Planning Process Altered

County Creating Committee To Simplify, Speed Up Operations

— Benton County is adding a step to its planning process, creating a Development Review Committee, with an eye on simplifying and speeding up the process.

John Sudduth, general services administrator, said he suggested the county make use of the review committee approach based on his experience as a city building official.

“When I worked in Sedalia, Mo., I was the building official,” Sudduth said. “Our mayor was a big building person, coming from a construction background, and he was very interested in this. It’s not a complicated thing. I’ve had a couple different positions with different cities like Columbia, Mo., where they used this ‘one-stop’ process. In Columbia we had floors of engineers and planners, fire marshals and others who were involved in the planning process in some way. Before the one-stop someone would come to the building department and then we would send them to the light department, which is 10 blocks away. Then they would send them to some other department somewhere else.

At A Glance

Development Review Committee

Benton County is establishing a Development Review Committee as part of the planning process. Members of the committee may include county planning staff, representatives of the Road Department, Health Department, Building Department, Emergency Services Department, the county Fire Marshal and other concerned agencies.

Source: Staff Report

“What we did was to really condense the process,” Sudduth said. “We created a development review committee that included all the relevant department heads and staff, civil engineers, water and sewer people, people from the gas and electric utilities, all in one place. It doesn’t do any good to be sending people from one department to another. This puts everybody that has anything to do with development together where they can discuss things. You can avoid many problems with development simply through communication.”

Chris Ryan, planning and environmental director, said his positive experiences with development review committees in other jobs prompted him to include the idea in the revised planning regulations being considered by the Quorum Court. Ryan said Sudduth, who took over supervision of the Planning Department last month, suggested the county implement the committee approach immediately.

“There was an opportunity to fast-track it,” Ryan said, adding a non-development issue prompted the decision.

Ryan said Teresa Sidwell, environmental coordinator, was discussing problems in dealing with dead animals on or along county roads.

“This was a long-standing issue that couldn’t be resolved,” Ryan said. “People would call in about a dead animal and we would call the Road Department, the Health Department and on down the line. Nobody wanted to step up and take responsibility for it. I talked to John and he said ‘Why don’t we have a DRC meeting to talk about it?’”

Ryan and Sudduth said the committee is working on a policy for the problem that will be recommended for consideration by the county. The committee is advisory in nature, Ryan said, so suggestions will be sent on to County Judge Bob Clinard, the Quorum Court or other county officials for their consideration.

“It got us talking about the problem, instead of everybody saying ‘It’s not my job,’” Sudduth said.

The committee approach has been in use in Washington County for some time, according to Juliet Richey, planning director. Richey said the committee has been a useful step in the planning process.

“I started in 2005 and they were already doing it when I started,” Richey said.

Richey said Washington County’s Planning Board meets once a month. She said developers send their proposals to the planning office, which in turn sends copies to the different county agencies, utilities and even cities planning offices that might have an interest or area of concern. The submittals are then discussed at the county’s technical review committee, with the interested agencies either attending in person or sending copies of their comments. Richey said getting the different agencies together helps smooth the process.

“It’s nice to have that face-to-face forum,” she said. “There’s always the potential for miscommunication, but this helps cut down on that.”

Richey said the results of the committee discussion is brought together and any comments, recommendations or requirements are sent on to the developer before they are scheduled to meet with the Planning Board.

“It’s in everybody’s best interests to make things as clear as possible,” she said.

Ryan said Benton County plans to have its Development Review Committee meet twice a month, on the Wednesday before each Planning Board meeting. He said planning staff will develop a step-by-step set of procedures for the committee review process anyone will be able to access. He said the results of the discussions will be sent on to developers in a single memo in advance of appearing before the Planning Board.

The Planning Board will still take up developments at two meetings, first in the board’s Technical Advisory Committee meeting and in a subsequent public hearings where the board will take action on the proposal.

“This will allow them to be much better prepared for the TAC meetings,” Ryan said.

Once the process is established, Ryan said, the committee reviews may be extended to projects even before they are submitted to the county for approval.

“We can allow this as an alternative,” Ryan said. “Applicants sometimes get blindsided by the process, not knowing all of the regulations and requirements and which ones apply to them and which ones may not. A pre-application process and DRC review gives them an opportunity to have the regulations and requirements confirmed or to serve as a reminder of what’s needed from them.”

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