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DSAC Minutes 07/11/2001 RJuly 11, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE Naples, Florida, July 11,2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Development Services Advisory Committee, In and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 3:42.p.m. in REGULAR SESSION at Conference Room E, Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: VICE CHAIRMAN: Dino J. Longo Blair Foley, P.E. Bryan Milk Charles M. Abbott R. Bruce Anderson, Esq. David Correa Marco Espinar Brian E. Jones Peter H. Van Arsdale ABSENT: Thomas Masters, P.E. Dalas D. Disney, A.I.A. Robert L. Duane, A.I.C.P. Thomas R. Peek, P.E. C. Perry Peeples, Esq. Page 1 July 11,2001 Herbert R. Savage, A.I.A. ALSO PRESENT: Patrick White, Assistant County Attorney Ed Perico, Building Review John Dunnuck, Community Development Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Denny Baker, Community Development George Santos, Information Systems Don Blalock, Planning Services Gene Chartrand, Building Review Phil Tindall, Impact Fee Coordinator Amy Patterson, Impact Fees Page 2 DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE AGENDA July 11, 2001 3:30 p.m. I. Approval of Agenda II. Approval of Minutes - June 6, 2001 Meeting III. Staff Announcements A. Summary of Ordinance Amendments B. Miscellaneous IV. Old Business A. Budget Review Subcommittee Reports A. Land Development Regulation (Bob Duane) B. Construction Code (Dino Longo) C. Utility Code (Tom Peek) D. Ad Hoc Committee on Fees VI. New Business A. Impact Fee Estimator Demo VII. Committee Member Comments July 11, 2001 (Proceedings commenced, Misters Abbott, White, and Anderson not present:) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I want to call the July 1 lth, 2001, Development Services Advisory Committee meeting to order. We need approval of the agenda -- agenda, and do we have any additions or deletions from the agenda? I need a motion. MR. CORREA: Motion to approve the minutes. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: So moved. I need a second. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Second. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Peter seconded it. Do we have any discussion? (No response.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: So moved. I need approval of the minutes of the June 6, 2001, meeting. And that is sitting in front of us. I want to make a correction. I did call in with an excused absence to Tom Masters prior to me leaving for Washington D.C. I e-mailed him, actually. MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Do I have a motion for the approval of June 6? MR. VAN ARSDALE: So moved. MR. JONES: Second. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I have a second. Do we have any discussion? MR. CORREA: Hold on. I also called on the -- the 6th, and I stated I wasn't able to come in. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Were you excused? MR. CORREA: Oh, I -- I called to be excused. I don't know. Is there a difference? I called to be excused. Page 3 July 11,2001 VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: So noted. MR. CORREA: There was no one to excuse me, but I did call. I left a message with the office. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I have a motion of approval, and I have a second. Any further discussion? (No response.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: All in favor? (Unanimous response.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Thank you. So moved. Do you want me to sign off on this as vice chair? MR. DUNNUCK: Yes. Staff announcements, ordinances: I've got Gene here to kind of give you-all an update on-- on the FEMA and the flood ordinance and-- and where we are with that issue. Gene, if you could, you know, kind of bring everybody up to speed. I think we don't have any answers yet, but we're getting pretty close, I mean, let you know. MR. CHARTRAND: Gene Chartrand. The flood ordinance will remain as -- ag adopted. The technical portions of the flood requirements are now published in the new 2001 code that will be taking effect January 1 st, 2002. There are a couple of other -- administrative ordinance that is being amended for the building codes. That has not been completed yet. We're working closely with the City of Naples, Marco Island, to make everything uniform so that what's done in one municipality is done throughout the county. MR. CORREA: How will that affect the insurance rates? MR. CHARTRAND: We have an audit coming next week from FEMA, be a two-day audit on the 17th and 18th. We'll have all our materials together for FEMA to review. When they complete their review, we'll get a letter back from Tallahassee advising us as to what -- what they found in the audit, if anything. And, in addition to that, we have another report that's due October 1 st of this year to the ISO Page 4 July 11,2001 program. And we should maintain -- hopefully we may come up with enough points to -- we're shooting for getting one point lower, and that would re -- move us down from a 15 percent reduction to a 20 percent reduction in the flood zone areas and from a 5 percent reduction in insurance rates to the next zone to a 10 percent. MR. DUNNUCK: Ed, how many other counties out there qualify for that? MR. PERICO: Ed Perico. There's only one other municipality in the area that has a better rating than us, and that's Sanibel Island. We have a rating of a 7 at this point so -- MR. CORREA: How is your rating decided? MR. PERICO: It's on the expertise of the staff, how we determine things, the flood elevations, how we establish them, and how we enforce them. And it's -- you know, that's the way it's all --. MR. CHARTRAND: Vacant land. It has a lot to do with the canals drain-off water. There's a lot of phases that go into a lot of department -- there -- it's dealt -- there's a lot of-- there's points that are giving -- given for vacant land, lands that are set aside as flood areas. The -- the flooding of the Everglades and things like that are going to be added on, FEMA map change revisions. There's points that are giving -- given for that. And the biggest part is the administrative -- administration of the whole program trying to keep everything together and maintaining the flood-plane areas. (Mr. Abbott entered the room.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: No problem. I might make a comment. We've had this flood ordinance on-- pending almost-- for years. Do we want to move forward and go ahead and -- and get this into an ordinance, I mean, finalized ordinance? I don't think the -- the flood ordinance is supposed to correspond with the new FIRM maps, so forth and so on. I don't think there's language -- we might want to look into that to see if there's any language change so if there Page 5 July 11,2001 is not, we can go ahead and get this flood ordinance off this pending list. And we could take a look at the disaster recovery and probably do the same. And coastal setback, I'm not sure. I would have to check with Ed and Gene and probably Ken Pineau as far as how the FEMA proposed firm maps affect our coastal setback ordinance. So I would suggest that we go ahead and revisit all three of these ordinances in a subcommittee meeting of the codes committee. And if it's not too late, we could do it next month on the second Wednesday of next month. Is that okay with Charlie or -- MR. ABBOTT: Yeah. Second Wednesday? VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Second Wednesday of next month. MR. ABBOTT: At three o'clock. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: At three o'clock. And let's -- let's go ahead and revisit these -- these three pending -- disaster recovery, coastal setback, and flood ordinance -- ordinances. And, Gene, if you could have whatever we need for that for the flood, we'll -- we'll talk to Ken, or John will talk to Ken, and we'll just take -- take a look at that and add anything on the coastal setback, and you can look at that versus our new unified -- proposed unified building code, if that affects it as well. MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. I think several of these cases -- most of them are cleanup items, and you know, it's probably just enough to communicate and say -- say where we are with them, and we can take them off this list. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: The disaster recovery ordinance has language that mirrors some of the language as far as the 50 percent recover -- 50 percent rule for FEMA, so I -- we'll just need to take a look at that. Continue on staff announcements? MR. DUNNUCK: That's really all I have in the ordinances. Page 6 July 11, 2001 Land Development Code, the second cycle was completed last month. You know, everything pretty much with the hearing examiner was passed. There were some modifications to the ATVs on the beach issue, and I think there was one case which is -- is drawing a blank right now, honestly, about one that was not approved by the Board of County Commissioners because we had to have all four commissioners vote in favor of it. And one of the commissioners voted against it, understanding that Commissioner Fiala was on vacation during the second hearing so -- but for the majority of all of those items, they were passed. And if you-all want, I can give you a summary sheet, you know, of ones -- just so you-all know which ones got passed and which ones didn't for the next meeting just as a courtesy. