New approach could streamline development

<p>A number of changes in the city's planning department and development review process should now make it easier for businesses to come to Petaluma, part of a long-standing city goal.</p><p>The recent changes come in part out of the city's Economic Strategic Plan released in November as well as recommendations from city staff, and signal a change in the culture of the planning process. When before businesses complained of confusing roadmaps and unseen obstacles, the changes are designed to give a clear map to completion for proposed projects.</p><p>“We've been told by applicants that ‘one of the best things you can do is give us that certainty and not have the rules change on us mid-stream,'” said City Manager John Brown. </p><p>“We've implemented things that we thought we could do easily at the staff level and wouldn't cost the city money,” said contract planning manager Geoff Bradley.</p><p>The biggest of those changes is that city department heads and other stakeholders will all sit down to meet with businesses before they even submit an application so that the expectations for what is needed for approval are clear.</p><p>“We will get to people sooner in the process,” said Bradley. “It will help them identify red flags. They can figure out what they are getting into and what the issues are.”</p><p>The new committee plans to meet in person weekly to take up new applications for development or remodels of existing businesses. It will likely consist of city engineers, planners, and representatives from the water, police, and fire departments, said Bradley. The unnamed committee will meet multiple times through the course of a project to ensure that the plans are “internally consistent and reliable,” he said.</p><p>The Economic Strategic Plan, a $139,000 report identifying areas for the city to strengthen the local economy, recommended a general streamlining of the development review process. The specific changes methods to do that were determined at the suggestion of Bradley and other planners.</p><p>“It's something I've seen in other cities,” said Bradley about the new committee. “A little time spent up front can save a lot of time and money downstream,” he said.</p><p>In addition to the new committee, smaller changes in everyday operations will make the planning department more user friendly, including new templates to make staff reports easier and new opportunities for customer feedback.</p><p>A number of other larger changes are now being considered internally by the city manager and city planners that may require City Council votes. Those changes could require revisions to ordinances or zoning codes. The recommendations for these possible changes will be released in the coming months, after the city's budget hearings, said Brown.</p><p>Brown also said that the city will soon hire someone for the long-planned economic development manager position, who will have input in some of these recommendations and sit on the new committee.</p><p>(Contact Philip Riley at philip.riley@arguscourier.com)</p>