PURPOSE

The purpose of this report is to update the City Council on the progress of the Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Tracking Program.

BACKGROUND

Preliminary discussions and planning for a Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Tracking Program began in 2001 when the Council and the Planning Board expressed concerns about follow-up inspections on land use entitlement conditions of approval.  These entitlements are discretionary, and as such contain conditions of approval and performance standards which must be enforced in order for the entitlements to be valid.  There has never been in effect a program which verified the enactment of the conditions of approval for Conditional Use Permits (CUP�s), Planned Developments (PD�s) and Variances.

In response to the concerns in 2001 from both Council and the Planning Board, staff drafted a report to the City Council which, amongst other things, recommended a permanent program to be created for discretionary entitlement conditions of approval code enforcement (report attached as Exhibit A).  This code enforcement was intended to be conducted on a proactive basis.  Originally, the preliminary startup costs of a permanent land use entitlement verification program were estimated to be between $132,000 to $152,000.  Due to these costs Council rejected the program.  However, in 2002 Council reconsidered the program on a temporary basis as a �pilot� program for FY 2003/04 and appropriated $100,000 for a six (6) month pilot program.  But at the last minute Council was compelled to scrap the program because of a fiscal crisis brought about by an apparent State deficit. 

The pilot program remained dormant until June, 2005 when Council revived interest in the program during the tail end of FY 2005/06 budget discussions.   This interest resulted in Council once again appropriating $100,000 for the pilot program for a six (6) month period.  However, working within existing workload priorities, staff formulated a plan of action that would utilize this appropriation such that the funding would support the pilot program for the full year FY 2005/06.

The primary goal of the Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Program is to implement a system whereby inspectors proactively conduct follow up compliance inspections on discretionary land use entitlements with conditions of approval.  To this end the pilot program is principally designed to conduct on-site inspections for the verification and tracking of the conditions of approval for land use entitlements such as: Conditional Use Permits; Variances; Planned Developments; and, Administrative Use Permits.  As such, Council directed this program to be established in order to maintain the highest level of compliance with the conditions of approval which regulate these land use entitlements. 

Before the Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Program was initiated in August, 2005, License and Code Service inspectors selectively tracked and conducted follow up inspections on entitlements on a complaint-driven basis.  In fact, the majority of code enforcement which does not involve life-safety issues, is conducted on a reactive basis.  Reactive code enforcement, instead of proactive code enforcement, is the primary form of code enforcement because of:  past Council policies which prefer this approach for public relations purposes; staffing levels must be increased if proactive enforcement is desired to be conducted in conjunction with reacting to citizen complaints; and, budgetary factors.

At the same time Council was considering this pilot program, they were also requesting staff to be more proactive on certain other types of overt code enforcement violations.  Namely, RACI Ordinance (Residential and Commercial, Industrial) related violations, and illegally constructed tents and canopies within residential front yard setbacks.  In response to Council�s request to resolve these three issues proactively, additional staff was temporarily hired and enforcement priorities were modified as part of the program.

To conduct the proactive Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Program, new staff which consists of a temporary part-time Intern, a temporary full-time License and Code Services Inspector I, and a temporary part-time Utility Worker (clerical position) were hired in August, 2005.  The temporary full-time License and Code Services Inspector and Utility worker were hired in the License and Code Services Division, while the temporary part-time Intern was hired in the Planning Division and performs the duty of identifying and gleaning historical entitlement records necessary to conduct the pilot program.

The Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Program is viewed as a priority Council program and as such it is considered too important to be conducted by a new inspector.  Therefore, to maximize efficiency, a veteran inspector was assigned this duty while the majority of work assigned to the new temporary inspector was for the purpose of providing backup for the workload the veteran inspector would have been conducting.  This workload includes amongst other duties, all other reactive License and Code Services code enforcement, the Burbank Business Tax Program, the Burbank Regulatory Business License Program, and proactive enforcement on the RACI Ordinance, and front yard tent and canopy enforcement,

Although the pilot program is only five (5) months in existence and is still in the preliminary stages of development, substantial progress has been made in organizing and implementing the program.  This organization and implementation has resulted in making preliminary findings which were previously unknown, yet suspected.  Those findings are that non-compliance with entitlement conditions of approval exists. At this point in the program there is approximately a 19% non-compliance rate. Although it is too soon to factually determine, it appears that there will be a substantial greater percentage of entitlements which will be found out-of-compliance as staff continues to investigate the earlier years of entitlements. 