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Thank you, John. MR. ANDERSON: Mr. Chairman, John, I wanted to ask you; where are you at on the interview or application process for both your position you're acting in as well as the planning services director? MR. DUNNUCK: Where we are with the planning services director, you know, we've had it open for advertisement all summer. And, honestly, I haven't gotten -- I had five quality candidates that came in. Three of them dropped out. Well, actually, we looked at them. One we found out had some issues up in the place where they were actually currently working. Another one took another job somewhere else, and the third one said he couldn't afford to live in Collier County. So we went down to two applicants. We've let it open. We still haven't gotten a really good-quality pool. You know, what the feedback we're getting is that lot of people don't want to come in and do the planning director until they know who the administrator is going to be and have that resolved. So we really tried to jump up and get that one finalized. We've got -- next Tuesday or next Thursday we will close the Page 7 July 11,2001 position for the administrator. We've gotten a number of good applicants in so far. We had-- where -- the national advertisings with the International City/County Manager Association for Associations of Counties, a lot of big publications, both planning magazines and so forth, have had those advertisements. You know, we've got Dino and somebody from the Environmental Advisory Committee and myself and the director of HR who is going to sit down and go over that list on the 29th of July, short-list it down to a number, interview those num -- people, rank it, provide it to the county manager who will then decide whether he wants to do a second interview or whether he wants to select based upon our rankings. So that's where we are right now. I hope to have somebody in by the middle of September, is what our goal is right now, you know, be able to turn over the new budget to them and -- and hopefully have some of these -- these process issues which we'll talk about later fixed. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you. MR. CORREA: John, you're not in the running for the position? MR. DUNNUCK: No. Nope. That's -- that wasn't part of-- you know, when I met with the county manager a long time ago, that was not a consideration. MR. CORREA: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Okay. Moving on, old business, budget review. MR. DUNNUCK: I think we ended up having to table this one because of a subcommittee meeting. We were planning on bringing up the budget to the subcommittee except for the fact that they ran long on a lot of the other issues that were being discussed that day, so we didn't get an approval one way or the other from the subcommittee about what they liked with the budgets or not with the position request. So my guess is we need to table that until the next subcommittee meeting next week and then bring it back to the full Page 8 July 11,2001 committee. That would be my recommendation at this point in time. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: John, which subcommittee is looking at this? MR. DUNNUCK: I believe you-all had directed me to take it to the ad hoc committee on fees, the overall ad hoc committee, and that's the agenda we had it scheduled for. And that was last July 3rd, last Tuesday. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Right. MR. DUNNUCK: And I think it was on the agenda for discussion, and they never got to it because we were talking about the processes with planning and the building and the response times. I wasn't personally in attendance, but I'll take any feedback from -- from Peter and those who were there. MR. VAN ARSDALE: I can't remember who was there, but I was. I think we were asking for some more information to understand where the money was going, getting a better idea of the money that went into the general fund and then came back to the different departments and its allocation to really understand the -- the transfers in and the transfers out, and I -- and that's what we were -- we should clarify that by the next meeting. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: We did not discuss that July 3rd. What we discussed was -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: Didn't we? VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: No. We discussed the planning side. MR. VAN ARS DALE: Yeah. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: And we came to the conclusion on the planning side that we could not track the Perconte system, their -- their time frames, anything that was done, any -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: Oh, okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I don't think we visited this Page 9 July 11,2001 actual budget process. I'm not quite -- you have to refresh my memory. I'm not quite sure what we were doing on these budgets as far as budget review. What were we looking for? MR. DUNNUCK: There were two issues. One was I put in for an expanded request to the board asking for additional positions, and I had provided it to the committee last month. And it was the subsequent reality of that it was going to be about an 8 percent increase in fees, and that's why I had brought it to you-all. And you said take it to the subcommittee, even though I presented it. And I think this was actually before we had the quorum and went through the whole LDC issue. You know, it was a feeling of-- of the committee at this point in time that, yeah, they liked the idea of some of these positions because they -- they felt it filled some of the gaps in the organization but that they wanted me to take it to the subcommittee. Subsequent to that there has also been discussion with -- with Peter regarding the whole issue of the rationale nexus that was done several years ago that has to do with how much money comes from development permit fees towards the general fund to support a portion of code enforcement, a portion of housing and urban improvement, a portion of natural resources. And -- so I think we're dealing with two issues really. I've already submitted the tentative budget to the Board of County Commissioners with those expansions. They said yes, but one of the stipulations was they wanted to get an official recommendation from Development Services Advisory Committee. So I'm trying to work that through before they get into September and adopt the -- the final millage. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Comment first. Now -- now I remember what we were supposed to do was because of that request from John. We were -- we were starting to dig into whether that 8 percent was needed because of other areas of funding that we wanted Page 10 July 11,2001 to know where it was going to make sure that -- that we didn't really - - that the 8 percent increase is justified based on those positions, No. 1; and, No. 2, that we're not overspending or misallocating funds on the planning side being subsidized so that we don't have to increase it. We just went to a 10 or 15 percent increase on permit fees to fund the new parking. And then that got reduced by $2 million. I asked where the $2 million went. It's -- and that's how we got started on all that. Peter, you had a question? MR. VAN ARSDALE: Yeah. I knew I had a conversation on the budget issues. That was actually in the meeting I had with Denny. And it was -- my concerns were those -- certainly the remarks that I made earlier as to the different transfers and, also, that we focus -- when we're talking about rate increases, that the current imbalance that exists between the costs of providing services for building permits and the revenues, compared to the costs of providing services for-- on the planning side and the revenues. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: And, thus, our conversations last week, we kind of got sidetracked because we could not come up with enough credible information to give us what planning was really spending and how they spend it with their staff requirements. And we could do that on the building side today because we can track most of your time frames on how long it takes to go from Point A to Point Z, but we can't do that on the planning side right now. At our last meeting, if I recall correctly, we asked Denny and Tom Kuck to come back with some -- with some better information, and it's going to be hand-ledger-type information, and they're going to have to revisit their computer consultant to see if they can't get the -- the tracking on-line on the planning side. So it's -- that's where -- that's where we're a little amiss right now because we can't get the information we need. Page 11 July 11,2001 MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think we're talking about, really, two issues. We're talking about the short-term budget issue right now which is us -- upcoming fiscal year. I think we're talking about, then, the overall which is that rationale nexus that was done a couple years ago which the board adopted which said we're going to distribute these fees based upon an analysis that staff did. I will tell you that the board -- when they did review the budget, we broached the subject with them about the rationale nexus. They were still 100 percent in favor of those figures that were created several years ago that actually, I think, were -- I think Vince had put together, and then the Republican party had actually reviewed and made some additional suggestions to it, and the board supported those as far as percentage goes and made the change. We do have an audit that we're doing on that rationale nexus for this coming fall to our budget office. They have that on their kind of to-do list in off season. But, at the very least, I need to get, you know, a yea or nay on some of those positions on whether you think those positions are okay or not, and then we can have some further discussion probably on the overall picture which is, "Where does the money all go?" It's going to be a big philosophical decision that you guys are going to have to make recommendation-wise whether you want planning to support more of a planning function because the building department -- and I think it was consciously done several years ago -- supports a large function of the planning department. And if you talk about real time, how much time we spend, we spend a great deal more time on the planning side of things than we do on the building review side of things on an individual application permit-by- permit basis. And if you want to switch your philosophy, it means the developer is going to be paying much more money up front on the planning side of it, and we reduce costs on the building permit side of it. But that all will have to be a philosophical decision that you're Page 12 July 11, 2001 going to make. You know, one of the things, from my standpoint, when we increased this 15 percent last year, the Catch 22 on that is, it increased it for last year. But if we did the same amount of permits that we did for last year and we did it this year, it's not going to build in my inflation on my expense side. You know, if you did that exact number, that revenue should stay the same, unless you raise fees. My expense side is always going to be going up, I mean, just by inflation, 3 percent at the minimum. I need something to balance that out on the permit fee side before we are so far in advance on how much fees we are collecting by what we are spending on the expense side that we had reserves. We're kind of out of that mode now, and that's why they had that 15 percent increase last year. It wasn't because of the building expansion; it was because of operating costs and because we spent a bulk of that money out of the reserves that we already had. And that's the one thing that we'll talk about in the subcommittee meeting, is walking you-all through it. But there's a lot bigger issues. I would like us to get -- to look at the big picture where the permit fee side of it, we either build two years in advance what we think the inflation is going to be, or we go back year after year and evaluate it and just becomes a cost of doing business. But -- but that's -- those are the issues that I'm experiencing right now, from my perspective, going through this budget. