Greg Brown sworn in, immediately gets to work helping city approve pilot program to expedite planning approval process
The La Cañada Flintridge City Council on Tuesday swore in newly appointed member Greg Brown and agreed to initiate a pilot program that would expedite the planning process for certain large-scale projects, in hopes of reducing a roughly 5.8-month average approval time.
The council approved two consultant contracts — one for planning services and the other for planning and architectural consulting — to Willdan Engineering and Lilley Planning Group, each not to exceed $45,000. Community Development Director Robert Stanley explained the two firms would make employees available to handle expedited cases and to support the LCF Planning Department for the purpose of streamlining the overall planning process.
“Obviously, if we have more staff or are using a consultant, it’ll definitely go faster,” Stanley said. “It should definitely reduce the times.”
Applicants would pay a lump-sum deposit to expedite the planning application process for a particular project, paying an additional 20% for associated administrative costs. In return, Stanley said, they would have a “dedicated planner working just on your project, with no interruptions and nothing else to do but that project.”
Expedited cases would be limited to about two per month, with some room for flexibility based on the Planning Department’s case load. After six months, the department would evaluate the program’s overall success and make adjustments if needed.
Offering preferential treatment for a fee came in response to complaints from homeowners and contractors about what seemed to be extraordinary wait times for larger projects to be heard and approved by the Planning Commission.
On Tuesday, Stanley estimated that, according to a report conducted in 2004, a standard application without director’s reviews took roughly two and a half months to process. Since then, he said, the addition of several other review categories, state regulations and city ordinances have complicated the process, consequently compounding applicant wait times.
By comparison, a rough calculation of applications completed in 2016, which considered the time period from submission to the date a project was heard by the Planning Commission, indicated an average process time of 5.8 months.
“It did go up, probably doubled from what we had in [2004],” he told the council. “We don’t know all the factors that feed into that, but we did see an increase.”
The fees paid by applicants to expedite the planning process would ultimately pay for the cost of extra consultants and city staff used to process the request, while the contract amounts approved Tuesday would allow the consultants to assist the Planning Department in whatever way they needed.
Councilman Jon Curtis agreed something should be done to address numerous complaints received from contractors and community members about an almost prohibitive approval time, but asked staff if there was a way to more accurately calculate what standard processing times should be, so as to inform the public and know if the expedited process was actually working.
“We need some sort of metric just to figure out where we’re at,” agreed Councilman Len Pieroni. “If we don’t have something to measure we’re not going to know where to make corrections, if there are any.”
Brown, who served on the council from 2003 to 2011, said the planning process has come a long way, but still needs improvement.
“To have to pay a fee just to get an appropriate time for your project to be heard I find a problem — we ought to be supplying a basic level of service that’s acceptable,” he said.
Stanley said he’d aim to have some more refined estimates on the current processing times and what standard times might be used to guide the pilot program’s success by September.
New council member sworn in, LCF searching for new finance director
In his swearing-in ceremony Tuesday, Brown took the official oath of office and joined his new council colleagues on the dais. Brown, a previous council member who was selected in a special July 13 meeting to fill a vacancy left by the May 16 passing of Councilman Dave Spence, thanked the council for its confidence in his ability to serve.
“I really look forward to working with you, to keeping things going, to moving forward and keeping this city as great as it is and will continue to be,” Brown said before recognizing wife Joyce and daughter Melanie, who were in attendance.
“I don’t want to make a big speech — I just want to get to work,” he added.
As the city welcomed a new team member, City Manager Mark Alexander told council members city officials were in the process of recruiting candidates for the position of city finance director, replacing former director Dan Jordan.
Hired in 2008, Jordan left on June 30 to accept the position of finance director for the community of Westlake Village. The deadline for interested applicants is Aug. 14.
Twitter: @SaraCardine
