during the study led them to suggest the addition
of four positions. City staff has completed a more detailed study of changes in workload
and staffing over the last six years. In addition, the interim Planning Director has taken
actions to improve Department efficiency, outlined in a report for the City Council
meeting of November 28, 2006, and has had time to assess the Department's workload
and staff resources. The specific recommendations in this report are based on all of
these observations and analyses.
Background
The Planning Department has been organized into four sections: Current Planning, Plan
Check/Zoning Administrator, Advance Planning and Economic Development. The first
two sections, which are responsible for development review and plan checking, have
been overwhelmed by their increasing workload. Building permit valuation in Newport
Beach increased by 34% from 2000 -01 to 2005 -06, and was over $300 million in 2005 -
06. The Current Planning and/or Plan Check/Zoning Administrator staff play a role in
the issuance of all these permits.
We have taken a number of small steps to address the increase in workload, trying to
avoid significant increases in staff for what we thought was a peak in development
activity that would not continue. Attachment 1 shows the change in staffing since 1991.
Since 2000 -01, Current Planning staff was increased by 20% and our use of overtime
has increased by nearly 70% and our use of consultants by 50 %. Overtime and
consultant hours together amount to approximately .5 full time equivalent (FTE) staff.
Even with these extra hours, staff cannot bring applications to public hearing as quickly
as property. owners would like. If so many of the projects did not involve legislative acts,
the City would likely not be able to comply with the Permit Streamlining Act, and could
risk having applications approved by operation of law without full City review. Plan
Check/Zoning Administrator staff was increased by 9% and their overtime increased by
nearly 40 %. We have also attempted to use consultants for plan check, with mixed
success. Two consulting staff left us for other job opportunities after less than a year of
training and productive work. Another part-time consultant has been with us for the past
three months. She is effective at the public counter, providing more quiet time for the
Planning Technician to check plans and increasing the productivity of the Planning
Technician. Since November 2006, Current Planning staff have been assisting with
plan check, especially on their own discretionary review cases. This has helped with
the backlog, but is not enough to meet the City's 4 -week goal for first round of plan
check.
Planning Department Staffing and Organization
January 9, 2007
Page 3
In addition to not keeping up with development activity, we have not been able to
accomplish many other important things, listed below.
• Regularly review and update codes, policies and regulations to reflect changes in
California Law
• Review and update Zoning Code to address problems and community concerns
• Provide up -to -date informational handouts
• Proactively monitor past discretionary approvals; especially annual review of
Development Agreements
• Respond to zoning amendment requests by City Council
• Regularly review and update local CEQA guidelines
• Implement the Housing Element
• Improve interdepartmental coordination
• Improve Department administration (e.g. regular staffing analysis; fee updates for
development review, park dedication, etc.; manuals for administrative procedures
and Zoning Code interpretations; time tracking and applicant billing; file
management and document imaging)
• Provide staff training
Plan Check/Zonina Administrator
This is the section of the Planning Department that is commonly referred to as "plan
check," but the five staff members in this section perform many other functions. In fact,
plan check activities use only about 40% of the staff time in this section. The next
largest consumer of staff time is customer service, which uses 33% of the staff hours in
this section. This function includes telephone calls and visits to the counter by property
owners or architects asking questions about the Zoning Code, application requirements
and procedures, application status, etc. Approximately 20% of staff time is devoted to
the Zoning Administrator function, including modification permits, condominium
conversions, parcel maps, Planning Director use permits, etc. The remaining staff time
is used on approvals in concept (for Coastal Commission permits), addressing changes,
telecommunication permits, etc.
Analysis of the workload in this section shows that the volume of some applications has
remained fairly constant over the past six years, while others have increased
dramatically.
Plan check applications have increased by about 7 %, although the number of reviews
per plan check application (the number of times a Planner handles a project) has
increased by about 84% (See Attachment 2). This reflects the increasing complexity of
projects, applicants' desires to maximize use of their properties, staffs review of
additional detail and additional caution since discovering fraud in some applications a
few years ago, and the submittal of incomplete applications by design professionals
Planning Department Staffing and Organization
January 9, 2007
Page 4
who are overwhelmed with work and want to tell clients that an application has been
submitted to the City.
Staff met the City's 4 -week goal for first round of plan check in the second half of 2002,
when each FTE reviewed an average of 465 applications. During 2005 -06, each FTE
was assigned an average of 570 applications, representing an increase of 23 %.
Increasing the staff . devoted to plan check (currently 2 FTE) by 23 %, or .5 FTE, should
enable us to meet the 4 -week turnaround goal, assuming no change in the complexity
of applications. However, since the complexity of projects has increased by 84 %, a
comparable staff increase would be 1.5 FTE, for a total of 2 additional FTE for the plan
check function.
The most dramatic increase in number of applications is in those reviewed by the
Zoning Administrator. Although modification permits have remained steady at an
average of 115 per year, other applications have increased by 165% since 2000 -01
(See Attachment 3). This function uses about 1 FTE. If increased commensurate with
the workload increase, approximately 1.5 FTE would be added to this function.
