The past few days I have been with the great people who make up the Development Services department of the Town. Development Services include those things that make private development possible. While it is different than what I talked with Josh Wright about (he focuses on relationships) it is a vital complement to what Strategic Initiatives works on. This department conducts all the tactical and operational needs of private development. If you want to build something within the Town limits, whether it’s a Wal-Mart or a wall around your house, you have to go through the Development Services folks.
The process starts with the Pre-Application meeting with various members of the Town staff, but an important member of this meeting are the Development Coordinators. These are two ladies who organize the entire process from review to permitting. Now, I thought that you would have to get a permit first to do anything. Actually! You get the permit at the end of the process. This Pre-App meeting informs a builder or developer of what they need to do and bring and provide to the Town in order to complete construction. These meetings set the ground work for the future of the project. After this meeting the developer then does their first submittal of plans. These are taken by the development coordinators and distributed to the appropriate agencies; environmental quality, planning, building, etc...all these agencies or departments have the ability to submit comments back to the developer who then can change and resubmit their plan. After all the groups have put on their stamp of approval then the developer can start the permit application. There are sometimes when the permits are applied for before these things, but not usually and they are not issued without that process.
The permitting system is so vast! You need a permit for everything! Which I'm glad for. I would not want someone to build something next to my house or road or anything without having a professional person review the plans. These plans and permits become public record and Tim Mattix is the Manager of these. Hope Rodriguez showed me the system they use to follow and keep track of the permits from application to final close out. During my time with the Development Services I was able to see this whole process first hand. Tim really wants to make the permit center as business and customer friendly as possible. Making it a one stop shop for anyone who wants to do private business in Marana. This is a really big feat, there are a lot of moving parts that go into these developments and one project can have as many as 40 different permits! I think this is a great way to manage the permit center, especially due to the commitment the Town has made to be more business friendly and accommodating to new development and growth. Good Luck Tim!! If you have a current open permit you can check out the status of that here.
My afternoon was spent with the Planning department. This is also the Zoning department, which is usually how jurisdictions organize, they just do not call is P&Z. I chatted with Brian Varney, a planner for the Town. I was able to look at submitted plans of specific projects. I looked over a commercial development, a master plan type development, a native plants plan, and a residential plan. These were all unique. Brian and the other planners make sure that these design plans fit with the design ordinances and codes the Town has implemented as well as promoting the welfare of citizens.
This was the area that I was particularly interested in. Along with Economic Development and Capital Projects this is the area that has a lot of influence when determining the direction of the Town’s growth. This is the area where plans for new developments get approved in that they meet lighting ordinances and are not designed to just be cookie cutter houses. Marana is really forward thinking in this sense. These regulations apply to commercial and industrial buildings as well.
The planning department also makes recommendations to the Planning Commission who is the advisory group to the Town Council. All development in the Town is approved by the council and the Commission gives them a suggestion as to approve or deny the plans. Once the plans are approved the process moves to the Building Department for the actual vertical construction.
Planning is also responsible for the zoning in the Town. There are specific types of buildings that can be placed in specific regions based on these zones. NERD ALERT! Marana has a hierarchical zoning system. There are three basic types of zoning, commercial, residential and industrial. Within these areas there are different levels High Density Residential, Heavy Industrial etc…If a piece of land is zoned at a higher level a builder can put up anything that is in the lower zoning levels. If a developer wants to change the zoning however, they have to complete a proposal for why and what they are planning on doing with the land if it is rezoned. They also have to show what that rezoning will do to the land watershed and grading etc… This was fascinating, not sure that I can portray it as well; you should talk to Brian about it. Here is a mapof the Town zoning.
I was able to talk to Director of Development Services Kevin Kish for a few minutes to discuss future growth and the General Plan and how development and strategic initiatives fit together to make a better Marana long term. This led into a discussion with Cynthia Ross about the General Plan and long term planning, which she is focused on. We talked about how she put together all the information in that plan, and the way that it has been divided into themes for the Town to follow. This along with the Strategic Plan are the driving force for the growth of the Town. They are both well researched and laid out plans, which provide a resident with the direction the Town is going. Check them out!
The second day I was with the Building Safety Department and went around with George Gleeson doing building inspections. He is given a schedule from the permit department to review a site and decide if it meets the codes. He is the most well versed person I have ever met in how something should be built and what the codes require. Now these codes are practically universal, in case you were wondering because I had no idea. He can look at some construction and know that it is 8 feet long with the right width piping and connections in 2 seconds. It was pretty impressive. So we went to the Sargent building and Lasertel both of which are going to be awesome inside. The new Marana Health Center, that is almost nearing completion. The new Legacy apartments and the remodel of the Target on Ina, most were not finished, but I was able to see the site and how he determines if he is going to approve the work and make it a partial completion or say that its not ready yet.
The second half of the day was spent with the smartest people! They are the plans examiners. Benny Sanchez, Manny Carrillo and Paul Froehlke. They take the plans submitted to the development coordinators and review them to see if they make sense. They look for electric and water connections, if the building has enough power for what the builder intends to use it for, are the lights the correct bulbs…all kinds of things! And they do calculations to make sure that the beams will support the weight of the roof! It’s the hardest job I could ever imagine having. It is super impressive what those guys do each day. They went through, briefly, a set of plans with me so I could see what they look for. We had a nice chat about waste water planning and how that will affect their jobs; should the Town be able to provide waste water services.
Again, spending the time with this department the past few days was overwhelming, but in an awesome way. Seeing how development comes about, and how decisions are made on what something will look like are things that are important to me, and to the health of a Town. By having people that are smart and with it reviewing plans there is less chance that something terrible will happen and that the Town will continue its commitment to community beautification. Thanks for the taking the time to sit with me and talk about what you do and how you do it. I hope that it came across that I was fascinated, and kind of jealous, of the job you get to do each day! I’ll stick with my MPA though.
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