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: When do you need your answers? MR. DUNNUCK: I need my answers before Sep -- middle of September with respect to the budget, which would give us the ad hoc committee next week to talk about the basic numbers, and then that would give us our full meeting here in August. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Well, we weren't doing an ad hoc next week. We were going to August for ad hoc. Page 13 July 11,2001 MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: My suggestion would be if-- if-- I think it's too much for even a two-hour period to tackle three -- three ordinances, although they might slide. I don't know. And I think this budget -- this budget would take up a good two-hour meeting easy. So my question to the subcommittee is, we can still do it this month, possibly next Wednesday, which is the 18th, or we can do it the second Wednesday of August. I won't be in town on the -- on the 25th. MR. ABBOTT: Something is happening on the 18th. I -- I don't know, but I posted something or another that's one of our meetings. I can go get my computer and find out but -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, I -- I mean, as I recall when we endorsed the 15 percent rate increase, it was with the proviso that we understood this issue better during this budget cycle, and -- and -- and -- and we really don't. I mean, I think that was very important to us at that time. And -- and what we have is a budget that is a mirror of the previous year's budget. And so I think it's very important that we identify the distribution of this revenue as to where it goes. And, you know, we can philosophize all we want about the rationale nexus in terms of how we spend it, but the reality is there is some very clear and concise case law that says that building permit fees can only pay for building permit services and, similarly, the same for planning services. And then the rest of the stuff goes to the general fund and -- and code enforcement, you know, there's limited expense associated with building operations. The majority of it is general fund issues. So I -- I mean, that's the kind of information that we need to get. In other words, we need to identify the money. Then if we want to say, okay, we are going to make a philosophical decision and we are going to take $2 million out of building permit fees and use them to Page 14 July 11,2001 support general-fund purposes and the planning purposes, I would like to see that laid out in front of us so we can endorse that, okay. We, as the -- the DSAC has decided that $2 million for building permit fees should go to the general fund for general revenue purposes or whatever and so that -- and so it's clear to all of us that we know exactly what we're doing because that hasn't never been -- it's just sort of blended in and out and back, and it's hard to follow. I think Denny is working on that. We can check on it. But I think that's what -- we need to get with the subcommittee and have it all spelled out here so we can make a -- understand it and then make a good decision. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Well, why don't we tackle that on the 15th of August? MR. ABBOTT: That's the second Wednesday? VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: No. Actually, the 8th is the second Wednesday because Wednesday the 1st is the first Wednesday. MR. ABBOTT: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: So we -- we could -- let's -- let's tackle that, unless John tells me different. And we can do the flood ordinances or all the three ordinances the month after, if that's okay with you. MR. DUNNUCK: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: But let's tackle the budget on the 8th. MR. ABBOTT: The budget is the 8th, okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: August 8th at three o'clock on codes and construction subcommittee, and then we'll -- we'll defer the three ordinances to the -- to the September regular codes and construction second Wednesday meeting. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Now, can I ask-- can I ask, Denny, are Page 15 July 11, 2001 you having any luck in sort of tracking down the money? MR. BAKER: Denny Baker. Dino, you said -- first the 15th, and then you said the 8th. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: It's the 8th. The 8th is the second Wednesday of August. The 1st falls on a Wednesday. MR. BAKER: Okay. MR. ABBOTT: So we have DSAC on the 1st of August. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Correct. We have construction code subcommittee on MR. AB BOTT: the -- MR. CORREA: on? On the 8th. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Correct. Okay. We can move MR. BAKER: Peter-- in response to Peter's question, yes, I -- Peter, I did, I met with the -- I went to the budget office. I spent the better part of a morning over there going through this maze of back and forth, and I do have some information that needs to be refined and developed in preparation for the meeting, but it has been started. MR. VAN ARSDALE: I guess what I'd like to see is rather than get all the in -- because it's hard to track it, and so if we could-- I would like an advance copy. It would be before. It would be a week before in advance of the meeting so we can review it. That would be very helpful. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Yeah. Actually, Denny, if you could get it to us at the DSAC -- the first -- August 1st meeting, we could have it. We don't have to speak on it at that meeting, but we could have it and give us a week to look at it by the 8th. MR. BAKER: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Charlie? MR. ABBOTT: I spoke to the county commission during budget hearings concerning how, as a director of CBIA that, quote, Page 16 July 11,2001 40 percent of code enforcement's budget was paid for from permit fees. And I think that if the CBIA and the builders are trying to divide the line between what ought to be user fees for growth paying for growth and ad -- and ad valorem paying for ad valorem, they should look at it. And they -- they blew the idea off at the time. And the budget officer sent me a report, but it's two years old, and code enforcement is a much different creature. And it was a 1999 -- some sort of efficiency report, and I think we ought to pay attention to that because we're funding people that I don't like them funded out of our permit fees. I don't like them for a number of reasons, but I particularly don't like them for that. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: And I think that's what Peter is alluding to. MR. DUNNUCK: I think that's what we're talking about the audit going in and taking a look at those numbers from two years ago and saying, you know, are these realistic to -- today, I mean, because there was a -- a link made, you know, at the time. And Michelle could answer, like, in code enforcement why they had picked that percentage of code enforcement to be paid for by the development community. But certainly the county helps and tells us where we're managing our time a little bit but-- MR. ABBOTT: Part of that, though, I mentioned the commission is operating under a question of what I call semantics. They were saying, "Oh, well, gosh, builders, of course, they need code enforcement." And I realized, no, give me about 20 minutes with them, and I'll have them with a firm understanding of what code enforcement does as opposed to what Ed Perico's inspectors do. A world of difference. We're paying for the service that Ed provides, not for these other people. And that, I think, is a serious issue and can easily blow up into a big political hot potato. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Okay. We'll address it. Page 17 July 11,2001 Peter. MR. VAN ARSDALE: And one last point: Would it be possible, as part of this review, to have an interpretation from the county attorney on -- on his position relative to the interpretation of state law? MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. That-- MR. VAN ARSDALE: In all my conversations with him, he's -- he's agreed that it can't happen, and so then it comes down to how far can you stretch it. And there's no harm in stretching it. The worst thing you do is you're told you have to stop. So you might as well take a couple million a year, and if you have to stop, you stop. (Mr. White entered the room.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: This came to light about 2 1/2, 3 years ago. Commissioner Mac'Kie brought before staff wondering why we were funding sea turtle nesting out of permit fees or something like that, and we dug into it a little bit, but we haven't dug into it in the detail that we need to in order to identify every line item that is being paid for by permit fees. So I think that's where we're headed basically. So we're going to move on, if that's okay with everybody else. All right? Subcommittee reports, land development regulation. Bob Duane's not here. Can anybody report on land development regulation? MR. ABBOTT: They did it all, didn't they? MR. ESPINAR: We haven't met. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: You haven't met? Okay. Construction code, which is me, we have basically been dealing with these budget issues for the last couple of meetings, and it's ongoing. So we really have no report on construction code. Utility code? I see we have a subcommittee meeting minutes here. Tom? Page 18 July 11,2001 MR. KUCK: Tom Kuck for the record. I just -- for distribution, I've got a copy of the minutes from the meeting back in June, and I think the only thing I want to highlight is proposed -- the public utilities, we're proposing to go before the board in October with amendments to the -- to their-- the utility ordinance to bring all the updates that we've been discussing and approving over the last year and making them official. And then there was one other issue that -- that I would probably bring to your attention. And the subcommittee recommended that the Board of County Commissioners support an additional person to the public works. It wouldn't be out of our budget; it would be public works. But that person would be assigned to analyzing all the lift stations and the capacities which the county doesn't have a real good handle on and on down the way that could prevent -- and I hate to use the word "moratorium" -- but, I mean, it's -- it's a safeguard to make sure those capacities are available in the lift stations and the plants, and -- and they were supporting that additional person, and I'm asking this committee if they'd also, DSAC, if they support that concept. And, again, it would be funded out of public works revenue. MR. ABBOTT: Would they need our approval for such a thing? MR. KUCK: I think that they -- they just feel more comfortable if they go to the board and they passed it through this committee and more or less got the endorsement or support of that person. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Utilities falls under the Development Services Advisory Committee ordinance. Blair? MR. FOLEY: For the record, Blair Foley. I, for one, would support that position as a consulting engineer we have to provide downstream hydraulic analysis on site development plans and subdivisions. And my understanding is that the county doesn't have any individual that currently reviews that. We've been doing that for years -- Page 19 July 11,2001 MR. KUCK: Consistency in those reviews. MR. FOLEY: So I think it's real important to have at least somebody reviewing the consultant's submittal and have one person that would have a handle on all the capacity issues. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Brian? MR. JONES: Would it, as an alternate to -- alternative to the employee position, what about a consultant study, a one-time deal that could be done every -- every other year, every third year? MR. KUCK: Blair could probably address that more than I can, but things change so fast on a -- actually, on a month-to-month or six- months-to-six-month basis to keep up with the rapid growth and where they really need that information to determine, again, the -- the capacity so -- for taking on more projects. MR. FOLEY: Blair Foley. Yeah, I agree that a project like you mentioned would be more expensive in the long run, and it wouldn't give us information that we need. Sometimes the pumps are such small horsepower that one subdivision might affect it versus a report that might be done in a year or two would be outdated at that point. So I don't think that's an alternative, an effective alternative anyway. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Tom, are you looking for a motion? MR. KUCK: Just, I guess, be looking for a motion to -- to see if this committee would support that -- that posture. MR. FOLEY: I make a motion that we support that position out of public utilities -- what is it? Public works funding? MR. KUCK: Public works funding, which is -- they have their own revenue so ... VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I need a second. MR. CORREA: Second. MR. ABBOTT: David Correa. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I have a second. Any more Page 20 July 11, 2001 discussion.'? MR. VAN ARSDALE: Just one comment. I mean -- I think-- you said it's somewhat self-serving certainly from the development community to support this. More importantly, I think it's a good practice to kind of know how your multimillion-dollar utility system is functioning, and my guess is it's probably a requirement of state law that we know both what its capacity is and at what level it's operating at. So it's probably required by law to fill this spot to know what we're doing. And it's probably illegal to not know it. MR. KUCK: I agree. It's been something I've been asking utilities to do for five or six years. Finally, with some of the changes in personnel, utilities are addressing that need and -- so it's fine with being addressed. MR. VAN ARSDALE: I guess -- I would just sort of maybe amend to the motion that it -- that we recommend that it be done to keep -- you know, to not cause a moratorium but also this it's -- it's -- it's good for the existing health, safety, and welfare of the community that -- that we not have overflows and there not all -- MR. DUNNUCK: Well, and that goes back to this fall we're bringing back changes to the -- you know, to the Comprehensive Plan as far as how we measure the level of service in the utility industry, and one of our plans to do is to present you-all an annual report as well of where we are with our facilities, whether it's transportation or utilities, just so you get that briefing as a courtesy to understand where we are. I think one of the things we learned over the last year is that it's a garbage-in, garbage-out process. And the way we were actually analyzing utility capacity wasn't the best possible way to do it, and we weren't telling the board the truth of what was going on out there. And now we're telling the board the truth of what's going on out there. It's costly, but at least we're getting it fixed and getting it addressed. Page 21 July 11,2001 VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Blair, for the record, would you restate the motion, please. MR. FOLEY: I recommend that we support the position, a new position in the utilities, funded by public works to keep us within any state law regarding capacity issues, with regard to sewer facilities, and that that position be supported by this committee. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: And we have a second by David Correa. Any more discussion? (No response.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: All in favor. (Unanimous response.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Motion passes. We've kind of already discussed ad hoc committee fees, and we've set our-- our new meeting, so we'll go by that. MR. DUNNUCK: One of the things I did want to update you- all on, we're kind of getting into this process. You know, we've gotten a lot of complaints from the development community about the planning review process being very slow. And we had a meeting this morning with the entire current planning staff and then some of the customer service reps and people who are involved in the process and talked about it, and I'm going to be bringing forward some items because I think in the short term we looked at -- we have 200 applications out there. They're not all site development plans. They're everything. Site improvement plans, a lot of different things. But we're doing an audit of those in the immediate future. We're going to be working overtime to get caught up on those. Some of the sacrifices we might have to make because we are short staffed on the planning side of things is we may have to limit some of the hours at the front counter and do some things there. We may be doing a public information campaign to let everybody know that our staff's going to be working extra hours to get caught up in the immediate Page 22 July 11,2001 future. But as we get through this process, a couple of things in the feedback I've got, I just want to share with you-all is that some of it's a shared pain, that -- that we're getting stuff in that isn't of quality of what the Land Development Code requires off the bat. You know, we have our checklist out there. We have all this stuff, and we're not getting the quality we should be getting from the development community right off the get-go. And it's really -- it's sinking the system to begin with. You know, we spend more time going through and saying, "This application doesn't meet all these requirements." And we're providing the checklists out there. People just aren't abiding by them. Right off the bat Glen is saying 30 percent of the people don't put in the complete report. The other side of it is they say they have it all in their checklist. We get in later, and we find out it's missing some things. Now, I know from our standpoint we need to communicate if we've changed some things, like we have in transportation, we need to do a better job of communicating our expectation. By the same token, I'm probably going to be looking for the Development Services Advisory Committee to give me some support and say, "Listen, we understand if you want to keep fees down, we need to run a tight ship, and we have to have an expectation that when stuff comes through the door, it can't be crap, frankly. It has to be good quality stuff in order to meet some deadlines." Because I know there's always pressures on whoever is submitting to get some stuff in. But what it's turned in to be is we're the quality control of the whole thing. We spend more time doing the quality control than the actual review of the plan. Now I know I have some issues, like, in site development plans, and this is what we walked through this morning. I've got 14 people Page 23 July 11,2001 reviewing it. I get consistently -- I'll get conflicts back from the -- from the feedback, you know, whether it's something from architectural review will, then, affect landscaping. And that's slowing the process down because landscape may have signed off on something. Architectural review says you need a sidewalk here. That's what the Land Development Code requires. Then it comes through again and it has to go back to landscaping, or we miss it initially, and it slows the process down even more. Another issue I've got is this issue of simultaneous review with building permits and SDPs and how we don't have the SDPs signed off on before we allow the building review. If I'm looking to get a commitment of 12 days for a building review -- and I think that's the number we've been talking