Presentation - Development Services Administration - Branch Update to Board of County Commissioners - No Funding Required

1:28:48Uh we're going to P ninety nine or R99. I'll

1:28:52just be able to do it for

1:28:53my

1:28:54data. I think it's totally giving five minutes because it would have structured.

1:29:11Good morning commissioners. Uh this marks uh the end of July marked my one year anniversary um serving with honor as the Assistant County Administrator for Development Services Now

1:29:27Mm.

1:29:28Jump.

1:29:30Oh, Joy?

1:29:34Okay, thank you. Um by way of local, state and um federal regulations and legislation, the branch offers a number of services to our customers, everything through administration, um, Office of Economic Growth, Planning and Development, Building Construction Services and Enforcement Unions. Can see under those bullets, there are a lot of services that we offer. Next, the county is experiencing

1:30:05unprecedented growth at this time, and a lot of that growth impacts our branch directly. And as we strive to meet the demands of the customers for which we serve. Um we are also looking to how are we doing and can we do it better all the time. So I want you to know that on July 15th we Put together and sent out a stakeholder survey

1:30:35that was conducted strictly for our branch and the services that we're providing. The survey went out to over 6,000 customers, and those are individuals that have literally had interactions with the branch. We received 644 responses back, and of those 614 responses, something that was very important to me is that 517 of those that were responding

1:31:06were individuals that had actually had interactions with the branch within a year's time frame. So we weren't dealing with someone who had not um interacted with this recently. This is the first ever survey that has been conducted to try and engage where we are as a branch and the services. And what we see this is as an opportunity to set a benchmark

1:31:37as to where we are and as we continue to make improvements. How we're doing because this is anticipated to be conducted annually. And I would like to say that we Did not want to engage an outside agency to conduct this survey. We wanted to do it internally. So we used our staff to come up with the questions that we thought were important to our customers and get

1:32:07feedback from those. So it cost us no more than the tool that we use on a regular basis to get feedback. Because some of these surveys can cost upwards of $40,000. Next slide, please. The survey captured the percentage rating of various processes that our department offers, and it rated everything from very satisfied to not satisfied. Out of a possible

1:32:37100%, Planning and Development Department rate at 64%, Building Construction Services 72%, Code Enforcement 66%, and Office of Economic Growth 73%. We received a plethora of comments because we set the tool up to be able to get actual feedback from our customers. Those comments range from understanding the speed of turnaround

1:33:08for our residential developments because of the number of uh permits we're issuing that they they re they accepted. that and they were impressed that we were getting back with them with better communication. And then on the flip side, comments for opportunities for us to improve was our timelessness and communication. So we're going to be looking at those in detail and following up

1:33:38with individuals. Next slide please.

1:33:47Again. These are the ratings that I just referred to as far as of the hundred percent um that we seeked information from on the various processes. Thank you. Next slide, Jordan. Planning and development department. Um there's currently 73 and a half team members in that department and in the proposed budget we're asking for your approval of a 10 additional new positions.

1:34:17Now Just for your information, not including any emails or cell phone calls or individual line calls. The branch just on their customer service line received 25,000 landline calls last year. Over the past eight months they've received I'm sorry, twenty-five. Over the um past eight months they've received over twenty thousand calls. uh to

1:34:47date. The end of this m month

1:34:53In twenty twenty. 271 site plan processes were received, and over the last eight months we've already exceeded last year's total of the 271 to having 422 active site plan reviews under consideration at this time, and as you know with the our site plan review process we have pre-application

1:35:24meetings for those and right now those are slated out to January with the number of requests that we're receiving for reviews. Next slide please. Code enforcement has currently 32 staffs and again in our budget request for this year we're asking for two additional positions to conduct proactive code enforcement again. Not including emails, cell phones, and regular calls to individuals. They

1:35:55received over 18,000 landline calls last year. And right now, to date, just in the past eight months, they've received over 15,000 calls for services. In twenty twenty There were 88 proactive sweeps that took place and those proactive sweeps included everything from looking signs, junk cars in neighborhoods, trash and debris in certain areas, just trying to get out and

1:36:25look at those items and do some proactiveness. including, you know, where we go out and set up cleanup for neighborhoods within different districts. This year over the past eight months there's been over 260 proactive sweeps that have taken place during this year. January through August timeframe, code enforcement has addressed almost 9,000 complaints. And

1:36:55there's an increase, this is an increase of over 600 complaints from last year at the same time.

