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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSS2 - Time Frame for Building PermitsCITY OF NEWPORT BEACH c, BUILDING DEPARTMENT J\� s 3300 NEWPORT BOULEVARD NEWPORT BEACH, CA 92658 949) 644 -3275: FAX i 644 -3250 Meeting Date: Agenda Item No.: Staff Person: March 26, 2002 SS2 Jay Elbettar (949) 644 -3282 REPORT TO HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL SUBJECT: RECOMMENDED ACTION: BACKGROUND: Time Frame for Building Permits Receive and File At the regular City Council meeting on March 12, 2002, Council Member Heffernan requested a report on Building Permit time frames. This report provides an overview of the current permit process and the required reviews by departments involved in the development review process. It demonstrates steps taken to streamline services at the Building Department level and changes in the process to improve the review backlog for all departments involved. A. Permit Process The permitting process involves the following steps: 1. Submittal 2. Review 3. Corrections 4. Verification 5. Permit issuance The submittal is done at the Building Department Permit Counter. The Building Department serves as the focal point for all projects which require a permit. Data entry to the permit tracking system is performed at the counter and plans are catalogued and distributed to the relevant departments for review. When the review is completed, corrections to the project are generated based on City codes and requirements (much like grading a paper). The corrections are then communicated to the applicant who in turn will correct the drawings and submit them back for verification. Once all the corrections are made and the project deemed compliant with all City codes and requirements, a permit will be issued. Many projects involve several iterations of this procedure, depending on their complexity. The amount of time involved after the corrections are generated by the City is dependant on the applicant design team's responsiveness. Time Frame for Building Permits Page 2 of 4 B. Department Reviews The departments involved in the plan development review process are: 1. Building 2. Planning 3. Fire 4. Public Works 5. Utilities 6. Harbor Resources 7. General Services The majority of projects do not require all of the above listed departments' reviews. Harbor Resources, for example, reviews a project that involves construction in the bay, such as a pier or a boat slip. C. Process Improvements The Building, Planning and Public Works Departments began a series of meetings during November 2000 to find ways to improve our process. As a result, we implemented several enhancements to the counter service and increased our interdepartmental coordination such as: • Sign in logs at each counter. • Improved signage with summary of services offered by each department. • Improved plan filing system. • Creating plan storage bins for ease in storage and retrieval. • Coordinated and improved notification of customers when plans are ready for pick up. In addition, the Building Department implemented several service enhancements as follows: • Internet access to permit system for inspection requests and plan checks status. • Cell phone communications with the inspectors. • Use of hand held computers and portable printers to generate inspection reports in the field. • Development of a Building Department web page to disseminate information. • Inspectors' call -back program to inform customers of estimated time of arrival. • Providing two public self -help computers for status check, reviewing of historical permit information and City codes by the customers. • Development of a policy manual at the counter for public use. • Frequent mailers and notifications to customers database. • Use of outside consultants for overflow plan reviews. • Development of permit ready standard plans for simple permits. • Consolidating certain inspections to minimize the number of trips. • Combination commercial inspection for certain commercial projects. Time Frame for Building Permits Page 3 of 4 • Implementation of Interactive Voice Response System for inspection requests and plan check status (pending). On July of 2001, the management team, led by City Manager Homer Bludau, identified the Top Ten Priorities for fiscal year 2001 -2002. Priority number seven was to "Improve the plan check and permit issuance process." Our measure of success is "90% of all plan checks performed by the City are completed within four weeks of being submitted by the customers." I was assigned the primary responsibility for this goal. In order to reach this goal we formed a team comprised of the relevant departments' directors or designated representatives, held several work sessions to identify the current process, where we fall short, and possible areas for improvements. We visited three surrounding cities to review and observe their procedures. These cities were Laguna Beach, Costa Mesa and Irvine. In addition, we inquired from other cities such as Huntington Beach and San Diego regarding their plan review backlog and what they have done to improve it. Within the current process, a single - family project could take 13 -16 weeks for the initial review. A new office building could take 8 -11 weeks. The longer time periods reflect more departments' involvement. These departments that are secondary in the review process do not get involved in the review upon submittal. Planning or Public Works generally determines the need for these departments' review after completion of their own review. When review begins by these departments after Planning, that adds to the time for initial review. Each subsequent review of any additional department will add more time to the process. Reducing our turn- around time to four weeks will significantly improve the overall permit process. What is the answer? Concurrent reviews by all departments involved in the development process. Cities that have succeeded in maintaining a four -week turn-around hold concurrent reviews. We are also looking at other steps such as delegation of certain reviews by one department to another to minimize the number of departments involved. For example, the Building Department has been performing many reviews on behalf of the Fire Department since July 1994. In attempting to reach this goal several details have to be worked out, such as: 1. Identifying required departments' reviews at time of submittal. 