Currently the newer years of entitlements (2002, 2001, and a portion of 2000) have been selected to begin the pilot program.  These years were selected because of the breadth of volume these entitlement cases provide by allowing staff to start the program quickly.  The quick start was possible because staff believes newer year samplings will have fewer out-of-compliance situations (19% at this time).  In addition, the newer entitlements� information is not archived yet and therefore easily attainable which cut down on the research time.  Consequently, a smaller portion of program startup time was needed for researching background case histories and more time could be devoted to actual site inspections.

Whenever staff begins a new program, �hitting the ground running� is always desirable.  However, �learning to walk before learning to run� is also desirable.  As such, staff learned to walk by beginning the program with newer cases, and now staff is ready to run by changing focus to earlier years of entitlements.  It is believed a higher percentage of out-of-compliance land use entitlements will be discovered in the earlier year time periods and that this out-of-compliance rate will exceed the current 19% out-of-compliance finding.

DISCUSSION

The information needed to conduct an entitlement verification program is primarily found in the Planning Division with some additional information maintained by City Clerk�s Office.  To begin this program the Planning Intern is charged with the duty of researching historical entitlement records located in both the Planning Division and the City Clerk�s Office.   Amongst other types of information, these records included conditions of approval for CUP�s, AUP�s, Variances, Planned Developments, and Development Reviews.  Once this information is gathered and organized by the year of entitlement approval, it is passed on to the License and Code Services Division 

To better manage the flow of information, the License and Code Services Division has created a chronological Entitlement Status Report to track the progress of each entitlement inspection and conduct follow-up field inspections until the case is determined to be satisfactorily completed.  The tracking report, which is an on-line feature, is backed up by a supplemental hard copy filing system which contains information from other departments.  Should the pilot program become a permanent program this vital information will be electronically scanned and integrated into the on-line tracking system.

Attached as Exhibit B, is a printout of the on-line �Entitlement Program Tracking Report�.  This report is updated weekly by the License and Code Services Inspector assigned to this program.  The report is located in the Community Development K drive system in a folder titled �Entitlement Program Tracking Report�.   The �Entitlement Program Tracking Report� details land use entitlements and tracks them by:

• Case number

• Address

• Type of entitlement

• The entitlement applicant�s name

• Resolution number

• Type of entitlement

• Status (Pending, Closed, or Denied)

• Whether or not the applicant has been sent an inspection letter (copy of inspection letter is attached as Exhibit C)

• Whether or not an inspection has been conducted

• Whether or not the entitlement is in compliance with the conditions of approval  

The most important column in the Entitlement Program Tracking Report is the last column.  This column details �Yes� or �No�, which means, the entitlement is either in, or out of compliance with any of the conditions of approval for that entitlement.  If an entitlement is found to be out of compliance, a �No� is placed into the COMPLIANCE column.  The �No�, is eventually replaced with a �Yes� when compliance is attained.  This is the primary tracking feature of the program.  This status report is also color-coded by month to show when the review of each case was initiated.  This way, if a case is carried over into the next month, the color it is in assists with distinguishing when the case was originally opened for review. 

The License and Code Services Inspector and Utility Worker who work on the program enter the entitlement information they receive from the Planning Division into the status report and follow up with research and on-site inspections to ensure compliance with the conditions of approval for the entitlements.  The entitlement review process involves creating case files, sending out letters requesting inspections, waiting for responses to the letters, conducting the inspections, dedicating time to research and investigate each entitlement, and working with the applicant and other City staff on the case until it is satisfactorily completed. 

