Vista to look at development review process

By: CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer | Saturday, October 21, 2006 11:23 PM PDT ∞

VISTA ---- If time is money, as the old adage asserts, for the building industry, an inefficient city or county planning department can drain the profit out of a project by the week, month or year.

In Vista, where the city's reputation among developers ranges from first-rate to run-of-the-mill frustrating or worse, officials are seeking outside advice on how to improve the process.

Last month, the City Council agreed to pay roughly $92,000 for an independent consultant to audit Vista's development review procedures, which include planning, building, engineering and inspection services.

"We're going to get a detailed plan of what we do right, what we do wrong and how we can implement a new plan," said Patrick Johnson, assistant to the city manager.

The consultant, Folsom-based Citygate Associates, recently conducted a similar audit for the city of Carlsbad at about the same cost. The final report included several dozen recommendations, from policy changes to staffing level adjustments to technological improvements, said Carlsbad's acting Planning Director Don Neu.

The minor recommendations are already being implemented, and the City Council will weigh in on the more ambitious suggestions next month, Neu said.

Citygate is slated to deliver its report on Vista in the spring.

"We're looking to see if there's some legitimacy to the complaints we hear about our department, " Councilman Steve Gronke said.

Looking for answers

To anyone with aspirations to build something ---- whether it be a 200-lot subdivision or a bathroom remodel ---- few words produce more anxiety than "permitting" and "development review."

For larger projects, the process typically begins with a pre-development review, in which city staffers provide general information about what permits must be obtained and what regulations apply. The developer must then prepare an application and conduct any special studies that might be required.

Once information is submitted to the city, the internal review begins in earnest. Several departments must typically sign off on a project before it can move on the next stage. If multiple proposals come in to a city department at once, it can create log jams in the system.

In most cities, "when you go to the desk in a building department, you're met with one bureaucrat after another... " said Michael Pattinson, a Carlsbad-based developer, former president of the Building Industry Association and columnist for the North County Times. "None of them are talking to each other. You're not getting consecutive approvals... It's a total nightmare."

Vista has had it share of those complaints, city officials said.

In the past "every council member has fielded questions about the rigidity of our department...," Gronke said.

"You hear this in a lot of other cities," he added, "but ... there's no reason we can't do a good job for the people who come to our counters.

City officials said they have made adjustments in recent years, both in procedures and in personnel, but that more can be done.

Whether it's justified or not, "the perception still exists that there are problems," Councilman Bob Campbell said. "It doesn't help us in terms of our reputation with the development community, because these things feed off of each other."

Mayor Morris Vance said the audit should give an unfiltered look at "what kind of relationship the developers feel they have with us now."

Developers weigh in

Developers, planning officials and others who spoke with the North County Times this week gave the city's current development-review system mixed reviews.

Some said that Vista has a reputation of being inflexible or inefficient. Others said that modern development is a complicated process, and working in Vista isn't any more difficult than anywhere else. In some cases, they said, it can be better.

Nick Ashcraft, a Vista planning commissioner who is running for a City Council seat, said Vista's review process is "unnecessarily long" and spawns frequent complaints.

"I've heard it from guys putting in taco stores, to general restaurant owners, to guys putting in big projects that go before the Planning Commission...," Ashcraft said. "A lot of them stand up and say how great it is to work with (city) staff, and then you talk with them later and they say 'never again.' "

Marty Miller, owner of a local construction company, complimented City Hall employees, but faulted some procedural details, such as "the amount of different people that have to bless your job."

"Every time you add another bureaucrat in there to do another inspection and another sign-off, you just prolong the agony...," he said. "For somebody who has never built in Vista, it can be kind of a rude awakening."

He added, however, that "every city has its quirks. Somebody might tell you that Vista's the hardest city in the world to get a permit in, and that's patently untrue."

One developer, who asked not to be named out of concern that it could jeopardize his relationship with the city, said the working environment in Vista often seems oppositional instead of cooperative.

"It's kind of us against them and that's not a good way to do it," the developer said.

But others said the criticism is largely unfounded.

Bill Martin, a senior planner in Escondido who serves on the Vista Planning Commission, said he's heard occasional grumblings but "I certainly haven't heard a huge outcry that Vista is tougher than other jurisdictions on developers."

Martin added that the time it takes for a project to work its way through the system appears to be "pretty consistent" between the two cities.

Robert Thorne, president of Carlsbad-based developer Lucas & Mercier, said there's always room for improvement, but "our time lines are shorter in the city of Vista than they are in some other cities, in some cases (by) half," he said.

Lucas & Mercier has worked on several large projects in the city and has more in the pipeline, including two recently approved housing developments near Buena Creek, just west of Sycamore Avenue.

"We wouldn't be back to do more projects if we didn't like the process," Thorne said.

Joe Jardine of Vista-based Kaylind Construction said he has worked occasionally in Vista and hasn't found the process to be unusually stubborn.

"Carlsbad certainly is much more difficult," he said. "Temecula is more difficult. Murrieta is more difficult. I would rate Vista somewhere in the middle."

Campbell, who was as the city's economic development director in the 1990s, suggested that some developers who worked in the city years ago may be getting frustrated with increasingly strict requirements.

Years ago, he said, the city's development review process was just "a handshake and a wink."

"Now people are expected to turn out more thorough plans with a higher degree of detail," he said.

Moving forward

Citygate's review will look at every aspect of the development review process, from brochures, to staffing levels, to citizen relationships, Johnson said. The final report will include an action plan for internal reorganization.

Thus far, the consultants have interviewed city staffers and gathered together local developers for two focus groups to hear their concerns. Two more will follow, Johnson said.

City officials have not been present for the round-table discussions, Johnson said.

One of the participants, Thorne, declined to discuss the specifics, but said the general feelings in the room were: "There are some things the city could address to make the information stream more consistent, and few areas where (the process) could go faster."

While some smaller developer had gripes, he said, "I didn't hear anything that was going to create some huge shakeup."

Citygate project manager Pat Comarell said all cities receive complaints about the development review process.

"It's a question of degree," she said. "Is it more or less than usual (in Vista)? At this point we don't know."

If the performance audit is deemed a success, the city may conduct a similar audit of its finance department, Johnson said.

"This is the first step."

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.

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