New sector, spun off of the Community Development Department, to focus on long range planning
In an attempt to direct more attention to long range planning and the growth management plan update, Clark County has created a new planning department.
Effective Aug. 1, long range planning manager Marty Snell will head up a 12-person team focused on developing, maintaining and updating the comprehensive growth management plan. The change essentially elevates long range planning from a division within the Community Development Department to the department level.
"It reflects the commissioners’ desire to assume a prominent place for the function of long range planning," said Bill Barron, county administrator.
Snell, who came to the county from the city of Camas in Oct. 2005, said the move is logical and will create more efficient communication with the commissioners.
"One of the more transparent impacts will be working and communicating directly with the commissioners," said Snell.
Previously, long range planning issues were directed through Rich Carson, director of the Community Development Department, who then reported to the commission. Snell will now report directly to the board.
The shift from the Community Development Department will free up Carson to renew the roughly 160-employee department’s focus. Though only a small percentage of the department’s staff were responsible for long range planning, it consumed the majority of Carson’s time.
"It’s very time intensive," he said.
The new, yet-to-be-named department will still work closely with Community Development. Long range planning is essentially the policy arm of the Community Development Department, said Snell.
"What we put in place has to be administered," he said.
Carson pointed to some staff-level proposals aimed to improve the department’s processes. He is looking to revamp the engineering review process. In particular, they hope to expedite the application process for those that get it right the first time. Carson said the county reviews some applications three to four times due to needed corrections.
"If (engineers) are doing high-quality work and not making us design for them, they will get rewarded," said Carson.
Carson also suggests creating a peer-review group made up of public and private engineers to handle appeals to staff decisions. Right now the only option is to appeal to the commissioners, who are not engineers.
"It will hold (the county and developers) to a standard that does not exist today," said Carson.
The permit services division may also have an expanded presence in north Clark County later this year. Currently there is only one permit services employee located in Battle Ground. Carson said the county hopes to buy or lease a location by fall and staff it with 10 employees to handle permit reviews and inspections in the area.
"We hope to put in place some changes to speed up the permit system and make it more business friendly," said Barron.
The county is preparing to release the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed revisions to the comprehensive growth management plan being prepared by Portland’s David Evans and Associates. The county will set up public outreach sessions for the public to see the three alternatives being studied and submit comments. The county hopes to complete the update this fall.
