They didn’t plan to have this much work

Alicia Robinson

If you feel overloaded with work, try stepping behind the counter in

the Newport Beach Planning Department.

While the city’s goal is to check building plans within a month of

when they’re submitted, employees have been coming in on Saturdays to

take care of a backlog of work from late 2004.

The number of building plans the city has processed has grown by

leaps and bounds over the last several years. In 2005 the city

expects to perform 3,221 plan checks -- a 43.5% increase since 1995.

The growth of the workload in Costa Mesa’s building and planning

departments has been less dramatic, but the city is still seeking

ways to cut down the time it takes to process plans. The city issued

5,147 building permits in the 2003-04 fiscal year, about 17% more

than in the 1999-2000 fiscal year.

“In Newport Beach almost every neighborhood is like a construction

project,” Newport Beach Planning Director Patricia Temple said.

Most of the construction is residential remodeling. Both cities

are largely built out, and sky-high real estate prices are deterring

some people from moving up to bigger homes, so residents are adding

on to what they’ve already got or, as often happens in Newport Beach,

tearing it down and starting over.

To get a building permit in Newport Beach, an applicant has to

submit seven sets of plans that go to various departments --

building, public works and general services, for example -- to be

checked for compliance with city codes and any conditions set by the

planning commission.

It takes about eight to 10 weeks to get documents through Newport

Beach’s planning department -- somewhat longer than the city’s goal

of four weeks, though not for lack of trying.

“Staff has been working overtime consistently for the last two or

three years, and we’ve added staff as well,” Newport Beach Assistant

City Manager Sharon Wood said.

In Costa Mesa the work flow has been steady, but the city has

taken “extraordinary measures” to keep up, principal planner Kimberly

Brandt said.

A special accelerated process uses outside firms to check the

plans, and the City Council just approved major changes to the permit

process to shorten the time that zoning review and approval takes.

Some authority to approve plans has been shifted from the zoning

administrator to planning department staff, for example.

Work is just beginning in Newport Beach to revamp the zoning code

so plans can get through the city faster. The City Council last month

voted to create an ad hoc committee to look at possible zoning code

changes. The code revisions are expected to take up to a year.

“Ideally when you look at it from the outset, you say it’s saving

the applicant more time,” Brandt said. “Eventually there’s cost

savings in terms of the budget.”

And a faster process will be a blessing for Newport Beach

planners, who expect the work to keep piling up.

“We keep thinking that it’s got to stop, but it’s not,” Temple

said. “As long as financing rates stay low and people are able to

access their equity, I don’t think it’s going to stop.”