Tales of a City Planner

Tales of a City Planner
Red Tape

One of the biggest complaints in government is red tape. In fact there is probably some local politician who is saying right now that they are going to “cut the red tape in government and stop waste!” Only to see a free for all in backhand deals, lack of accountability and transparency and possible scandal. Which then leads to another local politician saying they are going to “clean up government,” that inevitably leads to more red tape.

As a planner we are not policy makers. We cannot arbitrarily ignore rules and processes that we think are stupid and arduous. The fun part is that each process is often independent of the other multiple processes and that’s only if it’s determined if you even have to go through any processes at all. There are so many different interpretations of different processes that we ourselves do not which process one development will go through or even how many. Sometimes it feels like your playing Plinko. Developers drop the Plinko chip and think the chip is headed for “straight to permit” and WHAM, they have to go before the Development Review Board, Design Panel and an additional public hearing. Cue the horns.

Sometimes it feels like you are being a small time hustler explaining all these different processes to the public. Typical convo:

“Ok, ok, ok…if you do this, you have to go through this process. If you do that, you have to through this, that annnnnd this. You don’t want do that. But if you do this, you should be straight…but don’t quote me.”

And that conversation is based on…a.) The government employee knows what their talking about and b.) Some other more experienced planner comes us and says, well if you do this, that annnnnd the other thing, you don’t have to go through any of this per this new law. You follow me?

Still not following me? Let me give you a recent real life example of this. I was recently at a meeting in which a private entity would donate half of their property to the government for redevelopment. Since the property’s land use had been grandfathered due to pre-existing use before it’s zoning changed, the property would need a special exception as well…and since they are giving a portion of their property away, a variance for other setbacks and regulations. On top of that there is a historical landmark on the property, which triggers the review of the Historic commission of the development plan. Finally there were major environmental problems with the site and a question on flip the bill for the environmental upgrades.

So this one development triggers an acquisition, a subdivision (along with design review), special exception, variance, historic review and stringent environmental review. So what development is so important that if triggers six, that’s right six different governmental processes? This must be some type of huge tax revenue inducing, multi-use complex that will trigger hundreds of jobs…this has to be it, right? Because who would go over this much scrutiny for a… *drumroll please*… park. That’s right a park. Not an office, not a high-rise but a park. “We’re talking about park.”

Building a park should never be this hard. This is not an episode of Parks & Recreation. But thanks to red tape we must treat this park as if we were reviewing the site plan of a new mall. But despite the hassle and the meeting of at least six different agencies to discuss a park, I’m sure government would look a lit worse if we just arbitrarily started accepting valuable pieces of lands from private entities with no condition. I’m sure that would be fine but I’m sure that you can see how that could become a slippery slope of private influence on government.

There really is no moral to this tale except to show that red tape is fun for no one. In fact red tape can kill developments that we as planners try to push for. Is red tape necessary…I don’t know. But I can’t think of a better way of to regulate development…like a park. Anybody out there have any ideas?

And once again, thanks for reading!

Tales of a City Planner

The Mundaneness of Government

Someone asked me recently, government life can’t be what they show on the new tv series, Parks & Recreation, can it? Well, at times it can be. There are plenty of meetings that I have to attend that I think at worst are pointless or at best non-productive. But I’m sure everyone who has a job feels the same way about some of their meetings. The thing is that if you have a series of unproductive meetings that are generally going nowhere, they usually end, right? Ha ha ha, not in government they don’t. As long as there is a semi organized group of residents willing to meet on a dedicated night, someone from government will be there.

This is where government life can become silly. Because government is representational we are almost required to be there for almost any and all community groups even if they have nothing to talk about. We also have to show up to meetings despite knowing the following:
- There is no agenda and nothing is happening in the neighborhood
- In-fighting within the group and listening to people argue
- Listening to rants and plans for personal vendettas against neighbors
- Listening to racism and class-ism disguised as NIMBY-ism
- Having meetings on the hood of your car because a public building is locked

Now again not all of my meetings are like this. In fact I tend to find that all of meetings with smaller groups are almost always productive and a time well spent for both me and the participants. However almost every pointless meeting I had to go to I knew before going in but I still had to go anyway. Rarely do I go to a pointless meeting and walk out of it feeling good that I went.

Now, I have worked in government for most of my professional career but I have worked in a private office before as a planner and an intern and because of that I can’t help but to wonder how much money per hour of tax payer money is being wasted by government workers going to public meetings. In the private sector, meetings like these would be cut off or they would make groups consolidate to eliminate per hour costs of planners going to multiple meetings. I do want to point out that there are plenty of private sector planners that go to multiple pointless meetings. The big difference is that they often charge their clients for these meetings (if they are not scouting for more work). Public sector planners on the other hand just receive “comp” time and no extra pay.

So for all you future planners out there, I hope you are studying Parks & Recreation for your future career because there will be a lot of bad meetings ahead in your future. And as young planner you get to go two types of meetings. The meetings where the office wants you to learn what goes on and the meetings that no one else wanted to go to…and there are a lot of those. Don’t become to discouraged though, it’s all apart of helping communities which you signed up to do and changing the world…through one bad meeting at a time.

Oh and one last word of advice to any young planner. Always eat something before going to a late night meeting…a power bar, fruit or something. There’s nothing worse then being bored and hungry.

Parks and Recreation Promo - The Front Lines

This is true to life...true to life beuracracy.

NBC's new show, Parks & Recreation

If anybody ever wondered what county government life is like, I highly encourage you to read my posts about Tales of a Planner and watch this new show, Parks & Recreation. I can't tell you how true to life this show is about a county office. This is like The Wire of county government shows without drug dealers and scarface assassins with shotguns.

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Please check out the city of Pawnee's Website from the show.