Planning practice

From Cyburbian TexanOkie: Texas state statute mandates that all subdivisions, regardless of plat stage, be before the planning/platting commission within 30 days of it's submittal, and, if according to each city's charter the plat also needs to go before the governing body, 30 days after the planning commission decision to the City Council. This is rather fast, in my opinion, and is generally business-friendly and works with most developers and their teams on addressing issues with their plans.

However, we are looking into possibly creating an official "Expedited Review" process that would cut that time practically in half (barring any idiot proposals or lack of progress as far as addressing issues). The expedited review would be an option on each subdivision application (i.e. check boxes for either expedited or standard reviews) and would have a higher application fee due to the added stresses it places on our staff.

From Cyburbian MacheteJames: "It has been decided that...."

"An informational meeting will be held..."

I just had a little epiphany here at work. The writing that I produce and spend all my time reading (planning and government related stuff) is full of the passive voice. This is something that our teachers and professors tried to beat out of us again and again as we went through our schooling, yet it is absolutely rampant in our line of work due to the automatic C.Y.A. benefit it provides.

Do any of you out there see the same rampant level of overuse of this type of writing as I do?

From Cyburbian Habanero: In a recent conversation another person, a planner, stated they felt the setbacks imposed on a particular tract limited the "highest and best use" of the property (the setbacks left more than enough room for development but the developer wanted to cram more into the lot). My question is this: as planners should our focus ever be on the "highest and best use"? Should we be concerned with getting developers the highest/best use out of their property for potential tax benefits? Thoughts? Ideas?

I'm not sold on thinking I need to look out for the developer's best interest as I work for the municipalicy. Then again, when thinking of master planned developments, it seems like planners often jump to the "let's make this more than what it could be", ideas of integrating uses and trying to inflict so-called mixed use ideas on a development.

From Cyburbian ruralplanner: For some time I have contemplated the idea of posting staff reports for rezone and subdivision petitions on the County’s website. While I see a number of pluses to this practice such as better visibility for planning, a way to (indirectly) teach the public how plans are used in decision making, more open government, ease and cost efficient information distribution, etc, etc…. I really don’t see any negatives other than the occasional complaint from folks who are internet inept or who have dial-up.

Anyone else post staff reports on-line? Any thoughts from anyone as to why this would not be good practice? Or a good practice?

From Cyburbian hilldweller: Whether we like it or not, the role of planners in local government is usually administrative. Planners are foremost responsible for enforcing the local regulations and are only secondarily responsible for strategic plan-making. The degree to which planners are solicited for strategic guidance/leadership by elected officials differs greatly between jurisdictions. Some rely heavily on planners for policy formulation and long-term planning guidance, but these organizations are generally the exception rather than the rule. More often than not, politicians make decisions without seeking the input of planners or go against staff recommendations. This, of course, begs the question: why do politicians ignore the advice/input of planners?

From Cyburbian el Guapo: I am not talking about helping the poor, the disenfranchised, a particular ethinic group or sexual orientation culture. This isn't the APA. I am talking about people. If you practice in the public sector do you do your best to remind yourself every time that there is a real human being behind that building permit counter or conditional use application?

Do you do everything you can to put yourself in their place? You know they don't understand our terms or the process and are often at our mercy. Often they cannot read a map like we can and would be easily misled. They don't know which council person is going to be the road block in the process and they don't understand how much gray area exists.

From Cyburbian Planner By Day: Has anyone read this editorial from Planetizen? Will APA/AICP change things?

"AICP's Continuing Education Program Needs To Be Fixed
6 March 2008 - 5:00am

The new continuing education program set up by the American Planning Association's American Institute of Certified Planners is an unfair system that will prevent AICP-certified planners from getting affordable, high-quality education.

This essay is written on behalf of a growing number of planning education providers who are being harmed by the American Institute of Certified Planners' Certification Maintenance (CM) program.