about in the subcommittees -- I want to look to do away with that simultaneous issue of the SDPs because what I'm finding out is architectural review or something comes in, and we may make a change in the SDP which -- then they have to go back and change it in the permit, the building review permit, and it's slowing the whole system down because we're kind of putting the cart before the horse in some of these issues. And where it's coming back is the pressure on us. But I want some feedback from you-all, talk to your people out there, and find out -- you know, find out what you-all think is going on, but this is what staffs telling me from my perspective. And I want the support of you-all to say, "Listen, you know, we expect a standard out there of quality coming in the door from the get-go." That's what your Land Development Code requires. That's what we should be getting. We shouldn't be the ones doing all the quality control on the things. And maybe we address it through, you know, raising fees for those second and third and fourth reviews, but that's the stuff that we're going through right now. Honestly, our Perconte system isn't -- we haven't worked all the Page 24 July 11,2001 bugs out yet that's going to tell us all that stuff. But when it does, you know, I'm going to be looking to you-all to give me that support on your side because our staff-- you know, our staff is -- is busy. And -- and we can't spend the time -- if we want to give you your level of service, we can't spend the time doing this stuff that the development community should be doing up front. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: John, if I might comment on that, we -- we have identified the same things you're talking about in subcommittee, and I agree with you. I don't think anybody should submit their paperwork unless it's complete. I don't think you guys should be in charge of-- of telling the contractor or the developer what he needs or he's missing all this when he has a checklist. Some of the problems we have identified is interdepartmental communication, like you just-- you just iterated. And, for the most part, we think a lot of it has to do with the contractor or the developer not submitting his -- his paperwork on a timely basis or his resubmittals on a timely basis or the correct information to start with. And I have to agree with you on that, and I think you'll find the -- the subcommittee will at some point too. But what we can't identify right now because you can't track it is really where they -- where there is the -- the snags. We can on the building side. We can see that something went back because fire plan review refused it 17 times, the guy didn't respond to it for 15 days, and we can see that, but we can't see that on the planning side. So that's -- that's the hardness of our task right now. Once we can get a better handle on that -- we've already identified we have some problems between architectural review and landscape review and those types of things that are taking way too long for dumb things, but I have to agree with you, and I think we're working toward that right now. Anyone have any questions? MR. FOLEY: Yeah. I just want to comment on the three Page 25 July 11, 2001 things, as far as the complete packages go and some of those you mentioned from the building permit side, from the land development side, and the petition side I agree too. I think that the checklist that each of the reviewers in each of the divisions have come up with certainly have helped the community to provide the information that the reviewer wants. It's pretty simple, if you can address those issues, even if it's not in agreement with it. If you could make a statement or address it in some fashion, we have no problem. I encourage the packages also to be complete. As far as the simultaneous review, I think that's a great point that you bring up. We get a lot of pressure from the contractors to have you turned your SDP in because we want to run our building permit in. I'm to the point now where I'm discouraging that because I think that the SDP reviews, there's a lot of stuff there's usually one phase of comments that come back, and it's very important that that gets resolved. It's going to affect inevitably and invariably the building permit submittal. If you get it to the point where you have 12 days, 14 days on the building permit review side, whatever that magic number is, I think it behooves everybody to let the SDP process run its course, give it 30 days to 60 days, whatever it takes totally, and then if you can commit to a time frame on the building permit side it's going to be a much smoother project. There's not going to be the necessity to take the building plans from Steve Wonder's office and take them down to three or four different reviewers down there. I don't even know those people. I don't know where to go or what to do with that. I think that's a great point. It used to be a time a few years ago when that was helpful to start some of the tracking. I don't think it's helpful anymore. One -- one more thing I had. As far as timing goes, I know this - - this happens a lot here, and I just would encourage you, if you haven't already, to talk to your staff about this. And I know that this Page 26 July 11,2001 is a service building, and you want to service the public the best you can, but I know, and I've been in meetings with your staff here many times when people show up at the counter here in the back part of the building with development review time and time and time and time again with an unscheduled meeting, and that happens a lot, and I know it takes a lot of Tom's staff and Susan's staff. They've got to drop what they're doing in the middle of a review, and I know it's got to happen up front. I'm not discouraging helping the public, but I think if there's a public education here, maybe let the public know that these people are professionals too. They have jobs to do, and if somebody shows up at my office, you know, they usually have an appointment. And whenever I show up here, I try to have an appointment as well. I think to encourage the public to do that might help some of these time frames. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, and I agree with you. That's actually one of the things we talked about is being more selfish with our time, honestly, so we can get some of this stuff done so we can get the product out the door. Because, as you said, they're answering phone calls in the middle of a review, and then they end up on the phone for 45 minutes, and then to try to get back into the middle of a review, and they can't do it. It's no way for them to function. So I did give them the blessing to go ahead and start being more litigious about how they go about scheduling their time. And I think that goes back to that front counter review and reducing some of the times and when we actually have a planner out there. I don't know if you're all aware, I've got Ron -- Ron who's out sick, who had surgery. Chahram who had surgery. You know, I don't have a planning director. We did name Susan Murray as the current planning manager on a permanent basis. Her position is posted as comprehensive planning -- or the senior planner, whatever it is, chief planner. But we have a lot of people down. I'm not going to make Page 27 July 11, 2001 excuses. We need to do a better job on our process, but at the same token, we need to -- we're going to have to make a few sacrifices on some other ends, and I think that's where it inevitably has to occur. With the idea of the SDP process and the building review being simultaneous, from my understanding that was kind of a -- a division administrator level decision. I don't think there's anything in the Land Development Code that says one way or another. Honestly, I'd like your blessing on it, but it's something I would like to implement very soon because I think we've got too many issues in that regard to -- to not allow that because there's too many tie-ups, and it's an efficiency issue, and it's the cart before the horse. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, except I think the -- or is it -- I think to just sort of make blanket -- or blanket pol -- to make blanket policies that cover every aspect of what we do is harmful because that's what happened. Somebody has actually administratively decided that plans would go to planning for architectural review before they'd go to building. And, yes, there is cases when that would be a correct decision, let's say, if the building hasn't even -- there is structural issues that still need to be addressed or there are other solutions that could go to -- I mean, it could keep going back and forth and back until it's corrected. But what we do or what's happened is we just say, "Okay, we're going to send everything to architectural review" and things -- and we, in our meeting last week, we're -- three of us are sitting around there just telling them about our little horror stories where things shouldn't even be there, but somebody made the decision that it wasn't going to architectural -- I mean, it was going to architectural, not structural. First of all, it shouldn't have gone, and that -- that is a case -- and this is a tenant improvement so it's only the interior of the building, but it shouldn't have been there, but let's say it was a minor external review. It -- it should be simultaneous review. So we need to be -- rather than Page 28 July 11,2001 taking the simplest solution of one policy that covers everything, we should -- we should sort of categorize the different circumstances that -- that we have to deal with and -- and come up with ways to do it. MR. DUNNUCK: And that's totally agreed. Tom, this is probably a good segue for you to bring them up to speed. That's the other issue we talked about this morning was what is a handle, because, you know, things in the county government tend to be a pendulum. We overreact, we overreact, and we overreact. You try to find your way in the middle. What you're talking about, Peter, is an overreaction of something that has occurred where now we're sending architectural reviews on interior improvements that shouldn't be, you know, things like that that are automatically getting farmed out everywhere. That's the final piece of the puzzle that we talked about this morning, which Denny is going to go in and do the work, the flow analysis of