Report Assails Beleaguered Planning Department : City government: Preliminary audit says city staff’s low morale, unclear policies, bureaucracy and other problems are affecting the community.

Beset by delays, staff turnover and unclear guidelines on land-use policy, the city of San Diego’s Planning Department is failing the public that depends on it to review construction projects that range from room additions to huge residential developments, a preliminary audit released Wednesday contended.

The first stage of the management audit, which was ordered by the City Council in the wake of this spring’s sex-and-hush-money scandal involving former Planning Director Robert Spaulding, also criticizes the department for low morale, too few minority employees and too many layers of management.

But the report, which is largely a collection of categories that Deputy City Manager Severo Esquivel promises to investigate further, lays no blame for the turmoil and proposes no solutions. That information will come when the full report is released in September, said Esquivel, who authored the study with City Auditor Ed Ryan.

Spaulding, who was fired after the council learned of a secret $98,000 payment to settle a sex-harassment claim against him by former Gaslamp Quarter planner Susan Bray, declined to answer questions about the audit, saying his comments now would be inappropriate.

“The public is not happy with the Planning Department,” Esquivel said.

“What we’re trying to do as a council is come up with a department that is serving the community,” said Mayor Maureen O’Connor, noting that Spaulding was hired in 1987 to provide applicants with easy and less expensive access to planning decisions.

“In fact, what you’re finding out is the exact opposite was happening,” O’Connor added. “It was more bureaucracy, more money.”

Rebounding from the Spaulding-Bray scandal is only the most spectacular of the problems facing the embattled Planning Department.

Lawsuits against the city filed by Spaulding and Bray total more than $5 million. Spaulding, who has said that Bray consented to their two-year affair, is seeking his job back. Bray is accusing city officials of violating a clause in the secret agreement negotiated by former City Manager John Lockwood that guaranteed her confidentiality.

The council voted earlier this month to cut $3 million from the department’s budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, eliminating 58 positions and 38 staffers--all of whom were assured Tuesday that they will be absorbed in other city departments, Esquivel said.

Persistent complaints of staff turnover, plummeting morale and catering to developers have surfaced since Spaulding arrived and began the shake-up that the council hired him to oversee. O’Connor says the department’s “old guard” and “new guard” continue to struggle.

Wednesday’s report noted that turnover in the department “is not excessive relative to the planning profession as a whole” but said it “has had unusually disruptive effects on department effectiveness and morale.”

Esquivel said morale in the department is rising from the low point it reached after the Spaulding scandal and the budget cuts but is not yet “back to neutral.”

One of the bright points to come out of the more than 50 interviews conducted so far is the presence of some “talented, creative, bright people in that department,” he said. But many are stymied by the organization’s overall ineffectiveness and turmoil, he said.

A separate review of the city’s land-use and zoning regulations also is expected to help streamline planning, city officials have said.