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Development Services: Keeping The City’s Growth In Check and On Track · Inside West Palm Beach

• 0:08
  Welcome to the City Center podcast.
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  I'm Jerry Marcello.
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  If you take a drive around the city of West Palm Beach,
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  one fact becomes immediately apparent the city is growing and redefining itself at every turn,
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  new buildings of all types are under construction and upgrades to roads and infrastructure can be seen everywhere.
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  What you can't see is a painstaking planning that goes into each building.
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  There are studies,
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  surveys and reviews required before the first shovel of dirt is turned.
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  The people at City Hall responsible for working with builders and developers is the Development Services Department and the jobs reformed by this team.
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  White literally keeps the city's growth in check and on track.
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  Joining me today is Rick Green Development Services director for the city of West Palm Beach.
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  Rick,
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  welcome.
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  Thank you,
• 1:00
  Jerry.
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  Not a lot of people really know about what development Services really does,
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  tell us about the team and what you do.
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  Sure,
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  we are a department of about 85 persons today.
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  Um We're responsible for anything involving planning,
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  zoning,
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  building inspections and historic preservation.
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  So anything from a simple fence that a resident wants to put in their backyard to a new baseball stadium,
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  an outlet mall office building all runs through our department.
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  Uh There's a lot,
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  obviously,
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  there's a lot of building that's going on around the city right now.
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  Um has the rate of the projects that we are currently seeing develop.
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  Has it increased?
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  Are we seeing more building than we've seen before?
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  We are?
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  This is uh an unprecedented amount of growth that we've witnessed over the last couple of years.
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  Um really beginning with,
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  with the COVID pandemic.
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  Um Whereas most cities were struggling and slowing down.
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  Um when COVID hit in March of 2020 we witnessed six consecutive quarters of building permit growth in the city.
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  A lot of it has to do with the migration from the northeast,
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  particularly New York,
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  California and other areas.
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  Um But our,
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  our records are unbelievably uh incredible what we've experienced just in the past month alone,
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  June,
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  we had the biggest month in the history of the city collecting nearly $2 million and building permit revenues in one month.
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  That is amazing.
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  Now,
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  is it mostly office type of space or is it residential or a mix?
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  It's a little bit of everything.
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  Um We're seeing a lot of residential development activity um with the influx of persons and corporations from New York,
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  we're seeing a lot of new class,
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  a office construction.
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  We went from the period between 2008 and 2020.
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  We did not see any new class a office projects,
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  particularly in our downtown.
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  We currently have about 3.4 million square feet in the pipeline right now just within the past couple of years.
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  So it's,
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  it's truly been an incredible uh run of development we've seen,
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  as we said at the top,
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  just driving around the city,
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  you can see it changing before your very eyes.
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  Um What sort of input do residents current residents have as far as um the look and feel or whether projects are approved or not approved?
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  So certainly public um input is,
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  is very important component of what we do.
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  Um So typically any project of any significant size,
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  we have a series of public hearings that we go through.
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  Um certainly before a developer files a development application with us.
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  If it's something of any significance,
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  we always encourage them to reach,
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  reach out to the surrounding neighboring communities.
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  Um We let them know who those neighbors are,
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  who they should be meeting with.
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  And we try to encourage that before an a an actual application is submitted to us.
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  So we know that that dialogue has taken place.
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  Um Once uh an application or a project is submitted to us,
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  we do an internal staff review and then we have a series of public meetings.
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  Um typically in front of one of our boards,
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  either the planning board or we'll have a Downtown Action committee that handles the projects downtown.
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  And then if it reaches the City Commission,
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  we typically have two separate hearings with the city commission.
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  So there's um a lot of opportunity for people to comment.
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  We want to get that input,
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  we want to know what the uh what the issues are as we're reviewing the project with the developer and other departments in the city.
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  So even from the very beginning,
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  there is an outreach to residents nearby the project and then multiple opportunities for them to voice opinions and,
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  and stuff all along the process.