From Cyburbian hennybenny: I was thinking, what if we, as a collective planning community, made a conscious decision to change the title of our profession? This is such a huge, diverse field, encompassing so many different occupations. I'm so sick of the question "What does a planner do?". We need a better moniker. Or some of us do. I haven't figured that part out yet. And I don't have a better title in mind either. But think of it. We need something like this: doctor, teacher, etc. If you say "I'm a doctor" or "I'm a teacher", people immediately identify with that, and ask the presumable follow-up "oh, of what?"

From Cyburbian Joshai: I'm looking for folks that have had experience planning for very small, population under 700, towns. I've recently taken the city manager/planner position for a small town with a projected growth over the next ten years of - (yes, that's a minus) 100 residents according to the water source analysis I located in a drawer. The previous manager worked non stop to implement new services and improvements that were shot down at every turn by the city council. The city has a plan from 1980 that I found, that has never been followed through on and I'm lost for a way to show the city council that their town is dying. The main problem seems to be a "status quo" mentality. Anybody with some words of wisdom?

From Cyburbian DecaturHawk: I just read an email from the director of the Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program (BOCEP) at Rutgers about the cost to education providers of AICP's Certification Maintenance program to certify their programs. To quote Leo Vasquez:

"APA/AICP plans to charge continuing education providers a $95 annual enrollment fee, plus $50 per credit per class. This doesn't sound like much. But when you add it up, the Certification Maintenance program could wind up costing the (Bloustein) Professional Development Institute $28,000 per year. That would mean raising our fees substantially to make up for these costs.

From Cyburbian Cardinal: I have often purchased data from vendors (ESRI, Claritas, etc.) who package their market potential and sales estimates. All too often, I find I have to modify it if not throw it away altogether and prepare my own estimates. Their estimates are based on formulas that may work adequately in middle- or upper-income white trade areas, but do not work where there is a significant minority population, in central city neighborhoods, or most rural locations.

The latest case is a study I am working on in the south. According to the data provided, people in this trade area spend less than 20 percent of what a normal household would spend on furniture. They do not buy any shoes.

From Cyburbian Planderella: In my 7+ yrs in the private sector, I have learned that deadlines are truly at the whim of the client, especially if it's a governmental entity. I'm currently working on a rather large project that involves several sites each with their own set of issues. I set up a design/construction schedule based on the parameters given to me by the client that gave us plenty of time to do the preliminary design and etc. for the sites. All of a sudden, the schedule is "too long" and I need to move up the deadline so that the plans are completed in 4-6 wks, as all of these sites need to be constructed by the end of the year and not early-mid next year.

From Cyburbian Dan: In this thread, I describe a phenomenon I call feelgood planning.

"Projects with poor cost-benefit ratios that are destined to fail or at least underwhelm, but which are promoted and implemented because they bring a feeling of hope to the surrounding community, and possibly because their proponents are in denial about the inevitable outcome. "At least they're doing something." Such projects include new subsidized infill housing in blighted urban prairie areas, pocket parks in rough neighborhoods, and seasonal banners."

From Cyburbian s1m0n66: I think this is the second year in a row that urban planner has been listed as one of the top jobs/up and coming jobs. Any thoughts on the description/average pay/day in the life? I hear a lot of people making comments of how the salary is sub-par, or can't afford dues, but a median of $68,000 isn't terrible (granted, not going to make you rich either), and it seems to be towards the upper middle of the other jobs listed. It also seems that with the growing "popularity" of the field, pay has been increasing steadily as well. Correct me if this is just me being naive.

From Cyburbian southsideamy: I hope this is the right location for this post -- I've got a Planning Director type question.

I'm a planning director in a suburb and I've been challenged by the administration (whom I've seen referred to as "the man" in other posts!) to come up with a creative way to manage department work flow and also a creative way to communicate this work load to the administration.

I think we're doing what most small departments do: white board the site plans and ZBA petitions and manage the other projects as a list of "things to do". But this method doesn't help us communicate the extent of our workload and show our progress on assigned tasks (We're practically swimming in "special projects" like small area plans and map requests). I have a handle on all of this stuff mentally, but I'd like to be able to communicate this information successfully to my reports and to my bosses.We do a monthly Status and Information report that is largely a summation of current projects and site plans we're processing. We also do a weekly staff meeting to review current projects and plan commission/ZBA agendas.