The city recently completed a series of meetings with members of the development community to identify potential improvements to Carlsbad's development review process.
This process is a series of steps all private development projects must go through before receiving the city's approval. The meetings were spurred by a forum held last spring by the Carlsbad City Council, which invited members of the business community to offer their ideas about how the city could help stimulate the local economy.
As a result of the business forum, the city contributed $100,000 to the Endless Summer tourism promotion campaign, established an arts incubator project in the Village and is looking at ways to increase marketing partnerships.
In early July, the 17-member Development Review Process Working Group was formed. Its membership consists of six city management staff members directly involved in the development review process and 11 individuals representing a cross section of the development community, including planners, engineers, architects, builders, Building Industry Association and chamber of commerce representatives.
The purpose of the working group is to improve the user experience with the development review process and the efficiency of the process. Approaches to achieve this purpose include reducing redundancy and ambiguity, eliminating unnecessary steps, decreasing processing times and decreasing city and applicant costs.
“Developers have new challenges in this economy,” said Gary Barberio, the city's newly appointed director of community and economic development. “For example, projects take longer to get financed, and developers risk having their entitlements expire.”
Entitlement protection was one of nine areas identified by the working group after sifting through about 50 individual suggestions. The other areas include the initial submittal and re-submittal process, streamlining project closeout, decision making levels, level of detail/consistency, minor grading plan process, EIR streamlining, development services counter information and the vesting tentative map ordinance.
From July to October of last year, the group established specific tasks, timelines and priorities for each area of focus. In November, this input was presented to the City Council, which directed staff to proceed with implementing the recommendations within the next 18 months.
“Carlsbad is a high-quality community largely because of our development standards and our commitment to constant improvement,” Barberio said. “The ideas generated through this collaborative process will help support developers in continuing to contribute to a strong economy and a quality community.”
Six-month check-in meetings will be held with the Development Review Process Working Group during implementation of these improvement initiatives. Continuing the dialogue that has been established and the relationships that have been built during this process will be important as the city moves forward.
This process is a series of steps all private development projects must go through before receiving the city's approval. The meetings were spurred by a forum held last spring by the Carlsbad City Council, which invited members of the business community to offer their ideas about how the city could help stimulate the local economy.
As a result of the business forum, the city contributed $100,000 to the Endless Summer tourism promotion campaign, established an arts incubator project in the Village and is looking at ways to increase marketing partnerships.
In early July, the 17-member Development Review Process Working Group was formed. Its membership consists of six city management staff members directly involved in the development review process and 11 individuals representing a cross section of the development community, including planners, engineers, architects, builders, Building Industry Association and chamber of commerce representatives.
The purpose of the working group is to improve the user experience with the development review process and the efficiency of the process. Approaches to achieve this purpose include reducing redundancy and ambiguity, eliminating unnecessary steps, decreasing processing times and decreasing city and applicant costs.
“Developers have new challenges in this economy,” said Gary Barberio, the city's newly appointed director of community and economic development. “For example, projects take longer to get financed, and developers risk having their entitlements expire.”
Entitlement protection was one of nine areas identified by the working group after sifting through about 50 individual suggestions. The other areas include the initial submittal and re-submittal process, streamlining project closeout, decision making levels, level of detail/consistency, minor grading plan process, EIR streamlining, development services counter information and the vesting tentative map ordinance.
From July to October of last year, the group established specific tasks, timelines and priorities for each area of focus. In November, this input was presented to the City Council, which directed staff to proceed with implementing the recommendations within the next 18 months.
“Carlsbad is a high-quality community largely because of our development standards and our commitment to constant improvement,” Barberio said. “The ideas generated through this collaborative process will help support developers in continuing to contribute to a strong economy and a quality community.”
Six-month check-in meetings will be held with the Development Review Process Working Group during implementation of these improvement initiatives. Continuing the dialogue that has been established and the relationships that have been built during this process will be important as the city moves forward.