This analysis indicates that a total of 3.5 FTE should be added to the plan check/Zoning
Administrator section. Staff is recommending 3 new positions: 2 Assistant Planners and
1 Planning Technician. One Assistant Planner would be assigned to support the Zoning
administrator, while the other Assistant Planner and the Planning Technician would join
an existing Assistant Planner in the public counter team. We would continue the
recently established practice of assigning staff in the Current Planning section the
responsibility for plan check on their own discretionary review projects. Two existing
Assistant Planners would work with the Current Planning section in a new case
processing team.
Current Planning
This section of the Department, with three staff members, prepares all applications for
review by the Planning Commission, and City Council if needed. The majority of staff
time is spent on application review and processing, including research, environmental
review, consultant selection and management, coordination with Public Works and other
departments, meetings with applicants, staff report preparation and attendance at
Planning Commission and City Council meetings. As with the plan check section,
considerable time is also spent on customer service. This involves potential applicants
for larger, more complicated projects learning what approvals are needed, how projects
may be changed to comply with City codes, and application requirements and timing.
The workload and the complexity of projects in this section have also increased since
2001 -02. The number of projects reviewed increased by 16 %, while the number of
approvals needed for each project increased by 65% (See Attachment 4). The increase
in approvals needed is four times greater than the increase in projects, and the number
Planning Department Staffing and Organization
January 9, 2007
Page 5
of approvals needed per project increased by 36 %, both indications of the greater
complexity of cases coming before the City.
Increasing the current staff of 3 FTE by 36 %, consistent with the increase in application
complexity, would add 1 FTE. An Associate Planner is needed for this section because
of the complexity of the projects.
Other Oroanizational Chances
As well as proposing additional staff, we are changing the organizational structure of the
department to increase efficiency, improve service to the public, foster more
communication and provide staff development opportunities.
• The Current Planning section will incorporate three teams: case processing,
public counter and Zoning Administrator.
• In addition to plan check assignments, two Assistant Planners now in the Plan
Check/Zoning Administrator section will assist the case processing team with
discretionary review cases that are considered by the Planning Commission.
• All staff in the Current Planning section will plan check their own discretionary
projects.
• Every Assistant Planner in Current Planning will work at the public counter for 8
hours each week. This will provide greater assistance to members of the public
who need information, as well as provide quiet, uninterrupted time for the public
counter team to do plan check with greater efficiency.
• Site visits for Zoning Administrator cases will be handled more efficiently with one
.Assistant Planner assigned to that team.
• Some tasks will be re- assigned to clerical staff to increase the productivity of
planners.
• The Planning Technician job description will be revised to remove.this position
from the Planning series and make it clear that it is a plan check job.and not a
Planner position. We think this will enable us to attract and retain candidates
who have the correct technical training for plan check and who will not be
frustrated by limited opportunities to use planning skills and advance in the
Planning job series.
In addition, the City Manager is making changes to the City's organizational structure to
increase inter - departmental coordination and improve service in the development
review and plan checking functions. Both the Building and Planning Departments will
be supervised by Assistant City Manager. Sharon Wood, and ways to improve
coordination with Public Works and other departments are being explored.
Planning Department Staffing and Organization
January 9, 2007
Page 6
Office Space
There is not space for any additional staff in the existing Planning Department offices.
The Public Works Department is preparing to locate another portable building on the
City Hall site to house their new staff approved in this fiscal year's budget, and
additional Planning staff. The Planning Department also needs additional space at the
public counter, especially with the rotation of Assistant Planners to counter duty. We
intend to convert the existing first floor "Public Works" conference room to additional
Planning counter and office space. The conference room will be replaced in the new
portable building.
Document Imaviing
Contributing to the lack of space and organization in the Planning Department is an
extremely high volume of documents that must be retained and accessed regularly.
Older files are stored on microfiche, but more recent ones are still in paper, in
anticipation of electronic scanning and storage. Staff has obtained a vendor proposal to
convert Planning files to electronic format. The cost for this service is $124,060. In
addition to scanning the files, data on each case must be entered in Permits Plus for
future retrieval and research. Staff believes that this task could be accomplished with
temporary staff at a cost of $20,260. We would also need additional file server storage
at a cost of $5,000. Total costs are estimated to be $149,320. Because sign cant in-
house staff time (1,015 hours) would be needed to organize and catalog files, research
data and control quality, we are suggesting that document imaging be spread over three
fiscal years.
Summary
We believe that, with the staff complement recommended in this report, the Planning
Department will provide better customer service, including more complete information to
property owners and potential developers earlier in the process, timely Planning
Commission consideration of discretionary cases (although still dependent on
completeness of application materials, environmental review and complexity of cases),
and first round of plan check completed in 4 weeks. We also expect the staff to be
more knowledgeable and more likely to stay in Newport Beach due to a greater variety
in work assignments and increased communication among staff members. Finally, with
sufficient staff in the Current Planning.section, the need to `borrow" staff from Advance
Planning will decrease, providing the staff time needed for code reviews and updates,
development agreement reviews, Housing Element implementation, etc.
