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.”