1:37:03We currently are addressing 9,670 complaints with the load that we have and the current staffing that is in place of 32. What I want to talk about that is commendable. I know we always have areas that we can improve upon with code enforcement activities, but I want to say that the approach that the code enforcement team takes is being proactive and using educational

1:37:33efforts to try and get people to understand, you know, what the code is doing instead of, you know, putting a hard Hammer by education alone they've been able to get compliance with over 99% of those individuals that are being um reviewed or in in for looking for enforcement actions for code complaints. Now always you're going to have those challenging ones and again this team has done a

1:38:04fantastic job and they're up for the challenge.

1:38:14Next slide, please.

1:38:19Building construction services

1:38:25The current staffing in Building Construction Services is 156 staff members. We're asking again in the budget for 14 new positions. Not including phone calls that come to individual cell phones, individual landlines, or emails. They have received just through their customer service line almost a hundred thousand. Calls for services. In the

1:38:55last eight months they received almost 70,000 alone. New single family home permits, as you know, have taken off in Pasco County and in 2020 there were five hundred and seventy five thousand seven hundred and forty One new homes issued, and at that time, last year, it was taken 21 days, almost 23 days, to process a new single-family residential permit. Over the last eight months,

1:39:26BCS has issued 6,370-17 new single-family home permits, and it has taken an average of eight and a half days. So you see a marked difference from 23 days, 22 days to eight days and a half. And this is due in part to a great team working extremely hard looking for innovative ways to improve service. The working with the Tampa Bay

1:39:56Building Association And their goal with working with administration and the commission They We're looking for a turnaround of 10 days in the builder permitting activity for single family residential. And as you can see, we have met that goal and we've exceeded that goal. And I'm hoping with the changes that we're continuing to make that we will continue to exceed that goal.

1:40:28With our commercial permitting We're up as well this year and right now we're embarking on a major effort to streamline the way we're processing commercial permits. Um we know that we have some software challenges, we know that we have some challenges with it's this is how we've always done it, this is how it's laid out, but we have a team that is very innovative and ready to see change to make things

1:40:58better for our customers. Next slide please. With permitting comes inspections and with our inspections over A hundred and forty seven thousand z inspections was conducted. Within the first eight months of twenty twenty. And that only included about Wait. Three five percent a rollover and what that means of all the inspection requests

1:41:29they're receiving less than a half a percent had to be rolled over because they weren't able to meet their needs. This means that the inspectors are working A lot of hours and on weekends if possible to get inspections done to meet the customer needs. Now, over the last eight months of this year, they have conducted over 202,000 inspections, and they still have less

1:41:59than 1% rollover with regard to not being able to do the inspection on the day that it was called. I will say again, the team is doing an outstanding job. to meet customer service needs. Over the past eight months, a total of 44,000 permits have been issued, of which over 7,000 more than the same time this time last year. And what does this mean at the

1:42:29end of the day to our citizenry, to the board? This means that over $2 billion will be added to the tax roll in the near future. Next slide, please.

1:42:44In order to continue to meet the service demands of the branch, there have been reorganizations, some key team members have been hired, a lot of team members working on a regular basis to look at ways to improve our process and make outstanding contributions on a daily basis. We have a great team in place and this includes our most two recent hires, which is Roy

1:43:15Major, who was hired to help oversee administration as um the Building Construction Director of Administration. And he's been here a little about four months and that level, that change has enabled us to have more depth in the organization and availability to be responsive to our customer needs. In addition, we added a position um and I think the commission

1:43:46Dan and even Mark Ballas for bringing to our attention. And I brought this to you in January to get funding for a position of business support manager. And we about three months ago we brought on Matt Campbell, who's serving as our liaison, assisting our business community with getting through our development processes because we know that there's it can be confusing to anyone and Matt

1:44:16is doing an outstanding job. For the sake of brevity, I want to take a minute and say I provided you with just a snippet, a snippet of all the things that the Development Services Branch worked to accomplish with meeting our citizens' needs. I'd like to thank you, the commissioners, and I'd like to take then Bow's. Administrator, for your support as

1:44:46we have tried to work our way through some very challenging. times with regard to trying to make changes while dealing with the workload that we have. I'd like to ask the branch members that are in attendance today just to stand up and be recognized.

