What are you working on right now?

[SW MI Planner]

OK, not RIGHT now, since if your reading this, your on the internet - bad planners!!!

Does work slow down this time of year for anyone else? It does for me, and it's a great time to get caught up. Of course, there's always those things that pop up and take forever to deal with leaving no time for anything else. Already this week I have two issues to deal with:

A cat house - no, not prostitution. A house that has converted their ENTIRE upstairs to board/breed cats. 25 of them to be exact. There are three rooms with floor to celing pens and cats everywhere. I wanted to kidnap them all The owners are full of crap and tried to give me a line of BS and threatened court...if only I had a dollar everytime I heard that one.

The second - a person decided to offer tattooing, piercing and leather goods out of his home. I have to send them a nasty gram. Hopefully they will be ok about it.

OK, so what out there is keeping you busy?

 

[Zoning Goddess]

I'm on a strategic planning team assembled by the County Manager and we have a meeting today, so I'm coming up with a list of resource issues we need to address. Boring!!!

 

[Downtown]

I writing the minutes from our weekly planning board, and then I'll finish out my morning processing the approvals. Wednesday is my most hated day of the week.

But yeah, we've definitely slowed down - nothing on our major agenda for the next two weeks, and then we have the meetings on christmas eve and new year's eve off! yay!

 

[donk]

For some reason teh crazies have come out.

1) Apartment building in an area with no water or sewer and a whole bunch of funky easements and access issues
2) A construction debris request that straddles 2 jurisdictions
3) People building without a permit, and now that they need power want us to help them out.
4) Prepping for Court Friday.
5)By-law prep work and review.
6) Forgot this one, funky plan of subdivision that consolidates multiple parcels with multiple dwellings into a single lot, in a zone that permits only 1 dwelling on it.

 

[Jeff]

Looking for dirt....

Trying to balance earthwork on a grading plan.

 

[Cardinal]

Mike - I have some extra dirt you are welcome to take.

Yeah, this time of the year is a little slower. It is when I sit down to update all of our databases and economic development marketing material. This year, everything gets converted to Adobe.

 

[PlannerGirl]

umm cleaning up some files and getting the word out about an anti war protest here in DC in Jan.

 

[NHPlanner]

Typically, in my experience, this has been a slower time of the year.

This has not happened this year. We've had our busiest months all year in October and November development review-wise. I honestly can't explain why. Since October we're averaging 6 items per Planning Board Agenda (over the course of 7 meetings...3 in October, 2 in Nov and Dec.).

Fortunately, I've finally got the Planning Board to commit to no more ordinance revisions or new ordinances until we get through the Master Plan Update. We've completed 12 different ordinances, both new and revisions this year (well...a couple are still in progress). I may actually have a bit of time to breathe in the forseeable future.

 

[Repo Man]

This morning I am making maps for a public hearing on a new Land Use Plan for all business zoned properties in the City. We are finally updating our business zoning, which has remained in place since the City was incorporated in the 1950s. It has resulted in a hodge-podge of uses all over the city, which the powers that be finally realize is a bad thing.

After that I am folding and stuffing questionnaire results to residents of a particular neighborhood, preparing for a different neighborhood meeting and the Board of Appeals meeting tonight. Two meetings in one night...not my idea of fun.

 

[Jeff]

Mike - I have some extra dirt you are welcome to take.

I need 60,000 cubic yards...do you deliver?

 

[SGB]

Slow here as well. I'm working on some CDBG administration stuff, and just finished up an environmental assessment on a proposed release of airport land for industrial development.

On the horizon: a EDA pre-application for industrial park infrastructure.

 

[nerudite]

My day...

1) Developing an Area Structure Plan for a City-owned business park that we are going to try to market to bolster light industrial business in our little bedroom community.

2) Review a proposed subdivision and do some park calculations (the developer is trying to cheat the city out of some of our park dedication). It appears the application incomplete, so I'll be writing a letter to the developer on that today as well...

3) Putting the finishing touches on the Land Use Bylaw Update work program (I am heading up the update, so now I get to delegate research... yay!)

4) Research small lot development for LUB update

5) Crunch demographics for a fiscal impact analysis of the tax implications of allowing small lots/houses within the community.

6) Start developing a PowerPoint presentation for City Council regarding the City's Municipal Development Plan.

7) Getting psyched for the Edmonton Oilers game I'm going to tonight against the Canes. Woohoo!!!!!


Oh yeah, and there hasn't been a slow season here in years... that's why we are growing 5% each year.

 

[BKM]

Tasks

1. Follow up memo to our landscape architect who is preparing a Master Plan for an old commercial strip in town. I asked for this memo from Public Works (it involves traffic safety issues), but it looks like I'll have to write it myself.

2. Write introductory letter for our public workshop in January (see above project).

3. I am "Counter Planner" today, and if yesterday is any sample of today, I won't get that much else done today.

4. Review some neotraditionalist propaganda/guidelines -I am writing a draft Urban Design Guidelines document. What a pain-we/I have still not really defined exactly what the document will be, and we have not undertaken any "visioning" processes or anything like that.

