Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Column

DiSpirito's plan should aid builders and Dunedin

By DIANE STEINLE, Editor of Editorials
Published January 6, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT Rob DiSpirito became Dunedin's city manager last January.

For years, builders complained bitterly to Dunedin city commissioners that delays, confusion and bureaucratic roadblocks in city departments that reviewed and permitted their projects were costing them money, testing their patience and discouraging them from working in Dunedin.

It isn't unusual for governments to hear whining from developers who would rather not have to get their plans reviewed, pull permits or wait for approvals from city staff or elected officials.

But in Dunedin, the complaints reached such a crescendo that city commissioners decided during a retreat last spring that addressing the issue should take top priority. So when Rob DiSpirito arrived last January as the new city manager, commissioners plopped that task right into his lap.

Some city managers might have found a way to avoid it, figuring they had more important things to do in their first year than try to satisfy a bunch of complainers or defend the city's right and duty to have development rules and enforce them.

But DiSpirito has a particular way of working: He listens, he observes, he sizes up the problem, and he sets out to fix it.

When he listened and observed, he discovered that the problem in this case was not the complainers; it was the city's process. Building plans were languishing, stuck fast in the works of the city bureaucracy. Developers weren't always informed promptly about gaps in their plans. There was no one contact person for them; sometimes their phone calls were ignored. And city codes required developers to go through multiple hearings before the Local Planning Agency and the City Commission. Some developers' projects collapsed because city approval took so long.

The city had both structural and cultural problems, DiSpirito found, and the result was that Dunedin had "the most horrible reputation" among contractors and builders, he said.

"In this economy, developers can pick where they want to go. They'll go where it is the easiest," DiSpirito said, adding that they take their revenues and jobs with them. "It's important that Dunedin is considered a viable place to develop."

DiSpirito set up brown bag lunches with the city employees involved in plan reviews. He said he found that he had experienced and talented staffers, but for some, customer service wasn't always a high priority. Some didn't realize the need for a streamlined, efficient review process.

In July he scheduled a big meeting and invited all developers, contractors, architects, business owners and residents who had complaints about the process, whether it was about getting a fence permit or approvals for multimillion-dollar projects, to come and vent. More than 40 people showed up and offered an earful of criticisms and suggestions. Some said they were surprised to find that DiSpirito listened, took notes and promised to study every complaint.

DiSpirito observed how things worked in his own operation, but he also visited other cities to mine them for good ideas. He parked himself in Clearwater's plan review offices to watch and take notes, eventually taking other Dunedin staffers on a field trip there.

Now, he has a whole set of remedies in mind, which he soon will present at a City Commission meeting. Some are as simple as creating a manual explaining the plan review process, giving more customer service training to staffers, upgrading the antiquated phone system and providing customers with the name of a single point of contact with the city.

Others are more comprehensive. DiSpirito wants to create the position of "project coordinator," a sort of traffic cop who would watch over the flow of plans through the system and untangle any knots. He wants to create a "development review committee" of staffers that would meet every week to go over all projects under review, resolve impasses and meet with the applicants. He wants to make the city's Web site more useful so that minor permits could be obtained online and so that those with more extensive permit applications could check their status online. He wants the City Commission to consider making changes in the city code to streamline the approval process in several ways.

In fact, DiSpirito's list of proposed remedies runs six single-spaced pages.

But is it really a good idea to "grease the skids," so to speak, for developers? Isn't there some benefit to a slow, deliberative review process and codes that hold projects to high standards?

"I'm not saying we should relax standards. These codes are standards, translated to the specific, to keep bad things from happening," DiSpirito said. "But I think our standards can be met more than one way. I want to give our people the opportunity to be a little more creative and to use their professional judgment."

Most of all, he wants people to feel that they got prompt, fair consideration from helpful, professional city employees.

"By presenting a friendly face," he said, "I hope our reputation will take care of itself."

Diane Steinle can be reached at steinle@sptimes.com or 727 445-4184.

[Last modified January 5, 2008, 21:25:48]