Development Services Review. Final Report. Zucker July 2016

Finance staff explained that some of the confusion relating to duplicative TI reviews occurred because one Planning staff member was reviewing TI’s, while another staff member was reviewing business licenses. To eliminate this confusion, Planning implemented review changes to ensure that TI and business license reviews were assigned to one Planning staff member. In addition, planning, building and finance staff also determined that more coordination was needed in the document submittal process because most TI’s are submitted and reviewed before the submittal of the required business license application. To ensure business licenses are captured for TI’s that may, by oversight, not submit their business application at a later date, the Building Division now requests all TI applicants to submit their business license application at the same time. Now, the planning staff assigned to review TI’s, receives a review referral for the corresponding business license, during the TI review building permit review. We agree with the changes that the Planning Division instituted to eliminate confusion and work effort duplication, as well as the Finance Department’s rationale for not assuming Planning Division review responsibility. Business Licensing activities are prime candidates for electronic permitting systems, since they are straightforward and typically generate significant activity volumes, which can usurp available staffing resources. We understand that the business licensing process will be included in the TRAKiT initiative and if so, TRAKiT significantly streamline the business licensing review and approval process. 158. Recommendation: The TRAKiT module for Business Licensing process should include online electronic submittal, online payment and receipting, electronic review, electronic sign off and licensing issuance and provide auto populating templates and a reminder feature. It should also be programmed to measure processing timeframes and collect discrete activity data for each process so that reporting is accurate and streamlined.

Planner Certificate of Occupancy Inspections

Project Planners are tasked with completing an inspection of new and/expanded development projects and signing off on required landscaping and architecture before the Building Official will issue a certificate of occupancy (CO). In some communities, the Building Inspection staff are trained to perform planner- related inspections and are delegated this responsibility, since they are already onsite conducting other building-related inspections. In addition, to being more efficient and

Morgan Hill, California

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Zucker Systems