Title
Planning and Development Department Process Improvement Update
Description
This item provides an update to the Transportation, Infrastructure and Planning Subcommittee on the status of the Planning and Development Department's (PDD) continuing efforts to streamline and enhance the plan review, permitting and inspection process.
THIS ITEM IS FOR INFORMATION AND DISCUSSION.
Report
Summary
PDD staff for the past 18 months has been systematically reviewing plan review, permitting and inspection processes to improve efficiency, reduce turnaround times and provide more tools for customers in all areas of the department. These efforts already have produced tangible results, and staff has ongoing and future improvements in the pipeline that will continue to push this effort forward. These efforts while robust have been slowed by the challenging hiring market, number of reviews and projects along with significant public concern about proposed zoning cases and new development projects. The Department has had a consistent 18-24% vacancy rate along with significant impacts to our on-call private contract reviews also facing staffing shortages.
Though the Covid-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions to business operations across the globe, PDD staff used this period to accelerate an already in process transition away from an analog, paper-driven process to an electronic based 21st Century Plan review, permitting and inspection process that has saved customers time and money and improved internal efficiency.
Prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a large majority of development activity in the city was conducted on paper, with applicants traveling downtown to City Hall to submit plans, pay fees and obtain permits. Staff made corrections by hand, which applicants had to travel back to City Hall to collect. After making corrections, applicants had to return to City Hall to submit an updated set of paper plans. For larger projects and those that required new plats, developers also were required to submit final plats in person on specially printed plastic "mylars" that would be physically filed away for record keeping, much the same way plats were submitted 40 years ago.
Today, an overwhelming majority of plans are submitted and reviewed electronically. Though this shift mostly has occurred with the pre-existing electronic plan review system ProjectDox, the new SHAPE PHX eventually will combine all plan review, permitting and zoning adjustment requests into one application. Though it will take a few more years to fully roll out all of SHAPE PHX, staff's work to introduce modern business tools and applications combined with ongoing and completed process improvements, has moved the development process in Phoenix forward. The improvements staff has completed and those in the pipeline are outlined below.
Enhancements to date:
- The first stage of the SHAPE PHX rollout is completed and is now fully available to residential customers. Migrating to SHAPE PHX from the existing decades old systems has been a gargantuan task. In addition to transferring mountains of customer and project data into Shape PHX, staff and customers had to adopt to a new plan submission portal and an entirely new way to manage and track reviews and inspections and obtain permits. Staff has learned crucial lessons in this early phase that will be invaluable when Shape PHX is expanded to more project types.
Enhanced Utilization of Third-Party Resources:
Staff has made strides to add and expand third-party tools and resources to supplement staff efforts and prevent backlogs. These include:
- A pilot test of the "SolarAPP" tool for reviews of photovoltaic panel installation plans was kicked off months ago and solar contractors have used it to permit more than 600 projects to date. SolarAPP is a third-party software program, developed in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), that checks photovoltaic system designs for compliance with the National Electric Code. PDD staff have worked closely with SolarAPP and NREL staff to fine tune the software and ensure it's checking all applicable code requirements. Licensed contractors pay a small fee to use the SolarAPP, which PDD recognizes as a valid third-party review. SolarAPP can shave weeks off the photovoltaic review process and could eventually be available for up to 50 percent of the 750 residential photovoltaic plans submitted each month. More than 30 licensed contractor are participating in the pilot, and they have given the application rave reviews.
- City Council approved and staff has executed new, expanded on-call plan review and inspection contracts that not only increase overall contract capacity but provide new flexibility for staff to assign work to contractors based on their immediate availability and ability to quickly turnaround plans. This allows staff to respond more quickly when demand spikes. The Department also has a much larger number of firms on the on-call contract list to ensure that staff can move to another firm if one does not have adequate resources or staff with key technical knowledge.
- Staff has also expanded the Remote Inspection program for minor residential improvements and the Permit-by-Inspection program to allow for faster inspections and best utilize available resources.
New Tools and Improved Capacity:
- Though the appointment-only business model was a Covid necessity, PDD staff heard from customers that appointment-based service is a major benefit as the customer can avoid the unpredictably of "walk-in" visits to City Hall. Staff has expand appointment availability at some counters where there was customer demand. The Director's Office has also implemented an oversight process continuously monitor counter appointment availability to ensure that appointments can be added based upon customer demand.
- Staff will also be launching a new electronic tool in the next couple of weeks to allow customers to book their own appointments online.
- Staff has restructured the residential plan review section, including the addition of a new residential plan review coordinator position. This coordinator supervises two principal engineering technicians who each oversee teams of plan reviewers, a structure that will make it easier to ensure review consistency and streamlined plan review flow. This new position also is charged with continual analysis of the residential plan review section to identify ongoing efficiency improvements.
- Staff has completed recruitment for two new Ombudsman Management Assistant II positions the City Council approved in this fiscal year's budget. These MAIIs will provide an in-house, start-to-finish resource for customers with limited development and construction knowledge or with complicated, multi-discipline projects. They also will systematically track challenging projects to provide managers with data, patterns and trends to guide continual process improvement efforts, and they will focus on upgrading PDD's website customer interface.
- PDD continues to rollout the Cisco Jabber desktop phone connection application for all employees to enable seamless communication with customers and co-workers regardless of work location. Staff is on track to have 100 percent of staff on Jabber by the end of the year.
- As previously mentioned, City council approved a new process to speed up plat submissions. The new process allows developers to submit plats electronically, replacing the decades-old system that required contractors to hand-deliver plastic "mylars" of plats.
- Staff has provided customers more flexible payment options for large projects. With high dollar value plan reviews and permits, customers now have multiple electronic payment options, which saves travel time and gets plan reviews started and permits issued more quickly.
Enhancements in progress
- Staff has rolled out Whatfix for users of the new SHAPE PHX system. Whatfix is a Digital Adoption Solution that utilizes pop-ups, task lists, step-by-step flows, smart tips, and beacons to help train users on how to use a new system. It provides customers real time guidance and assists with data accuracy and provides staff the opportunity to track and measure the effectiveness of training and user journeys, schedule alerts and announcements in the SHAPE PHX Portal, and gather feedback from preset surveys.
- With the shift toward electronic plan review submission, staff had to overhaul the "pre-log" review process that ensures submitted plans are complete and accurate. Staff implemented multiple changes to streamline this process that include regular submission and payment reviews to workflows for plans submitted in the ProjectDox system. While SHAPE PHX will eliminate many plan submission and payment tracking issues, staff has committed to improving the legacy systems to improve the customer experience and speed up plan reviews during the transition.
Enhancements for the future:
- Staff is set to start testing "virtual" counter appointment via web video link. This will provide the same one-one-one project discussion that customers and staff value, while freeing customers from the time and expense of traveling to City Hall. With virtual appointments, customers will be able to do in 30-45 minutes from their home or work computer what previously would have required travel, parking, check-in and unpredictable wait times.
- PDD staff also continue to move toward rollout of the next stages of the SHAPE PHX application. Staff has learned valuable lessons from the initial rollout for residential plans that will make future stages of the SHAPE PHX introduction smoother and more seamless.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager Alan Stephenson and the Planning and Development Department.