Elected leaders expected to act this week
CITY HALL — The results of a $70,250 audit of the planning department arrived recently, presenting top officials at City Hall with few shocks, but lots of decisions.
Members of the City Council and Planning Commission will meet Tuesday to discuss the recommendations, which include overhauling the key documents that govern local development projects, streamlining the permit process, improving City Hall’s Web site and possibly hiring new workers.
No real surprises were contained in the 262-page report, said officials, who already were working to improve productivity and transparency in the oft-criticized department. Still, the report is methodical and thorough in its recommendations for a better planning process, officials added.
“There are a lot of real opportunities,” said Andy Agle, assistant director of City Hall’s planning department. “Our plan is that we’ll actually be working through putting together the sequencing and strategies, so that, in the fall, we’ll actually be able to put what are the sequentially most pressing recommendations into effect.
“It takes too long, and it costs too much money.” — Katz said
“We talk about helping the little person, and then we make it so complex that the little person can’t get in there and do it,”
“There are many, many recommendations and many of them are... specific ones. It’ll be a gradually rolling implementation of the recommendations.”
Included in the report are suggestions for improving the operations and management of the planning department, as well as bigger picture suggestions that address policy issues, which must be decided upon by elected leaders. The changes are expected to cost City Hall about $500,000 this year.
Many smaller local businesses have complained the current system favors corporations that can afford long approval processes. Residents have voiced frustrations over seemingly endless delays for small projects. Perhaps more troubling to City Hall is a finding in the Matrix report that the planning department from 2000 to 2003 has seen an annual turnover of 18 percent, far exceeding City Hall as a whole.
City Councilman Herb Katz said he looks forward to digging deeply into the report. Like many other community leaders, including planning department leaders, Katz feels serious work is in order.
Prepared over the last four months by the Matrix Consulting Group, the report outlines these 12 key suggestions for improving City Hall’s planning department: ■ Update, reorganize and illustrate the zoning ordinance. ■ Update the land use and circulation elements of the general plan within 36 months. ■ Have senior building inspectors spend more time in the field — with no more than one office hour a day. ■ Add a building inspector, if needed. ■ Streamline approval of simpler permits by giving individual departments more authority to approve small permits, adding workers, if necessary, and making the planning department’s Web site more useful. ■ Revise and reduce schedules for zoning applications, administrative permits and building checks. ■ Simplify the discretionary and administrative permit process, while preserving public participation. ■ Focus four staffers on long-term planning, or hire new ones. ■ Allow the civil engineering division to check all plans and permits for City Hall’s environmental and public works management department. ■ Update the code compliance section. ■ Make Planning Commission and Architectural Review Board more effective. Reduce meeting lengths. ■ Use technology to improve processes for permits, plan check, inspection and code enforcement. (To access the entire 262-page report, log on to www.santa-monica.org/city-clerk/council/information_items/2004/ Matrixindex.htm).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 12, 2004. Read the original PDF.