Valley planners overworked

Spokane Valley has always prided itself on the efficiency of its barebones staff, holding down costs by employing fewer than 100 people and filling in the gaps with contractors.

But as the city’s planning department supervises an extensive redevelopment study for Sprague Avenue, plans for a city center and new shoreline regulations, evaluates its first round of comprehensive-plan amendments, handles day-to-day building permit traffic and rewrites its development code from scratch, that savings could come at a high price.

Currently, a staff of just seven people is laying out the future of Spokane Valley. Some of the planning work overlaps with the building department, which employs about 15 people.

Spokane, by comparison, has 16 full-time planning employees in its budget, a slightly higher staffing level when adjusted for the difference in population.

Customers are waiting longer for permits.

“They’re really trying – and they are doing a good job – but they’re understaffed,” said Dennis Crapo of Diamond Rock Construction.

The housing market in Spokane Valley has been booming in the last few years. Permit revenues reflect that, and Crapo said he’d like to see the city spring for more staff to help the people writing the checks for those permits.

Additionally there are no set timelines for how long it should take to approve each type of permit, and he said the turnaround time for projects is inconsistent.

A permit unexpectedly in limbo hurts builders – particularly smaller ones – who pay interest on loans to buy the land as it sits empty, he said.

The top priority of the Spokane Valley staff, regularly reinforced by the City Council, is customer service, said Community Development Director Marina Sukup.

But employees who are down with the flu, on maternity leave or gone for other personal reasons have taken their toll recently, she said.

“We have had some delays,” she added.

When planners spend more time filling the empty shifts behind the counter at the permit center, Sukup said, the time often comes from work on long-term planning tasks, like the development code that requires uninterrupted attention.

Said Spokane Valley Mayor Diana Wilhite,”We do have a lot on our plate, and we are stretching our staff to the limits.”

The 138-page development code, for example, outlines what is and isn’t allowed in the city when it comes to topics ranging from housing density to livestock rearing.

The city initially was pushing to finish it by the end of this month. But after developers and homeowners said they had neither the time nor the information to adequately review and comment on the document, the Planning Commission has twice extended public hearings on three of its most involved chapters.

New zoning districts will apply to every property in the city. Rules governing some of them will change little while others will change significantly. But Greenacres neighborhood activist Mary Pollard and others have complained that the planning department hasn’t yet prepared the map showing where the new zones will be or documents explaining how they compare to the old code.

“The lack of a map is critical,” said Pollard.

At Thursday’s commission meeting, a representative for the Spokane Homebuilders Association also asked that the city prepare a new draft with all of the recent changes marked in it that could be distributed to the public at least a few days before the meeting.

Later in the meeting, a planning commissioner pointed out that the commission’s minutes haven’t been updated on the city Web site since late last year.

Even the mayor readily admits it takes her a lot of study to understand some of the more complex regulations in the code. She points out, though, that since the first hearing, planning officials have made time for more meetings to explain the code and discuss it with builders and the public at large.

As to whether there is an adequate number of planning staff preparing the development code and other long-term planning, City Manager Dave Mercier said, “That’s a question we constantly ask ourselves.”

As he works to write a balanced budget every year, he has to consider both the seasonal and cyclical nature of construction.

“We are going through a period of unusual workload,” he said, in addition to the number of people taking leave.

Sukup suggested that an interactive city Web site with zoning maps and planning data could cut back on requests to the permit center.

Part of the solution also will be to look at how projects can move through the permitting process more efficiently, Mercier said