Title
Add Positions, Make Other Process Improvements to Address Current Construction Activity Levels in the Planning and Development Department (Ordinance S-47818)
Description
Request to authorize the City Manager, or his designee, to undertake six broad actions to increase development capacity to address current construction activity levels. Staff requests to add 34 new positions, increase on-call plan review and inspections contract capacity, implement short-term process improvements, and increase staff and customer training efforts around key review/submittal issues. In addition, staff proposes to develop internship and apprenticeship programs to help address long-term employment necessities of the Planning and Development Department (PDD). Further request to authorize the City Manager, or his designee, to enter into a contract through Maricopa County (Serial 190178) with Glancy Consultants LLC to provide strategic consulting services for the Planning and Development Department. The aggregate contract value will not exceed $50,000. Further request the City Controller to disburse all funds related to this item. No General Fund dollars are requested to support this request; Development Services funds are available.
Report
Summary
Development activity in the City of Phoenix has continued to increase over the past year as the local economy continues to strongly attract private investment. Phoenix has been the fastest growing city in the nation for the last five years according to the U.S. Census Bureau. During that time period, PDD planned, permitted, and oversaw construction of $22 billion of private construction that provides the physical places that enable our residents to live, work and play within the City. At the conclusion of Fiscal Year 2020/21 PDD will have issued approximately 47,000 total construction permits. This figure is about 5,000 fewer permits than were issued prior to the Great Recession in 2005/06. PDD will have completed approximately 275,000 inspections during this last fiscal year, compared to 352,046 inspections in 2005/06.
As outlined in Attachment A, plan review and permitting activity in several areas is approaching levels not seen since the housing and construction boom of the mid 2000s. PDD has continued to add staff as well as utilize innovation, efficiency improvements, technology and contract staff to meet the increasing demands of our customers. However, there still remains a need to take additional steps to address current development activity. Staff requests approval to take the following actions:
1. Add 34 new positions in key areas experiencing review backlogs.
2. Increase on-call plan review and inspections contract capacity.
3. Implement staff-identified short-term process improvements.
4. Hire a consultant to develop mid/long-term process improvements.
5. Increase staff and customer training efforts around key review/submittal issues to increase efficiencies.
6. Develop internship and apprenticeship programs to help address long-term employment necessities.
The requested positions, as outlined in Attachment B, are in areas of the department that have been most impacted by the increase in construction activity, specifically in development plan review and inspections. This includes multiple positions to more quickly screen and route plans submitted electronically, which now account for 80 percent of all plans submitted. The department also will be adding human resources positions to expedite recruitment and hiring for these jobs, which is especially challenging in an overall tight labor market and magnified by the current construction boom. This targeted increase in staff will help ensure that customers/stakeholders can continue to move projects forward quickly and efficiently.
In addition to full-time positions, PDD also proposes an increase of up to 33 percent in the budget for "on-call" contractors in several areas to add peak plan review and inspections capacity. This will be done under an existing city contract managed by the Street Transportation Department and will be presented to the City Council for authorization in the first Formal meeting after the summer break.
In addition, to new positions, PDD continues to analyze plan review and permitting processes to find efficiencies, streamline intake and routing, and implement new tools. In the short term, staff is revising the process for initial intake of electronic plans to reduce submittal time frames. Staff also is adding screening questions for applicants during initial submittal to allow for quicker routing to the appropriate section. The current electronic plan review system is not integrated with the department's 25-year-old primary business application. However, new software, including the first release of the new SHAPE PHX system, is scheduled to come online in August, which will streamline electronic plan review, particularly for residential reviews. New administrative positions will help to train staff and integrate the new system into our plan review process. Finally, staff will enhance recruitment efforts to more aggressively identify, interview and screen candidates for crucial engineering technician positions.
PDD also is hiring a consultant to complete an in-depth analysis of current plan review and permitting processes and recommend improvements to streamline plan review and inspection turnaround times. The consultant is on a current Maricopa County contract that the City can utilize and he is very familiar with City processes and can conduct the analysis quickly. The results of the work will be brought forward in the fall of this year.
Staff also is identifying common submittal errors to develop training "how to" videos and information sheets to better explain submittal requirements to new professionals working in the field. In addition, staff will survey existing customers to identify consistency concerns and develop new staff trainings based upon information learned from these surveys.
Finally, PDD will implement an apprenticeship program for the department that will initially focus on a few inspection positions but may expand to other key technical positions in the future. The department also will bring back a formal internship program that was eliminated at the start of the Great Recession. Additional details on the apprenticeship program and exact number of positions will come back to City Council on the first Formal agenda after the break.
Financial Impact
The estimated cost for the proposed new positions for the FY 2022 is $3.14 million. Additionally, request authority to enter into a contract with Glancy Consultants LLC to review and recommend development process improvements and spend up to $50,000 to satisfy the terms of the contract. Separate City Council actions including $2.5 million in additional on-call contracts and the additional costs associated with the under development apprenticeship program will be requested at the August 25, 2021 Formal Meeting. No General Funds are requested. Development Services Funds in the PDD operating budget are available to support these requests.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager Ginger Spencer and the Planning and Development Department.