2. Obtaining sufficient number of plan sets to allow concurrent reviews. (Costa Mesa requires up to nine sets for certain types of projects). Space to store additional plans is an issue. 3. Coordination and merging of the sets and the requirements and communicating corrections to the applicant in a unified manner. 4. Training when certain reviews are delegated to another department. 5. Establishing target review dates and communicating it to all staff and applicant. 6. Commitment by each department involved to meet the target dates. Time Frame for Building Permits Page 4 of 4 A team of management and supervisory staff was formed on March 11, 2002, to address the above issues. Other issues such as handouts, additional plan bins, Permit System enhancements and training will be handled by the Building Department staff. I feel we are on target to meet this goal by July 1, 2002, which will result in a significant improvement to the permit time frame. 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CD CSCMDD cl- N 00 j 'o CL CD (E� CD CD I .CD 7 N c LO Lb CD L) = CD m m cm O 0 1CD LCL N CL 2 LA E (a o -N 76 0 Z If, a) a) IL 0 E -9 LT 9� d) E 0 LL 0 O F;l CL (U CD CE CD m (U -0 LL11 11 to U-1 Iz LY Lit Li Li O LLI CL CC) 0.) > 1 I r . < CSCMDD LL CD j 'o CL CD (E� CD CD I .CD N c LO Lb M L) = CD m m cm O 0 1CD LCL N a) 2 E (a o -N 76 0 Z If, a) a) IL 0 E -9 LT 9� d) E 0 LL 0 0 O Iz LY Lit Li Li O J 1-- Z C) N O O O W O 1-- N U N N V4 e—i smolsno jo # N O A F L L� N O R O V O .� M O } Z LLJ 1-- 0 F— W O O c.i Cl- W 0 ci t./7 F=—� 1W—� �O Z Z?r o H � � cn cn p W W � OO OO o N N C13 U U LL- � V- i O O O Q p 0 0 cv March 25, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California 92660 Dear Mr. Bludau: Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity. Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. Issues that have minimal effects have been scrutinized with a disproportionate amount of review. In an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide ill will toward the Building Department. What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction is a level of reasonableness. Design and construction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than its own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product. However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay and /or construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that expire prior to project completion or are trying to plan relocations, double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Sincerely, Print Name: Address: .,47 03/26/2002 15:52 9496751286 KURT DONAT ARCHITECT PAGE 01/01 March 25, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach. California 92660 Dear Mr. Bludau: Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity. Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. Issues that have minimal effects have been scrutinized with a disproportionate amount of review. 4n an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide III will toward the Building Department. What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction is a level of reasonableness. Design and construction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than its own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product. However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay and/or construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that expire prior to project completion or are trying to plan relocations, double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which -are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Sincerely, i Mar -26 -02 01:06P March 2b, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California 92660 Dear Mr, Bludau: Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. issues ti,al have minimal effeels have been snnttinized with a disproportionate amount of review. In an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide ill will toward the Building Department What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction is a level of reasanabtenesz. Design and construction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than jts own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay andjlor construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that - expire prior to project Completion or are "ing to plan felocations. double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As 'City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Print Name, t lit ' L Address �.•,�����P 1:� . • P.01 ,DSSH % QUU : It eu 9' .•c,u „a 61E6- bb916b61 I March 25, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California 92660 Dear Mr. Bludau Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity. Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. Issues -that have minimal effects have been scrutinized with a disproportionate amount of review. In an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide ill will toward the - Building Department. What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction Is a level of reasonableness. Design and constFuction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than its own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product. However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay and/or construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that expire prior to project comptetimr or are trying to plan relocations, double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Sincerely, Print Name: _ J p" -f Address:1�J1�1Lr5't7t2.y -Ili March 25, 2002 Homer Biudau, City Manac City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California Dear Mr. Bludau Over the past sevefal yew, values and construction .4 benefited from such grow working with the City with construction has become, effects have been s minimize errors, such Department, What is now missing from reasonableness. Design i Latitude is given to design practice Currently the City c own opinion and direction, v All professionals applaud Powevar, the net result of construction delay that res The majority of property & completion or are trying to underlying financial condition dealing with City agencies. A some level of public input fr citiZens and the Building De Sincerely, Print Name: Address the City has seen a fantastic le vity. Those of us who live in the and arP truly grateful for such c spectto processing plans througt best, an unpleasant experiencer d with a disproportionate amount has generated a community -wide process of plan check and construction is not a precis fessionals to make interprets: i no credibildy to the design p respect to reasonableness. to minimize errors or h scrutiny has been an ever inci in substantial personal financial tars have construction loans dh tan relocations, double mortgag alt of which are predicated on re City Manager. we implore you to r n the professional community to el of growth in property community have .greatly cumstances. However, plan check and through ssues that have minimal if review. an an effort to I wilt toward the Building instruction is a level of manufacturing process. ns in the scope of their 'essionals, other than its as of their work product. Lasing time delay and/or expire prior to project or 8 - pyramid Af Dther onable. performance in r our voice and initiate lance the needs of our r �4 to March 25, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California 92660 Dear Mr. Bludau: Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity. Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. Issues that have minimal effects have been scrutinized with a disproportionate amount of review. In an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide ill will toward the Building Department. What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction is a level of reasonableness. Design and construction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than its own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product. However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay and/or construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that expire prior to project completion or are trying to plan relocations, double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Sincerely, Print Name: Address: March 25, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California 92660 Dear Mr. Bludau: Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity. Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. Issues that have minimal effects have been scrutinized with a disproportionate amount of review. In an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide ill will toward the Building Department. What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction is a level of reasonableness. Design and construction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than its own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product. However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay and /or construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that expire prior to project completion or are trying to plan relocations, double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Sincerely, Print Name: A kz/zeiGl &ef / Address: , 93 7 G4-5T- .S. 941Y March 25, 2002 Homer Bludau, City Manager City of Newport Beach 3300 Newport Boulevard Newport Beach, California 92660 Dear Mr. Bludau: Over the past several years, the City has seen a fantastic level of growth in property values and construction activity. Those of us who live in the community have greatly benefited from such growth and are truly grateful for such circumstances. However, working with the City with respect to processing plans through plan check and through construction has become, at best, an unpleasant experience. Issues that have minimal effects have been scrutinized with a disproportionate amount of review. In an effort to minimize errors, such scrutiny has generated a community -wide ill will toward the Building Department. What is now missing from the process of plan check and construction is a level of reasonableness. Design and construction is not a precise manufacturing process. Latitude is given to design professionals to make interpretations in the scope of their practice. Currently the City gives no credibility to the design professionals, other than its own opinion and direction, with respect to reasonableness. All professionals applaud efforts to minimize errors or deficiencies of their work product. However, the net result of such scrutiny has been an ever increasing time delay and /or construction delay that results in substantial personal financial damages. The majority of property owners have construction loans that expire prior to project completion or are trying to plan relocations, double mortgages or a pyramid of other underlying financial conditions, all of which are predicated on reasonable performance in dealing with City agencies. As City Manager, we implore you to hear our voice and initiate some level of public input from the professional community to balance the needs of our citizens and the Building Department. Sincerely, Ile I Print Name: IQtc e�_ {per Address:o -Ir )oZ t��3aru- o-P3 tom-.