 

[Mastiff]

Not much real planning on todays list...

- Finish and mail a grant to ODOT for a pedestrian refuge island on the highway

- Finish out a sewer I & I grant (get the money)

- Review the union contract for negotiations next month

- Complete the DEQ discharge permit for the WW plant

- A staff report for a minor partition (planning!)

- Decide if I want to change pest control companies... A local guy is hounding me to take over the business.

 

[Deep South Planner]

Slow...so very slow...

Right now...sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes.

I've managed to get all the balls in other peoples courts.

I'm waiting for approval of a future land use proposal for a northern county of the sate.

I'm waiting for verification of an existing land use study of a community in the central area of the state.

I'm waiting for property data to arrive in the mail so that I may finish coding some parcels for a land use analysis of a delta area county.

All in all...I'm just enjoying an easy day. Hope it stays like this for the rest of the month.

Luck will have it that everything will hit my desk at once in about 20 minutes and I'll struggle to be able to take extra time off for the holidays and make the new deadlines that will miraclously appear.

 

[jestes]

1. Reviewing a proposal for a Joint Land Use Study with our local National Guard Training Center

2. Putting the finishing touches on our Phase II Storm Water Management Plan.

3. Trying to track down the money for our '03 TRIAD grant.

4. Getting ready to prepare close-out documents for our '01 HOME grant.

5. Working on shutting down a non-compliant septic tank.

6. And other duties as assigned...

 

[Habanero]

I'm working on a Church expansion, except I'm going to hell because they cannot meet their current need for parking and with the expansion they would eliminate 25 spaces. I'm going to have to tell them to take another look at the plans or underground their drainage so they could park in what is now their retention basin.

 

[nerudite]

I'm working on a Church expansion, except I'm going to hell because they cannot meet their current need for parking and with the expansion they would eliminate 25 spaces. I'm going to have to tell them to take another look at the plans or underground their drainage so they could park in what is now their retention basin.

I know this is off-topic, but... could you save yourself from going to hell by letting them do a joint-use agreement with nearby businesses? Usually churches are "open for business" during off-business times for other uses so joint parking arrangements work out quite nicely. Just trying to save your soul

 

[mike gurnee]

The ususal:
Planning Commission reports for 2 map amendments

City Commission memos for 2 city code amendments

4:00 City Commission study session on property maintenance code that takes effect Jan 2

Party for December employees birthdays

Make excuses for not finishing the in-house comp plan

Think about employee evaluations

 

[Chet]

Our last night meeting of the year is tonight so HO-RAYY!. We are in the early stages of repealing and recreating our Zoning Ordinance, so I'm doing a white paper on district elimation (we have 11 residential districts right now) and its raminfactions vis a vis nonconformity. Should be over everyones heads.

 

[Habanero]

I know this is off-topic, but... could you save yourself from going to hell by letting them do a joint-use agreement with nearby businesses? Usually churches are "open for business" during off-business times for other uses so joint parking arrangements work out quite nicely. Just trying to save your soul

I wish, they are right in the middle of low density residential. The homeowners are up in arms because their streets are so crowded. I hate telling them "no", I feel like flames should come up behind me, a la that one Simpsons episode.



On a better not though, the amendments to the Wireless Ordinance passed without a hitch and they didn't ask me to re-vamp the enitre thing. Woo hoooo!

 

[OhioPlanner]

Unfortunately things spped up because everyone is trying to get things off their desk before vacation.

I'm busy editing audio and presentations.

 

[JNL]

Well seeing as I am a researcher and not involved in approving, reviewing, or verifying applications for churches to breed cats in basements or anything like that, I am actually modelling the performance of paint markings! I am using some software that has all these inputs for surface type, lane width, speed, driver age, glare etc, and the output is the preview time of the marking. We are testing the capabilities of this model for modelling conditions of wet and rain against a US model, so I have to write a report describing how I used the model and all the parameters I set. I don't have a background in this at all, but I get to do lots of different stuff here.

I am also finishing off two reports, one on perceptions of antisocial behaviours in urban parks, and another on how to design urban environments to encourage walking.

 

[Chet]

This morning I am making maps for a public hearing on a new Land Use Plan for all business zoned properties in the City. We are finally updating our business zoning, which has remained in place since the City was incorporated in the 1950s. It has resulted in a hodge-podge of uses all over the city, which the powers that be finally realize is a bad thing.

WHAT? Dick isn't doing EVERYTHING??!!

 

[Repo Man]

WHAT? Dick isn't doing EVERYTHING??!!

So your familiar with how stuff works in my fine city? That is by far the most frustrating aspect of working here....the only place I have ever worked where I want to do MORE work and have MORE respnsibility, and they say "no"

Fortunatly for me, I am the only one here who knows GIS.

 

[Chet]

So your familiar with how stuff works in my fine city? That is by far the most frustrating aspect of working here....the only place I have ever worked where I want to do MORE work and have MORE respnsibility, and they say "no"

Fortunatly for me, I am the only one here who knows GIS.

Kinda like owning the hardware store next to WalMart - just focus on the things they don't do well by themselves!