1:45:17Thank you so much. I also want to acknowledge all the hard work that has been accomplished and has been accomplished on a daily basis by this team and to let them know and they know from me how much they are appreciated for what they do. I see them in the mornings when I walk in at 6.30 going into the office to start work, not to leave early, but to meet our needs. We see them on the weekends coming in

1:45:47to work to meet the needs of our customers. They are extremely, extremely dedicated team members. And as we continue to serve the community in keeping with our strategic plan to create a better community, a better future for all those involved, we want to continue to do that with integrity, respect, service innovation. and service excellent. Thank you.

1:46:18And thank you.

1:46:21Mr. Chairman Mariano. Sally, I I'm so glad you have joined the organization. Um I want to say that you have a passion to get this as good as you possibly can, and I think you're making a lot of great steps. Bringing on Roy, Matt, I think inspired Anthony Mastraccio to come back as well. That's another big plus. Uh so it it's a it's a very good sign as as we're heading. I want to say the survey that you put out Uh I I wanna I can't give you enough accolades for doing that.

1:46:51Uh I remember we years ago when we first did brought Urban Land Institute to look at the county and John Gallip at the time brought brought them in and pushed for them to come in. And he knew when he did it it wasn't gonna look that great for the county. But at least it gave us a start. And I think as you talk to everybody in the organization, everybody else around the county, we're getting closer and closer to tru True Premier. But as Mark Bellis says, you've got to go take a look at yourself and be willing to go take a look at yourself. uh to be able to measure. Now

1:47:22the numbers that are there in the sixties, et cetera. Um You got a baseline to work with now. I mean I th I think you know we should be shooting for ninety, ninety-five percent to get there. But I I want to I again to give you the credit to have a take a look at to find out where you're at. That's very, very impressive. Um if I could I'll just talk a couple couple of things. Um One of the things as far as like to improve the process a bit uh that was brought to me uh and you can you don't you can get the full detail I'll just

1:47:52tell you now or everybody's looking at I guess when they submit some people submit site plans they do it electronically, correct?

1:47:59Yes sir.

1:48:00If they do a revision it's gonna be brought in

1:48:04They can submit that electronically as well. Um I'm almost certain but I'll double check

1:48:11as

1:48:11to why they can't see

1:48:12I heard differently so I don't know and that's why I'm asking the question.

1:48:14Now is this a site plan, building permit?

1:48:17On a site plan for a building permit, I guess, yes.

1:48:21They can submit their revisions. Now we did have a challenge with our system, but we set it up and and and fixed it where they can submit their revisions online because we used to have staff help them, but now it it has been fixed.

1:48:35Okay. Um one of the thoughts out there sometimes if someone's gonna call for an inspection and again by the way the lack of rollover I think you're using view specs is phenomenal. Yes. with the team and everybody getting trained. I'm delighted to see how well you're doing with that as well. Great technology and I know Eric was a big part of trying to help kick that along as well. So Sometimes our people have to wait, they have to put someone in the building all day long waiting for that inspection to happen because we don't know what time it's coming. Uh maybe we could take

1:49:05a look at having an inspector call when they're gonna head there from one to the other. It might be a good communication to kind of roll them over quick that might speed up everything uh and make it a lot easier for the business as well. But uh I wanna say I I appreciate the attention you're giving. I mean my assistant Sonia is working diligently with the people and I know everything out there is gray, but uh the way your team is just working at it and working at it, I appreciate it. I know we're heading the right direction and again I am so encouraged by your doing that survey for yourself to find out

1:49:35where you're at. So keep up the great work and thanks to all the team out there. Keep working at it. Appreciate it.

1:49:41Thank you, sir.

1:49:44Um well I too wanna commend you for for this um survey and for the improvements in your department and I know you guys are working really hard. The additions of Matt and Roy, fantastic. It's really I just heard nothing but um great accolades uh in how You guys were so needed, I'm sure you know that. Dealing with the things you do every day. Um I did have a question on the um length of time for the pre-app meetings

1:50:15and what um What what can we do? in the short term to shorten that time. I think we're up to four months to get a preamp meeting.

1:50:25Yes, ma'am.

1:50:25And I just wondered if there's Anything we could do to kinda help that.

1:50:30Uh Terry Peters, the Director for Planning and Development. We are currently working together with his team to improve that. portion of our process. So uh is it more planners that we need or we are getting more planners but we want to take a look at how can we streamline the process and and improve when a s they have to go through an approval process or when

1:51:00they could just simply go on and submit their site plan, but we're looking at it in detail right now. Terry, did you have anything else?

1:51:08Mm-hmm.

