San Diego’s families and business owners are facing a bad economy and its only getting worse. Even more tragic is a city government that just doesn’t seem to care.
Usually city government spends its time putting up roadblocks and hurdles to job creation, rather than cutting red tape and helping to find ways to attract and grow businesses in San Diego.
That’s why I am proud to announce seven major reforms and proposals to encourage job growth in our city, as well as the creation of a fifteen-member Jobs Task Force made up of local business leaders. I will be developing these initial proposals, as well as developing additional reforms through input from the Task Force, a series of Town Hall Forums, and the launch of a Job Creation Hotline at (619) 236-6210 to hear exactly what kinds of problems business owners are having with the City and their ideas to solve them.
Over the next two weeks I will be outlining my seven initial proposals here on SD Rostra.
In business, time is money – and uncertainty can create so much risk that businesses decide not to pursue projects. That’s why the City of San Diego must dramatically reorganize and overhaul its entire process for handling permits to become “faster, better and cheaper.”
By streamlining regulations and “cycle time” for permit decisions, the City can remove cost and risk from projects – and in doing so position itself as an attractive place to do business.
To achieve this goal, I am proposing the following:
- Fixed Price Fee Structure: Instead of drawing down on “deposit accounts” which only encourages the city bureaucracy to take more time on permit processing, the Development Services department should switch to “fixed-price” permit pricing.
- Time and Quality Guarantees: For each permit category, the City will commit to a hard deadline by which the permit will be completely processed. If the City fails to meet the performance standards promised, the customer (applicant) will receive their money back, and the City will pay to put an extra project team on the permit application to expedite processing.
- Self-Certification Program: To streamline the number of permit actions that require a full-scale city review process, I propose “Self-Certification” Permitting for select projects, with liability transferred to entities that certify compliance with city codes.
- Employee Incentive Program: To encourage city employees to meet turn-around times, an incentive program will fund performance bonuses and training in key skill sets such as project management, customer service, etc.
- “Innovation Labs” for Process Redesign: Instead of trying to overhaul the entire DSD department as a whole all at once, I would like to see DSD broken down into four units: The existing City team, the CCDC team, and two outside contract teams. By having four units working separately over a 2-year trial, the goal is to encourage competition and innovation in process design and management. At the end of the two-year “Innovation Lab” period, results will be assessed and a final DSD structure will be implemented based on best practices from all four units.
Comments 4
I LOVE the innovation lab idea. One of the best ideas EVER. It is such a brair patch and thicket. Let the 4 teams figure out what to do.
First please put all building permit information back online into an easy to use searchable database. A few years ago, DSD changed the way they process their timecards. Therefore all public Building Permit information was no longer published at the San Diego Daily Transcript (SDDT), on a weekly basis. The SDDT is the City of San Diego’s official land use publication for public notices.
The City/DSD told to the San Diego Daily Transcript and the County of San Diego that the Building Permit information is only digitally available in one way. The County complained that the information is required by State law in the normal approved format agreed to by the City and County years ago. A new computer program was written for specifically for the County Tax Assessors office after months of hassle and non-compliance. The public and the San Diego Daily Transcript were taken out of the loop because no one at DSD could bother to resolve the simple issue by use of the same computer program.
After complaining, the City now sends weekly unsearchable pdf filed to anyone who asks. This format is useless, and a waste of time.
Also DSD’s permit database for construction projects, Cycle issues, etc. should be accessible to the public. All the information is already online, and is accessed by DSD personal from anywhere in the system throughout the City and County.
DSD promised to allow public Read-Only access to the Building Permit and Cycle Issues information online 5 years ago, with a small fee for software training. Allowing online review of Building Permits would dramatically reduce the need for anyone to go to DSD and wait in line for the status of their or anyone else’s public permit application. Neighborhood Planning Board officials would be able to watch projects develop, and help push projects through.
After complaining, the City now sends weekly unsearchable pdf filed to anyone who asks. This format is useless, and a waste of time.
Almost like the City didn’t want the info freely available . . . I’d be a lot more impressed if certain City Hall politicos solved issues like this instead of planning unaffordable Ozymandian edifices for their egotistic legacy.
this is not new idea …its political rehash…..Get rid of planning committees…….the lab comment simply difuses responsibility.
Task Force and Town Hall forums,a phone hotline??? Come on Demaio.
Look at the stock market…USA is bankrupt…take a hint Demaio, a phone hot line?…..San Diego needs drastic change,and its obvious the city council as a whole has no moxey….