103-2. Planning Commission Subcommittee report on process improvements.pdfEX14-11BITi
lanning Commission Subcommittee Report on Process Improvements
the approval of the Planning Commission, Planning Commission Chair Winnie Lee and
Chair Marty Miller formed a subcommittee to meet with staff for the purpose of
identifying and recommending efficiency improvements to the current permit approval
process. The effort is not yet complete. However, a request was made of the subcommittee
to provide a report on efforts to date for the February 15th Council hearing. This report is in
response to that request.
To date, the subcommittee focused mostly on residential permitting. Based on comments
from past residential applicants this report proposes ways in which the efficiency of
Cupertino's permit approval process can be substantially improved. These improvements are
intended to reduce processing time, staff costs, and project approval costs without reducing
important noticing alerts to neighbors. The City, the staff, and the applicant will all benefit.
A more efficient and business friendly process will help the City attract desirable businesses
and needed development to Cupertino. This will ultimately improve the City's finances as
desirable businesses are attracted to the City and more retail dollars are spent here. At the
last Process Workshop, a participant testified that a business owner, who originally planned
to locate in Cupertino, switched to Sunnyvale instead because of the difficulty in obtaining
the necessary permits from Cupertino.
A more efficient process will reduce staff time and cost spent working on issues that add
little value to the process or the end result. Finally, a more efficient process will reduce
uncertainty and business risk leading to lower project costs and better rapport with the
business community.
Some proposed changes only require a modification to the current process. Others require a
modification to an Ordinance, including the R l Ordinance as well. While some may be
concerned about revisiting the R1 Ordinance, it has been opened up successfully in a limited
way twice in the past 3 years. Recommended changes to the R1 and the BMR program will
have an immediate positive impact. Please give it serious consideration.
A list of changes and additions recommended to date include the following:
1. Provide comprehensive documentation of the entire process written from the
applicant's point of view, including examples of filled in forms, detailed
requirements, and expected deliverables for -each step.
The current process is not fully documented. It is complex and daunting to first time
applicants, requiring a great deal of personal interaction with the staff. The lack of
documentation on the complete process results in lots of questions and sometimes
inconsistent interpretation by members of the staff leading to further confusion.
The applicant must contend with requirements from Public Works, Planning and
Building. In some cases these requirements appear to overlap or conflict. For example,
the Building Department reviews site improvement plans that were already approved as
part of the Final Map approval, requiring additional sets of plans to do so.
February 14, 2011 Planning Commission Subcommittee Report Page 1
2. Allow more parallel processing and reduce sequential processing where possible.
There are many different tasks that must be completed by the applicant on the way to
obtaining a building permit. The current process requires many of these tasks to be
completed in sequence. This is true even when there are no interdependencies. For
example, architectural approval is not given until after Final Map approval is achieved.
Yet these two activities are not, or should not, be interdependent and can be completed
separately. Allowing more parallel processing will reduce processing time.
Staff approvals that can be delayed until later in the process should be conditioned and
delayed. For example, final approval of landscaping plans could be delayed and
conditioned on the granting of a Certificate of Occupancy.
3. Eliminate Unnecessary and redundant steps.
As an example, requiring an evaluation of trees that are either inside a building footprint,
or requested for removal by the Public Works Department because they interfere with
required site improvements seems unnecessary.
4. Eliminate staff review of architecture.
In most cases, homes in Cupertino are designed by licensed architects. In those instances
where they are not, they could be reviewed by the City's architect, or an independent
architect chosen by the applicant. Large and prominent projects should continue to be
reviewed by the City's architect. However, staff in general does not have architectural
training. Consequently, staff comments tend to include personal preferences and biases.
Some architectural mandates and design criteria lead to conformity and the pallet of the
City becomes very dull as a result. For example, limitations on the size of the second
story led to the proliferation of the "wedding cake" design across the City. By
comparison, Mountain View does not do architectural review on any single family
homes. Yet, Cupertino's two story homes do not exhibit any better architecture than
Mountain View's.
The section of the RI Ordinance permitting; second stories with square footage greater
than 45% of the first story is particularly onerous. Four sided architectural review is
required and staff reviews these homes at great length and in great detail. The amount of
relief that staff expects is especially challenging for smaller lots where space and
flexibility is limited. Meeting staff s exterior relief requirements often results in poor
interior functionality of the home itself.
Yet, after considerable time and expense on architectural details, privacy landscaping
requirements essentially hide the sides and rear yard from neighborhood view. Staff has
also required that a tree be planted in the center of the front yard to obscure the
architecture from the street. A better approach is needed.