1:51:10And

1:51:10and I've been working with Terry a lot lately and um Terry, I just absolutely love working with you. I think we're really moving the county forward in a good way. I just wish there were more of you.

1:51:22You can tell that they don't get any sleep because they don't have time to shave between him and the rest of the team.

1:51:28And this is

1:51:28was that just the Terry Commissioner? Was that just the Terry Commissioner Oakley No

1:51:36Good morning Commissioner? Uh Nictoria was Pisa's planning as well in the department. Yes, we're we are working on it. We we recognize that the pre-app schedule is very long up to January now as as Sally noted. It's a logistical issue not just with the planning and development department, but it's also a logistical issue with all the other departments that participate in the process with us. So, yes, you can add theoretically more planners to address the pre-application, but you would also have to double up the other positions in the other departments

1:52:06that participate in the pre-ef process. Just to get more than the eight or nine preamps that we can do per week. So even if we wanted to increase that to 16, that would be. a lot of other positions in the planning department in particular, but then also in the other departments. There are ways that we can address that without having to increase the workforce to do that. So we're looking at that. I can't make any announcements today because it's not fully fleshed out and I don't want to make promises and excite people and then everything falls apart. But um

1:52:37we are working on a solution to the to the preapplications.

1:52:41I can see, you know, with the popularity of our county, um, and if more and more people are wanting to do things here, that those pre app times could get even longer. Um I mean I I I wonder I wonder it would be interesting to chart that rate of how How quickly they're getting longer and longer, you know what I mean? So but I don't know the answer. I just was bringing it to everyone's attention. It's it's now four months for pre-app meeting. So

1:53:11Mr. Chairman.

1:53:14We're victim of our popularity.

1:53:19Yes. So we are we are currently there are projects that apply for a waiver from the pre app process. Okay. So there are projects that do obtain those waivers and can advance themselves to this middle stage.

1:53:36The other thing to keep in mind, Commissioner, is every hour spent on a pre-app is an hour not reviewing a site plan or a project that's been submitted. So there's a balance there that we're trying to maintain between the pre-apps and then reviewing projects that have actually been submitted or in in order to be.

1:53:52Hey, I am I am a big favor of a pre-app meeting. As a matter of fact, Ms. Pitos and I met with someone before the pre-app meeting so that before they got too far down the road, they understood where we're coming from on, you know, apartments and and other things and and how what kind of development we want to see. So they didn't spend money on with a with a planner and an engineer. Smart. Um going too far down a road. That they would have to redo. So and I appreciate

1:54:23that's why I say I'm I love more commentary. I just we need five more of you. Five more of you.

1:54:28I appreciate everything you're doing, Sally. Uh you're made the department stronger and better and moving forward and and the addition of course of uh Roy Major and and Matt Campbell has done a very good good portion uh what's getting moved a little quicker to the team and the team's there working hard and these guys are helping streamline that so they c they can actually act on things a little quicker which I think is streamlining that we need to happen. We just We need wanna do it the right way, but

1:54:58we wanna continue streamlining to get it faster and quicker through the system. So I mean if we were not having so many projects it'd be different. But we've got got 'em piling up, as you know. So but we appreciate we we appreciate your team members and all the staff that working. that work in your department because we like we already have heard as commissioners the people are telling us that it's four months out before they get a pre-app. So that's that's why you're hearing it from us today is because we're just lately

1:55:28hearing that. Yes

1:55:29sir.

1:55:30Yeah. Appreciate it. Mr. Bowes

1:55:35Yeah, sir, we were just negotiating how long libraries actually had before we do the photo for the award that the commissioner wants to announce here in a little bit.

1:55:44Yeah, why we're gonna do we'll do that and the other two items we'll bring in this afternoon.

1:55:49I was trying to get libraries out of here this morning. So I think she's about three.

1:55:58Mr. Chairman

1:55:58Mariano. So

1:56:00Sally, hang on. Oh, we'll go we'll do this and then we'll break outside. Mr.

1:56:04Chairman, can I just ask Sally one more question?

1:56:07Yeah. Because I got a I got a meeting about the comments.

1:56:16For some of our contractors whether can submit and then start to work at their risk uh going forward. Uh I guess it was done years ago. Um and if you have some inspections that really don't add value that may not be needed, maybe we should look at getting rid of some of those and I'll talk with you offline about it. But thank you again for all you do.

1:56:37Made a note, Commissioner, thank you.

1:56:39Okay, thank you.

1:56:42All right.