Hang around City Hall long enough and you're bound to hear someone call the city's development process "business unfriendly."
A new report commissioned by city leaders stopped short of giving that label to the approval process that new projects must go through, but it does recommend upward of $1 million worth of enhancements to the system.
"It showed, bottom line, there are opportunities for improvement," Assistant City Manager Debbie Van Saun said.
City commissioners at their weekly meeting tonight will have to begin deciding whether they have the money to pump into the system.
"I think we have to tackle a bunch of this," said City Commissioner Sue Hack, who served on a committee that worked with the consultants. "The message has been delivered by the consultants loud and clear that we have some improvements we must make."
New software, staff
The $85,000 report by Matrix Consulting made several recommendations. They include:
¢ Spending between $250,000 and $700,000 on a new computer software system that would allow all relevant city departments to better organize and coordinate their work on development reviews. The software also would allow the city to post more information on its Web sites for the public to access about specific development proposals.
Adrian Jones, a city structural inspector, surveys a construction site at the Lake View Villas at Alvamar. A city report has suggested that the hiring of new staff, including additional plan examiners in the building inspections department, and a new computer software system will improve the city's development process. Jones worked Monday at the west Lawrence site.
¢ Merging the city's Planning Department with its Neighborhood Resources Department, which is responsible for issuing building permits and enforcing zoning codes. The new department would be called the Department of Community Development. The report estimates $25,000 in merger costs.
¢ Creating a new one-stop development center that would house the new Department of Community Development. It also would include space for plan reviewers from the Utilities Department, Traffic Engineering, Public Works, Fire & Medical and other departments that routinely review development proposals. No cost estimate is given to create the one-stop shop, but Van Saun said it likely would require the city to purchase or lease additional office space.
¢ Spending $108,000 to hire two new plan examiners, which are staff members who help determine whether a building permit is ready to be issued.
¢ Hiring two new city planners at a cost of $110,000. The city planners review projects before they win approval to ensure that they meet the city's various long-range, neighborhood, transportation and area plans.
¢ Upgrade two existing planner positions to senior planner positions at a cost of $25,000.
¢ Review the role and operations of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission, which the report said often meets late into the night and has a "practice of extensive discussion to occur on items of relatively little controversy." The consultants also said the Planning Commission needed more direction on whether its role was to review projects, set policy or do both.
Seeking consistency
Many of the recommendations sound good to Bobbie Flory, executive director of the Lawrence Home Builders Assn. Flory said the process of getting a building permit had become easier with some recent online additions made by the city. But she said builders and developers still are befuddled by a lack of consistency in what's needed to receive approval.
"A big part of the problem is that developers get conflicting recommendations from city departments, and find out late in the process about conditions or requirements that have huge impacts on the economic viability of the project," Flory said.
Hack said those issues, in addition to the amount of time it takes a project to go through the development review process, were her concerns as well. But she said any changes had to be balanced with the need to ensure the city remained well-planned and focused on quality development.
"I really do want to stress that none of this will mean that a developer can come in and it will all be smooth sailing and we'll get it done no matter what," Hack said. "We do have standards and people will have to meet them. We just want them to be applied fairly and consistently."
Comments
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lunacydetector (anonymous) says…
it's the mindset of city hall that needs to change, starting at the top with the anti-business commissioners.
my free of charge suggestion is: deprogramming sessions for staff -like they use for cult members to change their brainwashed ways.
no need to stop short of calling lawrence, "business UNfriendly." lawrence, kansas IS "business UNfriendly." just ask anyone.
Solomon (anonymous) says…
Wow! One million dollars to consolidate. Back in the day, when I was working in private enterprise, consolidation was done to save money. What a concept, huh?
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
Looks like the squirrels are busy with their nuts (filberts are their favorite) this morning.
quacker (anonymous) says…
As near as I can tell, the sprawl has continued with little impediment under this so-called "unfriendly" commission. The difference from the past is that the Planning Commission is no longer the mindless rubber stamp that it has been for decades. They ask a few tough questions and have split votes before allowing the growth juggernaut to do its thing, rather than 10-0 with no discussion that some would like. Still, ultimately, almost anyone who wants to build something is able to do so.
If the $1M would be used to put more info online and make the process more transparent, I am all for it. Too much backroom dealing has gone on for too long in this town, and if people really knew what goes on, they would elect a Commission that is a lot less friendly to the pave-it-over crowd than this current bunch.
biggunz (anonymous) says…
what does it all matter when you have three commissioners that are gonna say "NO!"?
GOPConservative (anonymous) says…
Yeah, sure, let's spend another million and who knows how much more to support the developers in their socialist experiment of using our tax dollars to attract more commuters.
Let's spend even more of our tax dollars to continue pay for new infrastructure for the developers so they can keep their prices low enough that more JOCO whiners and complainers will want to move here.
I get a kick out of the developers and their sycophants, who refer to the fiscally-responsible members of the Commission as socialists because they are against the taxpayers having to subsidize development.
Enough is enough. The tax-sucking developers, who keep pushing for higher taxes to subsidize their "projects" can go to hell.
I want my property taxes to go down, not continue to skyrocket so that a handful of Dolph Simon's developers can make more profit.
We need more "Amigos," not less, on the City Commission.
To hell with Socialism. Let free enterprise rule, and let it pay its own way without going back to the social engineering and corporate welfare of the 1990s by Commissioners who were loyal only to the developers, not to the taxpayers.
merrill (anonymous) says…
So if they move forward with this project they obviously need space. Build a new library at 9th and New Hampshire. The City takes over its' own former library space instead of pumping more tax dollars into the failed Riverfront Plaza experience.
One member of the visiting evaluation group suggested that 18 months was average length of time for a projects approval process.
"We need more "Amigos," not less, on the City Commission." Hear hear.