However, the City Council should be aware that there will be some time lag in
implementing these recommendations, due to the staff recruitment process and the
possibility of in -house promotions, which lead to more recruitment to fill vacant
positions. In addition, the portable building must be in place and equipped before new
Planning Department Staffing and Organization
January 9, 2007
Page 7
staff can be accommodated, and physical changes are needed to the public counter
area so that more staff can be located there.
FUNDING AVAILABILITY;
The estimated cost of salaries and benefits for the four recommended positions is
$307,251 for a full fiscal year ($93,473 — Associate Planner, $75,712 - Assistant
Planner, and $62,354 - Planning Technician, ). In fiscal year 2005 -06, revenue for
Planning services was approximately $550,000, and salary and benefit costs directly
related to development review were $893,040, so that the City recovered approximately
60% of Planning costs related to development review. The City has never had a policy
to recover 100% of these costs from applicants. For example, appeal fees are set at
50% of the estimated average cost, so that neighbors of development sites are not
prevented from exercising their rights. In addition, staff spends a considerable amount
of time on customer service, which the City should provide to its citizens and is not
recoverable. Staff is currently improving timekeeping and billing for hourly fee projects;
with these efforts and the upcoming comprehensive fee review, cost recovery should
improve.
For the five months remaining in this fiscal year, staff costs are $128,125. Office
equipment will cost $10,900. Costs for the first year of the document imaging project
are $50,000. Staff is recommending a budget amendment to provide the necessary
funds from the unappropriated General Fund reserve.
Submitted by:
OMER BLUDAU
City Manager
0 ��� �-
SHARON WOOD
Assistant City Manager
�AVIDQ!EP0
Planning Director
Attachments: 1. Staffing Levels by Function
2. Plan Reviews & Plan Checks
3. Modifications/Zoning Administrator Actions
4. Planning Project Complexity.
5. Budget Amendment
a♦
n
a
n
3
m
3
rr
Plan Reviews & Plan Checks
7000
6000 - ----------------------- - - - - -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
5000 -------------- - - - - -- ------- - -- - -- ------ - - - - -- --
d
4000 ------ - - - - -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
t�
O
CL3000 - ---------- - - - - -- - - - - - -- ---------------------------------------- - - - - -- - ----------------------------- - - - - -- --
t°
2000 -- - -- - - --- - - -- - -- - -- - ----------------------- --- - ----------------- -- - - - - - - - - -- -
1000 --------------- ° ----- --------------------- - - - - -- ----------------------------------------------------------------
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Year
1-4—Reviews --l— Checks
FM
rt
n
m
r+
N
Modifications /Zoning Actions
350
300 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -- ------- - - - - --
�a 250 --------------------------------------------- ----- - - - - --
m
m 200
------ - - - - -- --------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -- --- - - - - --
0
a150 - - - -- -------------------------- - - - - -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
0
F- 100 - - - - - -- ------- - - - - -- - - ._. - --------- - - - - -- --------------------
50 ------------ --- .- ----------- - - - - -- ------------------------------- ----------------------------------- - - - - - --
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Year
Modifications -*- Zoning Actions
o.
n
3
m
450
400
350
H 300
H
250
a 200
�°. 150
0
~ 100
50
0
Planning Project Complexity
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Year
= Approvals needed —4— Projects
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City of Newport Beach
BUDGET AMENDMENT
2006 -07
EFFECT ON
BUDGETARY FUND BALANCE:
Increase Revenue Estimates
X
Increase Expenditure Appropriations AND
2710
Transfer Budget Appropriations
SOURCE:
Number
7000
from existing budget appropriations
NX
from additional estimated revenues
2710
from unappropriated fund balance
EXPLANATION:
NO. BA- 07BA -036
AMOUNT: $189,025.00
Increase in Budgetary Fund Balance
�X
Decrease in Budgetary Fund Balance
No effect on Budgetary Fund Balance
This budget amendment is requested to provide for the following:
To increase expenditure appropriations for salaries, office equipment, and professional/technical services for the
Planning Department. The increase is associated with additional staff and document imaging services.
ACCOUNTING ENTRY:
BUDGETARY FUND BALANCE
Fund Account Description
010 3605 General Fund - Fund Balance
REVENUE ESTIMATES (3601)
Fund/Division Accoun
EXPENDITURE APPROPRIATIONS (3603)
Description
Signed:
Signed:
Financial Approval:
Administrative
Services Director
City Manager
Amount
Debit Credit
$189,025.00
AutomaSc
$128,125.00
$10,900.00
$50,000.00
/- -,off
Date
-.3� °7
Date
Signed:
City Council Approval: City Clerk Date
Description .
Division
Number
2710
Planning - Administration
Account
Number
7000
Salaries - Misc
Division
Number,
2710
Planning - Administration
Account
Number
9000
Office Equipment
Division
Number
2710
Planning - Administration
Account
Number
8080
Services - Prof & Tech NOC
Division
Number
Account
Number
Division
Number
Account
Number
Signed:
Signed:
Financial Approval:
Administrative
Services Director
City Manager
Amount
Debit Credit
$189,025.00
AutomaSc
$128,125.00
$10,900.00
$50,000.00
/- -,off
Date
-.3� °7
Date
Signed:
City Council Approval: City Clerk Date