City Leaders Disagree with Planning Study's Key Recommendations

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

July 19 – The City Council and Planning Commission last week questioned a consultant’s key recommendation to keep staff at the beleaguered planning department at or near current levels.

At a joint hearing Tuesday, a representative of Matrix Consulting Group said the department could function more efficiently through streamlining the development permitting process, restructuring staff assignments and emphasizing long-range
planning -- instead of significantly increasing staff.

"We're not suggesting they [staff] work harder," said Gary Goelitz, Matrix’s vice president. "We're suggesting some changes."

Goelitz also wants the City to reassign four planners to long-range planning efforts, in keeping with other cities of a similar size.

"The City does not have any advance planning capacity ,”Goelitz said. “Largely, the city is reacting to events and not controlling its own destiny. That is a serious deficiency that needs to be corrected in the short-term.”

Planning commissioners and Council members questioned the logic of the recommendations.

"We would basically be asking staff to do more than they already do," said Planning Commissioner Barbara Brown.

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown agreed, saying that planning staff's "desks are already piled high with permits and applications."

To streamline the process -- and reduce the work load -- Goelitz recommends eliminating duplicative permits and give staff authority to approve smaller development projects that are now subject to time-consuming public hearings.

"What we're focusing on is that there are (now) several permits," Goelitz said. "The development permit and the design compatibility permit, reviewed both by the Architectural Review Board and the Planning Commission, and suggesting that duplication be eliminated."

Under the firm's recommendations, projects larger than 25,000 square feet would be reviewed by the Planning Commission, those between 10,000 and 25,000 square feet by the Architectural Review Board (ARB) and any project under 10,000 square feet by planning staff.

The council recently rejected a proposal to eliminate public participation in the planning process, after broad opposition to the plan.

Council member Ken Genser argued that the Matrix proposal would cause the ARB and Planning Commission to “lose their distinct roles,” which result in better buildings.

Under the current system, the ARB is responsible for approving building details, while the Planning Commission takes a more overall approach to building design.

Goelitz acknowledged that City officials have made it clear they want to streamline the process, while retaining public participation.

"One can argue whether we did that effectively or not," said Goelitz, "but we did endorse a process."

The planning department has long been criticized by developers for its lengthy permitting process, and, according to a Matrix audit report released earlier this month, the critics are right.

Inefficiency in the permit process and a lack of long-range planning has translated into a heavy workload, over-burdening planners with menial tasks, the report suggests.

Building and Safety inspectors also seem crushed by a burgeoning work schedule.

Such conditions, the report claims, have led to an unusually high turnover rate among planning staff and resulted in staffing shortages, problems much more pronounced in Santa Monica than in comparable cities such as Pasadena, Palo Alto and West Hollywood.

"Clearly, it is not a healthy situation," Goelitz said, "but just adding staff won't correct the problems."

However, Commissioner Terry O'Day pointed out that nearly 82 percent of the City’s own planning staff disagreed with the statement that ‘staffing is adequate and workload is reasonable.’"

Sixty-three percent of Building and Safety staff disagreed with the same statement.

When asked how different divisions felt about the recommendations, City Manager Susan McCarthy responded that "some divisions are more confident and some divisions are less confident” of meeting their work loads.

She noted, however, that if no streamlining of the permit process is undertaken, the half million dollars already earmarked to implement the changes -- expected to take between 18 and 24 months -- "will be eaten up quickly."

Council members, and others, remained skeptical of the department’s ability to improve efficiency without increased staff members.

"This should not be an either or situation," said Council member Herb Katz. "We need a streamlining of the process and the hiring of additional staff."

Land use attorney Chris Harding concurred that more staff members are needed, and added that developers would be willing to pay higher fees in return for better service.

"We are concerned that it will take additional staff to reform the process, or else any reform to the process will prove to be unworkable," said Harding.

"We have not talked to a single permitee who is worried about paying an extra cost if it establishes the type of service established by Matrix in their performance standards," said Harding. "We'll pay more for better service."

After a lengthy deliberation, the council approved Matrix’s recommendation to hire several additional staff members, including one person who will be responsible for implementing the proposed planning department improvements.