the things. In the very short term, I sat down with Tom following your subcommittee meeting, and we talked about areas where we have just gone overboard, and I think that Tom can bring you up to speed on a couple of those things where we're cutting people out of the process that don't need to be involved, and that is kind of some of your short-term stuff. So we're looking at all that stuff overall. But I think an issue that's not going to go away is this SDP building review permit issue. MR. VAN ARSDALE: But it wouldn't -- but I think we would all agree that if you could get an SDP in and out in a reasonable amount of time -- VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: It wouldn't make a difference. MR. VAN ARSDALE: -- we could then modify our building plans and bring them in. The only reason you do them on a simultaneous basis is because of the six-week time that it takes to do an SDP. And I think -- and even in terms of-- it doesn't take long to Page 29 July 11,2001 determine -- I mean, somebody needs to be -- if people are saying, "Well, we're getting sloppy submittals." They still need to answer the question, "Why does it take you two or three weeks to determine that?" Don't deal with them, or charge double. If we need more help to deal with the sloppy submittal, that's a double rate. But what's so annoying to us is that we're finding -- it's taking two -- two weeks to just find out that we're missing something. It isn't that something -- it's made their work harder. They haven't worked on it at all. And -- and even as frustrating as to where we're at now in terms of the focus that we're trying to put on this, when we talk to the staff member it's like I'm supposed to be getting the work out in a certain amount of time. I'm -- you know, I'll get to it when I get to it and, you know, I -- I like to think at least in the subcommittee and some of the stuff we've talked about and some of the recommendations, none of them seem to be getting out of the conference rooms. And there's no -- and maybe you got this across with the staff that, at least as I see, we're sort of just above a crisis or meltdown mode in terms of how we perform, and that needs to go right through the entire organization so everybody says, "Whoa, there's people out there that are kind of looking at how fast we turn out our work." And that was very frustrating for me, at least 10 days ago. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Bryan. MR. MILK: Just a point of observation. Two or three years ago, John, for your knowledge, the planning staff here had really a point of-- they were the project manager/project facilitator for a site plan and a simultaneous submittal. And when those projects came in the planner of record really facilitated that time frame. They made sure if it was ten days that all those agencies or reviewers had to have their comments back in their hands within ten days. And I felt that that was a good management tool for the consultants out there. In Page 30 July 11,2001 other words, the planner had the responsibility. They were the focal point, they made the decisions, they had the internal meetings, the external meetings, and they facilitated the development community's projects, plain and simple. The same for rezones and variances and so forth. What I've seen happen, because of the administration and some other changes, that responsibility has been dispersed throughout the whole system, and those planners no longer are facilitators to the development community. They have become processors and not facilitators, and I think that's where some of that time frame could be, you know, tightened up with those folks having more responsibility like they once did. I mean, they're project planners for the pure reason that they facilitate the process. You might look at that on how that occurred. And I think some of the folks in this room, Brian, and you guys that work the process, it worked a long time ago because of the integrity and the responsibility for those folks. Those time lines, the simultaneous reviews, the phased projects, you name it, there was actually a project for, I think -- for quicker reviews, Blair, with development, economic growth, and that sort of thing. MR. DUNNUCK: Right. MR. MILK: Again, the point, John, the responsibility with your staff and a point person for all these projects to account for the time and the delay would be more responsible on -- on the county's behalf than letting all this Perconte follow it. And the other point about the submittals, you're correct. You've got every check -- checklist in the world that says you need this and that. And a lot of these folks are simply under the gun on trying to submit something for a client. I think it's erroneous. I think they ought to be set with A, B, C, D so staff can submit it. It's -- it's perfect, it's in the system, it gets done in ten days, there's comments, Page 31 July 11,2001 and everything is reviewed accordingly. Sherry gets that or whoever gets that here, Glenda. It bogs down the system. And I -- I would completely agree with that statement. But I feel very adamant about giving your staff more responsibility, especially the planning staff, to take more, you know, authority with these projects. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, I think that's why we did this. We pulled out the 200 applications that are outstanding right now, because the first thing we're going to do on the short term is assign it to those planners and say, "You-all are responsible for getting this done. You need to get it done." I agree with you that accountability needs to be very important in here, and we even talked this morning about Perconte. And I told them Perconte is a management tool. It is not a facilitator. Frankly, it probably slows things down a little bit now as we're working through the bugs. But it's not an excuse either, you know, that we still are the people who operate and do the inputs into it and we need to keep moving with it. So I agree with you there. I totally support that. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: And we made those comments on the building side last Wednesday stating that, really, once it gets in -- once a permit application gets into the system, it just goes through, but there is no facilitator. I welcome your comments because there is no one or two people in charge to make sure a group or one or all the permits are getting through on a timely basis. It's just going from department to department. So that's a -- that's an excellent recommendation that I think John will be taking a hard look at. Blair? MR. FOLEY: I think-- go ahead. MR. PERICO: John, in regards to SDP and simultaneous review, with that new building code that's coming into effect, this can be a big help. Because the last one we had on the road impact fees, Page 32 July 11,2001 we got nothing but garbage in here. I turned back I don't know how many permits out of here that we had went through all the reviews and everything that people never picked up. MR. ABBOTT: Yeah. MR. PERICO: I can take you into my permitting department now, permit pickup, and there's literally hundreds and hundreds of permits laying in there that have been ready to be picked up for months. MR. ABBOTT: Because they only paid that -- MR. PERICO: That's exactly it. And we took in simultaneous reviews that never should have come in the door to begin with. And, you know, all the staff, including planning staff, wasted a lot of available time on stuff that people had no real reason that -- they're just trying to beat the system, and that's what's going to happen come January 1. The people that are going to be really trying to get the job done are going to be put on the back burner. MR. ABBOTT: Can't you sell them back to them? MR. PERICO: I don't want to even take them in. MR. ABBOTT: Oh, I understand. MR. PERICO: I'll be perfectly honest with you because I know what's going to happen January 1. And November, December we're going to be buried. So this to me, it's going to be a windfall for us. MR. FOLEY: Real quick, if I could, a comment on what Jed said. Bryan, I think it's excellent, too, that accountability is an important mechanism in this whole process. The main concern that I have from the development standpoint is transportation. I'm not sure who they're accountable to. I -- don't appear that it's -- that it's anybody at this point in time. One thing that I'll just make that -- mention that they review things when they want to, frankly. The other point is -- your point, Peter, about timing. Glenda Smith has done a real nice job, at least with the development portion Page 33 July 11, 2001 of it, as far as getting back to us in three, four days max. I've noticed a big change in the last two months. So there is some improvement there, and I just wanted that to be recognized. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Okay. Any more comments on that subject? MR. VAN ARSDALE: Let me just kind of segue into what we were going to talk about, but we're not really prepared to is, I think, or we were planning to talk about it, and that's essentially for us to really understand how we're doing. We're trying to establish the standards and then measure the performance against the standards so the DSAC can, on a monthly basis, look at these different approvals that we give in different departments, and see how we're doing, I think, because right now we don't know. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: At the very end, what we'll do, once we establish all these standards. It's going to help John or whoever takes his place with his budget and all that as far as what comes in as the amount of work and what goes out based on the standards. And we're going to be able to see if staff increases or decreases are justified based on the volume of business that comes in this building. I think we're headed there; it's just a lot of work. MR. VAN ARSDALE: It's frustrating. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: We're going to move on to new business, impact fee estimated demo. MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. We -- this is a follow-up to a suggestion that was made in this room regarding just one of these things we could do to improve customer service out there. There was a request that says can we -- can we get in and take a look at and over a computer what we think our impact fees are going to cost us over the internet. We developed a website that kind of gives everybody a menu of items, and they can get a pretty good idea what their impact fees are going to be before they come in the door and meet with Phil. Page 34 July 11,2001 And we just want to demo it to you real quick and let you know. MR. BAKER: Actually-- Denny Baker-- Dino, we're going to demo three things, the impact fee estimator -- we're going to demo an SDP inquiry site that maybe you guys aren't aware of that you can go into and do inquiries on SDP. And, thirdly, we're going to demo something called E-permits where we have -- you'll be able to buy permits over the internet via credit card. You'll be able to buy roofs - - roof permits, siding permits, and air conditioning permits. So we'll do the -- which one do you have up? MR. B LALOCK: Impact fees. MR. BAKER: Go ahead, Amy. MS. PATTERSON: Amy Patterson. Well, basically what you do -- we'll start here with Step 1. You're going to select your type of building. And what we'll do -- I'll just start with the single-family home, and we'll try some basic examples. So we just go right down here, and you select single-family home. You want to enter your total square footage, so we'll make this a 20,000 square foot house. You enter in your square footage. Enter the number of buildings or structures. It's going to be one since it's a single-family home. Enter your qualifier or multiple factor which doesn't apply for a single- family home. It's just one. MR. ABBOTT' Where would you get that qualifier if it was something else? MS. PATTERSON: If it was something else, like a multifamily, it would be the number of units. Here's another example. MR. ABBOTT: Like a motel? MS. PATTERSON: Right, the number of rooms for a hotel. A lot of ours are per bay or per pump for a gas station. It says, "If multifamily home, enter number of stories," so that doesn't apply. Water meter diameter, and you would actually need to look at your -- you could consult the fee schedule on this one. But for the average Page 35 July 11,2001 single-family home, we know we have a three-quarter-inch water meter, or you also need to enter your number of baths. On this one we'll say there's three bathrooms. And then it says check to see if it's located in the Ochopee or Capri fire district. MR. TINDALL: That's because they have different rates. MS. PATTERSON: We go down here, and we hit submit. And we can check our information. We have a single-family home with three bathrooms, a total square footage of 2,000 square feet. It's one building, so the multiplier is one. It's not a -- it's not a multi-family or multi-story, and we have a three-quarter-inch water meter, and it's not in the Ochopee district. And here are our fees (indicating). MR. BLALOCK: Anybody like to submit a-- a building size just to see how it would work? MS. PATTERSON: Try a commercial? MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. That's the basic overview of it. I know we're getting close to five o'clock right now. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Are we on-line right now? VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: If you don't mind, I'd like to keep moving on. MS. PATTERSON: Okay. MR. DUNNUCK: That's the basic gist of it. We get a lot of questions we want to get an estimate beforehand. This is one way for people to get that estimate before they walk in the door. MR. ABBOTT: I think this is very handy because that's always a question. MR. DUNNUCK: And I think it's good for people to see, you know. Honestly, I look at that, and I gasp when I see $8600 for a 2,000 square foot building, and I'm sure everybody else does. MR. ABBOTT: It could be 8,000 square feet, and it's still damned near the same number. MR. TINDALL: That's true. Page 36 July 11, 2001 MR. ABBOTT: Yeah, it is. And that's what a lot of people say: "It's a rip-off of the impact fees." Port Royal is the same as Golden Gate. MR. BAKER: Okay. This is -- well, we call it E-permits when you can go into the internet into this site and someone who's going to be purchasing a permit for-- to replace their air conditioning unit. MR. BLALOCK: Uh-huh. MR. BAKER: Don. MR. BLALOCK: Basically, what I've done is filled in the house number, the street name, and the street type. And the owner's name, I happen to know, is George Santos, who is sitting here beside me who has developed all these programs that you're going to look at today. He's done an excellent job, and he works for the information technology department. Okay. Basically, what I did-- we'll go back. You can see that I'm requesting an air conditioning replacement. It's a 3-ton unit, and the job is $5,000. And the rest of the information is pretty basic. So I submit it, and they tell me that the fee for this replacement is $53. And if I'd like to pay for it on-line, I can. This is the only way you can do an on-line permit. So I have to give my credit card information. So we put a dummy credit card information number in here, so don't try to use this afterwards. MR. DUNNUCK: But these are some of the minor things that we're trying to do to keep people from having to walk through that door and keep that desk open for some of the bigger issues. MR. ABBOTT: I'd like to see single-families done this way. MR. DUNNUCK: I think eventually we'll start seeing some more. MR. ABBOTT' Because this is all great for the tradesman, but this is such ordinary stuff anyway. But I agree, it's a step in the right direction. But I'd sure like to see more, let's say. Page 37 July 11, 2001 MR. BLALOCK: Okay. I've entered in all the information pertinent to my Visa or MasterCard. I submit. And I have a permit number right here (indicating). And I have a statement. It's stating that this person's going to have to print out all three of these documents. So I can print out the receipt. And as you can see, not only is the owner George Santos, but it's also Clara Santos. So if you knew that Clara wanted the permit, you could type in Clara instead of George, and it would pick that up. It shows you exactly what the invoices -- what the costs are for building permits and also for microfilm surcharge. The next thing is the job inspection card. In here there's a warning stated that this job card must be placed in a resealable clear plastic storage bag and displayed so it is visible from the street. So this is a piece of paper that people are going to have to put somewhere visible where our inspectors can come out, make the inspection, make the notation, and leave it. MR. WHITE: Typo, visible. MR. BLALOCK: I'm sorry? MR. WHITE: Typo, visible. MR. BLALOCK: Thank you. MR. WHITE: You're welcome. MR. BLALOCK: And then this is the actual permit itself. Then there is various disclaimers that are -- are required. Okay. That's basically your E-permit. You can also use it for a contractor because of the time -- it's almost five o'clock. I can move on to the next application, if you'd like. (Mr. Anderson left the room.) MR. DUNNUCK: I believe we're the first of our kind to really use credit cards as an on-line service in the county. MR. ABBOTT: How are you disseminating this information to the tradesman, because that's really how -- Page 38 July 11,2001 MR. BAKER: It's not active yet. Denny Baker. It's not active yet, Charlie. MR. ABBOTT: How much longer? MR. BAKER: Probably-- MR. WHITE: A couple weeks. MR. BAKER: A couple weeks. MR. ABBOTT: One thing we've always had -- on this particular committee, we've started off with a number of tradesmen on it, but they've gradually disappeared. So we speak to general contractors in here and developers and such, but you have zero approach to the subs. So I would suggest that when you go to sell it, we've got to -- MR. DUNNUCK: Yeah. We'll work with the subcontractors and CBIA and get that information out. We also plan on having computer stations available in the lobby so you don't necessarily have to go to the desk. If you come in and don't want to deal with the lines, you would be able to go right to the computer and be able to do this stuff. MR. BLALOCK: Here is another program that George has developed if you want to know the progress of your SDP -- I'll just put in an SDP number. MR. ABBOTT: Is there going to be a place you can index looking for the SDP numbers, like say I'm just playing around with my computer and I want to see who's doing what where ? MR. BLALOCK: If you know it was in a particular year, like, 2000, star, right or no star? Okay. Submit. MR. ABBOTT: Excellent. MR. BLALOCK: That gives you for 2000. It might not have been 2000. It was probably near the beginning of the year, 1999. And then you play around with it a little bit. Let's say we'll select the Eddie building. See what's happening there. There's no final on that Page 39 July 11,2001 yet. MR. ABBOTT: Okay. MR. BLALOCK: It was submitted in March so -- and we're going to put something a little bit more comprehensive than this, similar to our building permit tracking. I don't know if a lot of you know about that, but you can actually see almost real-time inspections. That's going to be something that's going to be quite interesting. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, you already -- you already have the part on where you can go look at your permit. MR. BLALOCK: Uh-huh. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Is that what you're talking about? MR. BLALOCK: Yeah. MR. VAN ARSDALE: That permit process? MR. BLALOCK: Exactly. Exactly. And then we have this final bit of information where you can actually see reports. So let's say we're going to see all the C Os for jobs of $3 million or more from the first of the year to February. So we'll submit this, and there's two buildings. There's Scotty's, and then there's Long Bay Partners. So we'll select Scotty's to see a little bit about that information. This gives you a permit history. I'll try not to go too fast to get you dizzy here, but it shows you the fee schedule, inspection history. MR. DUNNUCK: What we're evolving to -- and this is one of the things the board requested under the public participation plan -- is that the community has the opportunity to find out what projects are coming in the neighborhood before they're actually approved and -- and as a -- almost a community outreach-type thing so that they understand it. Probably one of the things we will probably require in the development community is a brief little paragraph of what the project entails as part of the submittal just so that that fits into this Page 40 July 11, 2001 system, and then we'd be -- build it in geographically so that wherever they live they can click into that area and find out what the projects are coming in. Eventually it will fit into the GIS system when it's up and running as well. But it's that first step on -- on getting that information out to the general public that the board has said we want to see. MR. ABBOTT: Since you mentioned GIS, where -- where are we standing on monies on GIS at the moment? MR. DUNNUCK: We're in good shape. One of the things we budgeted -- in this year's budget -- well, we spent the money that was budgeted in this current year's budget. We've contracted that out. We've got WilsonMiller doing some baseline -- and, Don, you could probably give them a quick update, but we're doing the data gathering right now for our portion of it. The board fully funded the GIS program in this year's budget so far for next year, and I think that accounts for about $400,000 on our end as part of our contribution. But we hope to have some of our -- our portion up and running by the fall of this year, maybe even early spring on the baseline. The property appraiser should be done in the next couple of months with the baseline maps. So we're working it right now. And Jim Mudd's the overall coordinator for it, and you-all are pretty well aware that Jim gets things done so -- MR. ABBOTT: They're taking the 400,000 out of permit fees, and when is that going to be paid, do you think? You said it was in this year's budget, the new budget coming up? MR. DUNNUCK: Right. We had $200,000 budgeted in this year's budget. We have $400,000 budgeted next year. We've encumbered the 200,000 this year to have WilsonMiller do some background -- you know, to do the data input. The 400,000 for next year is for additional mapping, and I anticipate that will be encumbered fairly soon after October 1 st. Page 41 July 11,2001 MR. ABBOTT: When you say "encumbered," that means it's, like, earmarked? MR. DUNNUCK: It's encumbered. It means that we have it set aside. We cut a PO to a contractor to get the work done. And then once they get the work done, then we actually pay him. But, yeah, it sets that money aside. MR. ABBOTT: Okay. MR. BLALOCK: This is another product that we're hoping to have on-line this year, the latter part of the year, where you can actually go into your site development plan and you could actually view drawings from your home or from your place of business. And you do it quite simply by getting into a application called Web Extender, which we'll supply a link for, and you'll search for a query. This one was SDP-3. I only want to see the project, the project name. I don't want to see all the other information. Submit it. And then you can see all the various types of documents. Here's an application. And it shows you the various pieces of paper that are in the application document itself. In addition to this, we're also going to hopefully supply you with CD burner -- or CDs so if you came in, said I want all the material, all the paperwork on this particular CD -- or, excuse me, SDP, we'll be able to burn that for you, you could take it home. You would not need any software. You'll just put it in your computer, turn it on, and it will automatically bring up a viewer similar to this, and you can view documents at home or your place of business. MR. ABBOTT: You can get this over the internet, or you'd have to come here? MR. BLALOCK: We're planning on getting it on the internet. We're having a little bit of a problem with the firewall issue. It's a little tougher than the other software that we've been showing you. MR. ABBOTT: Firewall not from a physical standpoint? Page 42 July 11,2001 MR. BLALOCK: No. I'm sorry. This is a firewall that keeps people from hacking into your computer. MR. ABBOTT: Sure. And how much is that CD going to be? MR. BLALOCK: at and see. MR. DUNNUCK: That's something we're going to have to look It will be cheaper than paper. MR. VAN ARSDALE: It's all going to be on the web anyway. MR. BLALOCK: There's people that might have slower connections that might want to come in and get a CD and look at their leisure. Sometimes the intemet's down, and sometimes the -- your server -- excuse me, your internet provider service isn't working properly, so you might want to come in and get it. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Now, is this on the -- on the intranet here? MR. BLALOCK: On the intranet, yes. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Let me ask you a question. Why -- if someone is looking for, like, a SDP in a submittal, why wouldn't they just go here and look at it? MR. BLALOCK: They -- they could. It's just getting people to get away from the paper and go to the electronic. It's just -- it's -- it's a learning curve. It's not going to happen over-- MR. VAN ARSDALE: That was an issue for submittal is the planner wanted to see the SDP. MR. BLALOCK: Right. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Well, it's over here in the archives. Now you're telling me it's on the intranet. MR. BLALOCK: If it's approved, right now. If it's approved, it should be on. MR. VAN ARSDALE: A year ago. I'm sitting here saying, "Why does she take two weeks to decide that she doesn't have it when it's sitting over there and it's sitting up here, and she wants me Page 43 July 11,2001 to bring her a hard copy?" MR. BLALOCK: I don't know. Because -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: That's a good question, I mean. MR. BLALOCK: I think we're to '97s now, we're scanning back. So we're to 1997, so -- MR. VAN ARSDALE: I guess I'll let you comment. In fact, I was thinking about before we even looked at this, when I come to the website, it's really impressive. I learned earlier this week how you can look at building permits and see when you submitted it and --. MR. BLALOCK: Right. MR. VAN ARSDALE: -- when it was accepted, when it was rejected, when it was turned down. I mean, I think the website's wonderful. It's when I look at the report as to how long it takes to get something out, it makes me cringe. I complain a lot, but I wanted to commend the information service people that-- it's a great site so --. MR. BLALOCK: Okay. MR. VAN ARSDALE: -- this is -- this is impressive. MR. ABBOTT: Bar coding. MR. BLALOCK: We're hopefully going to get some new software in soon that will be able to allow us to just scan in documents without having to enter in the particular document type so the software will recognize it, just -- it will be almost no data entry we're hoping. We're going to be -- we're in the process today of installing this for building permits, so hopefully we can get our building permits and get that records problem solved as far as hard copies. MR. VAN ARSDALE: Great. MR. BLALOCK: Okay. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Turn the lights back on, please. Okay. If there's no questions on that, then let's move to committee member comments, starting with Brian. No comments, Page 44 July 11,2001 Brian? (No response.) VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: David? MR. JONES: No comments. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Charlie? MR. ABBOTT: My compliments on whoever did this. This is excellent. You know, for once you can really see some of this stuff. MR. BLALOCK: Thank you. MR. ABBOTT: This is what I'm always asking for so we can figure it out, you know. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Peter? MR. VAN ARSDALE: No comments other than the bad news is that with the 15 percent increase in revenue, our revenue is flat; right? MR. DUNNUCK: Yup, absolutely. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Marco? MR. ESPINAR: No comment. MR. FOLEY: No comment. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I have one, unless you have one. MR. DUNNUCK: I've said enough. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: I heard scuttle -- and I'm not sure how tree this is -- of a wetlands -- a proposed wetlands ordinance being proposed by staff that has gone through the rural fringe committee, they've thrown it out. And we've seen nothing here about it, so I'm wondering if that's a tree rumor. MR. DUNNUCK: Well, they're talking about some of the things -- what we had to go through with the rural fringe and rural lands are, you know, we're making policy-level suggestions at this point in time. There's no ordinance format right now. But they had said clearly as part of the final order we have to develop policies which our ordinances and Land Development Code changes. We Page 45 July 11, 2001 haven't got to the point where we're developing; once we do, we will certainly bring them through here. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Who is they? MR. DUNNUCK: Bill Lorenz and Fran Litsinger and our staff is working with the rural fringe and rural lands committee to develop those. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: A wetlands ordinance. MR. DUNNUCK: Yes. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: My question is, why do we have to do that? MR. DUNNUCK: Because as part of final order, they said -- see, traditionally what we've always said is that the DEP and the South Florida Water Management District will be the permitting agencies on those type of issues. What came through on the final order was, "You-all need to develop your own policies and have, you know, more guidelines beyond this," so what we're doing is we're developing those policies right now as part of the final order as a requirement of the DCA. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Staff is? MR. DUNNUCK: Yes. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Okay. So that still has to come before this committee? MR. DUNNUCK: I anticipate it will, yeah. You're talking final adoption late this fall. Not final adoption, but submittal as part of the Comprehensive Plan later this fall and the Land Development Code. VICE CHAIRMAN LONGO: Okay. Anything else? We're done. Thank you. There being no further business for the good of the County, the Page 46 July 11,2001 meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 5:02 p.m. DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE DINO J. TON(JO, VICE CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA A. DONOVAN, RMR, CRR Page 47