To date, staff has reviewed one hundred (100) different �cases� which primarily review the years 2002, 2001, and a portion of year 2000.  The word �cases� is the terminology used instead of using the word �addresses�.  At this time, staff is finding that approximately 19% of the entitlements inspected are in one way or another not in full compliance of their conditions of approval.  Most of the non-compliance is found in the conditions of approval for Conditional Use Permits (CUP�s).  Of the ninety-four (100) cases reviewed:

• 67 cases are closed

•   8 previously opened cases remain active, and

• 25 cases remain under observation (11 applications are applications which were denied entitlements, while 14 applications are  entitlements which are pending completion of construction).

Within the 100 cases, there were 120 entitlements reviewed:  Those entitlements are:

• 83 Conditional Use Permits

• 12 Variances

•   9 Planned Developments

• 14 Development Reviews

•   1 Administrative Use Permit

•   1 Zone Text Amendment

As part of the entitlement review process, currently the program Inspector has sent out thirty-seven (37) letters requesting inspections of properties.  Of that number, there were thirty-five (35) responses to the inspection requests.  These requested inspections, combined with unscheduled inspections, have resulted in eighty-five (85) inspections conducted by the program inspector from August to the end of January.  Since the August 2005 start date of this program, 738 hours have been spent by the Inspector researching/investigating entitlements cases and 246 hours have been spent by the Utility Worker who provides support to the Inspector.

The time frame for entitlement verification cases, from start to finish, varies on a case by case basis.  Some basic entitlements are completed within a week or less, while other entitlements could take several weeks or even months.  For example, if a project is not yet complete, the Inspector cannot verify that the conditions of approval are being met.  Another example which requires a protracted period of time is if the Inspector needs to conduct more research or work with other City staff and/or the applicant before the case can be completed.

FISCAL IMPACTS

Along with avoiding a longer and larger learning curve, use of veteran personnel for a pilot program of this importance also provides substantial program budgetary savings.  These savings are accomplished by hiring a temporary inspector, who will not receive a full benefit package until the program becomes permanent.  In addition, equipment, supplies, and other overhead expenses are currently not charged off to this program. 

Initial expenditures for the pilot program did not begin until August, 2005.  This one month delay created a salary savings, which in addition to License and Code Services being very cautious with the $100,000 program funding, will result in a substantial expenditure savings for the pilot program (possibly as much as $40,000 to $50,000) this fiscal year.  Should Council determine during the FY 2006/07 budget hearings that they wanted to continue the program as a permanent program, this unexpended funding would be available as a firm basis for �seed� funding to make this a permanent program. 

CONCLUSION

The Pilot Land Use Entitlement Verification Program has been in existence for five (5) months.  During the five (5) months, personnel have been hired, and program policies and direction have been established.  In addition, a tracking system has been created, and considerable progress has been made which confirms the long-considered notion that a substantial, yet unknown, number of entitlements are not in compliance with the conditions of approval which were the basis for the granting of the entitlements.

As this program continues, staff believes that the current 19% �Out of Compliance� percentage will increase.  This is because currently staff is investigating newer land use entitlements (years 2002, 2001, and a portion of 2000) which have not been in existence long enough for there to be a significant opportunity for business proprietorship or property ownership to change.  Staff believes that as businesses and properties change ownerships there will be more opportunity for entitlement conditions to fall to the wayside.  Consequently, staff theorizes that as the program begins to investigate land use entitlements from the 1990�s, 1980�s, 1970�s, and older, the number of non-compliant land use entitlements will increase.

RECOMMENDATION

Staff recommends Council receive this report and provide comment on the direction this program is moving.  In as much as it is mid-year and staff is currently preparing preliminary budgetary plans which propose continued funding of this program for FY 2006/2007, staff recommends Council provide the following direction.  It is recommended Council direct staff to continue the program as designed.  However, staff is to change the focus from inspecting newer land use entitlements to inspecting earlier decades of land use entitlements.  This will enable staff to return in June with findings that will either prove or disprove the belief that non-compliance will increase as earlier years are investigated.

EXHIBITS

A       Staff Report for Entitlement Tracking Program, Dated March, 2001

B        Entitlement Program Status Report

C       Example of �Request for Inspection� Letter

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