February 14, 2011 Planning Commission Subcommittee Report Page 2
5. Eliminate requirements that add very little in value in comparison to their cost
in time and dollars.
Staff requires that story poles outlining the ;second floor are placed in exactly the location
that the walls and corners they represent will be built. Staff also requires that the poles
define corners and roof elements in great detail. These requirements are very expensive
to implement. They require an engineering survey and a time consuming construction
process.
The poles stay up for about 6 weeks and are: then torn down and disposed of. But, the
level of detail that they represent is nearly impossible to visualize in practice. Because
they only outline second story elements, they have the potential to give a misleading
impression of the actual size of the home.
Also required are renderings that are much more effective in giving residents an
appreciation of what will actually be built. While renderings are very effective, story
poles are very costly and add little value, They should be eliminated.
When new Ordinance rules are recommended, a cost benefit analysis should be
performed and their impact on existing rules should be evaluated before formal approval.
6. Staff requirements for landscaping should be reviewed by the Planning
Commission and City Council and modified.
Staff currently requires that the entire parcel be landscaped before a Certificate of
Occupancy is given unless the applicant can unequivocally demonstrate that 2500 square
feet of landscaping will never be exceeded. As an alternative, staff will accept the
posting of an expensive bond to cover hypothetical landscaping costs. This requirement
cannot be found anywhere in the Landscape Water Efficiency Ordinance. In fact, the
Landscape Water Efficiency Checklist states that if no landscaping is being proposed,
then nothing more need be done by the applicant.
In most cases, a builder will landscape the front yard for curb appeal, but not landscape
the backyard. Even when the backyard is landscaped, the landscaping is minimal and as
inexpensive as possible. Backyard landscaping is a loss leader for a builder because new
home buyers typically want to design the backyard landscaping personally. Even if the
builder puts landscaping in, it is usually replaced within a short period of time. Staff s
landscape requirements are very expensive and are not an effective solution to insuring
adherence to the Landscape Water Efficiency Ordinance.
7. Eliminate unnecessary requirements for copies of architectural and engineering
plans.
As an example, a separate and full set of plans are required for a minor exception. This is
true even though the minor exception plan set is no different than the plan set required for
the home itself. If the new Permitting software enables the submittal of plans
electronically, it will address this issue. However, until that software is implemented,
unnecessary paper generation requirements should be eliminated.
rebruary 14, 2011 Planning Commission Subcommittee Report Page 3
8. Review and modify fees and the fee structure
Fees should be based, as much as possible, on Planner time spent. For large projects that
require more time than a benchmark project, additional fees should be charged on a time
and materials basis to ensure cost recovery.
Currently, Cupertino does not charge for time spent with potential applicants until they
fill out an application and make an actual submittal. The City should answer preliminary
questions without charge. However, if an applicant wants staff to review a preliminary
site plan, or design, and give meaningful feedback, Council could consider charging a
modest fee for that service. San Jose follows a similar process and offers several upfront
fee options for preliminary reviews.
Once Council approves changes to the current permitting process, individual fees should
be reduced or increased as appropriate.
Consider collecting impact fees at the issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy, or Close of
Escrow, instead of when the building permit is issued. Buildings do not have an impact
on the City until after they are built. Consequently, it doesn't cost the City anything to
delay the fee collection until after construction is complete. However, in the current
economic environment, obtaining construction loans is very challenging. Because impact
fees are a significant expense, delaying their collection until later in the project will
reduce loan requirements and make obtaining a construction loan easier.
9. Review the BMR programs and reduce, eliminate, or offer an in lieu fee option.
The BMR program is not the most effective: way to provide affordable housing and has
been subject to abuse. It is a very expensive program and the burden of that expense is
completely borne by the land owner, builder, and buyers of the homes on a particular site.
Yet it is a City wide benefit. In the current economic environment, costly BMR
programs have stopped projects from moving forward in Bay Area cities.
Mountain View has an affordable housing program which permits the builder to pay an in
lieu fee instead of building the units if the difference between the market sales price and
the affordable sales price is greater than a threshold amount. Consider evaluating this
program for implementation in Cupertino.
The Matrix Report and the Community Workshops were helpful in identifying areas of
opportunity to improve the application permitting process. This report, as a supplement to
those efforts, has briefly outlined progress to date on identifying additional opportunities for
process improvement. The current process is not well understood and consequently leads to
confusion, time wasted, and less than optimal results. It is our recommendation that the
Council allow the subcommittee's review process to continue to completion.
Winnie Lee, Planning Commission Chair
Marty Miller, Planning Commission Vice Chair
February 14, 2011 Planning Commission Subcommittee Report Page 4