Planning Commission calls for reorganization at City Hall

Planning Commission members have unanimously approved a series of budget requests aimed at reforming and streamlining the way their commission is run.

Most significantly, the recommendations would establish an Office of the Land Use Commissions that would work with the Board of Adjustment, Planning Commission, and Zoning and Platting Commission. The office would also include a legal representative “tasked with attending commission meetings in person, exclusively representing the best interests of the commissions,” which has long been requested by the city’s planning commissions. 

The new office, according to the approved recommendations, would ensure “the ongoing sovereignty of Planning Commission and similar independent commissions and ensures clear separation of oversight/influence for assigned City Staff” and also bring “more clarity to decision-making related to legal questions that arise at Planning Commission,” in addition to bringing more efficiency to meetings.

In addition to the new office, commissioners approved recommendations that would create a “Planning Commission 101” training for new and existing commissioners. They also asked for funding to hire a consultant to “conduct a comprehensive evaluation and review of all operations and methodologies within the Planning Department” to improve efficiency in communications between the staff and commissioners and to help meet City Council-established deadlines. 

Commissioner Adam Haynes said his only concern was that the fiscal implication of the recommendations remained unknown during a year that the city is facing a tight budget. 

“I’m used to the state where you’ve got to have a fiscal note,” he said. “I know that’s not the case here.”

Commissioner Felicity Maxwell, who co-sponsored the item, said that her understanding was that budget recommendations from commissions were broad-based and then taken up by Council offices or the city manager, if merited, and specific costs would be established as a part of that process.

“We had a general idea of ideas that … may end up with cost savings, may end up with cost expenses, and rather than trying to narrow that down we were floating this idea to see if there was any interest in trying to bring it forward in a more formal way,” Maxwell said. “I think it’s a little premature to try to put budget numbers on something like this.”

Commissioner Alice Woods agreed with that assessment, saying they hadn’t gone through the process to determine the cost, if there was one.

“This is not a request to hire a new department’s worth of staff or a new office’s worth of staff,” Woods said. “It’s creating a new office and shifting existing stuff around.”

Board of Adjustment Chair Jessica Cohen, who is an ex officio member of the commission, explained the plan would consolidate staff into a single organization, instead of having them spread across various city departments. 

“It would bring everything under City Hall, like the clerk’s office, and make everything a little more streamlined, hopefully improving the interaction process for applicants and for the public,” she said.

City Council is currently in the midst of working through this year’s budget, with adoption scheduled for next week, by Aug. 16. No Council member has identified the Planning Commission recommendations as proposed budget amendments in any of their budget amendment posts.

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