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  Absolutely yes.
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  As part of your outreach to the community,
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  you hold semi annual public meetings tailored to developers.
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  Now,
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  what sort of things do you talk about to developers?
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  So we,
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  we call it a developer outreach meeting and we typically try to do it around mid year of our fiscal year and we do one at the end of the fiscal year,
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  usually in October.
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  And while we call it a developer outreach meeting,
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  it's really open to anybody from the public.
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  So we have a lot of developers,
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  planners,
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  architects,
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  residents who attend those meetings and I liken it to a,
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  a mini state of the city address.
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  So we talk about statistics.
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  We'll we'll look at building permit activity planning activity um over the past year.
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  In comparison to what we've done over the previous decade,
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  we talk about some newer projects that are coming in and we like to show rendering.
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  So people have an idea of what's coming into the city.
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  All of that,
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  we also tie to a link on our website on a citywide projects map.
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  So people can scour the city and look at a particular dot on this GIS map on our website and they can click on it and it'll blow up a rendering and a description of what projects have come into the city.
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  So we try to update that on a periodic basis.
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  So the residents are informed as to what new projects have been submitted and could possibly be under review.
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  So while it's best to get the most information from the website,
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  which is W PB dot org,
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  um can you give us any sense of anything that's going on that you'd like to share with us?
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  Well,
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  we have a lot of activity and,
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  and certainly with the activity and the migration of corporations into the city,
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  you know,
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  first and foremost,
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  our priority is to try to um identify opportunities for workforce housing.
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  Um We don't want to get a residential market priced out of um what people can afford in the city.
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  A couple of years,
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  a couple of years ago,
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  we adopted a downtown workforce housing incentive um that allowed developers to get a little bit more height,
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  a little bit more floor area ratio.
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  It's a form of development in exchange,
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  they had to set aside a portion of that increase as,
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  as workforce housing in December of last year,
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  we adopted a citywide provision um that allowed developers to um seek more density,
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  more development rights if in fact,
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  they set aside 25% of the entire residential project as workforce.
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  So we're,
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  we're creating incentives in the curry mixed use district.
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  We have incentives that developers can get more height if they provide workforce housing.
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  So we're trying to do that city wide.
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  Um We have a new Senate bill that was adopted a Senate bill 102 called the Local Act um that went into effect on July 1.
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  It doesn't do as much for us as the resolution that we adopted in December.
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  The resolution 306 22.
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  So we are in the process now of amending our comprehensive plan to try to provide more incentives for developers to create more workforce housing opportunities throughout the entire city.
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  And that's something we hope to bring to the commission.
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  Um in November.
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  It's fantastic.
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  It's obvious that you guys are having a tremendous amount of work and the workload must be insane.
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  There's a tremendous amount of paperwork that must be going through the pipeline.
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  But from what I understand the time of the,
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  at the time of this podcast recording,
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  you're about to launch a new system that hopefully will facilitate easing that,
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  that burden.
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  Yes,
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  we're very excited about that.
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  It's called the EPL.
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  It stands for Enterprise Permitting and licensing.
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  We've had a permitting software system that's been in place now for about 25 to 30 years called Community Plus,
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  what EPL does?
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  And we've been working on this for over four years at a cost of more than $7 million which has come out of building permit revenue that we have collected over the years.
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  Um and it becomes an electronic permitting process.
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  So a resident,
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  a developer and architect can submit plans to the city electronically,
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  they can make the payments electronically um All without having to come into City Hall.
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  But what is,
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  what is probably the best feature is that when plans are submitted electronically,
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  we can now do a simultaneous review.
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  So our plumbing mechanical building zoning engineering,
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  public works functions can all happen simultaneously.
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  So at the end of the day,
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  um the hope is that the building permit gets issued in a much quicker time frame.
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  And then even more importantly,
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  we've looked at about 270 different workflow processes,
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  anything from pulling a building permit to getting an engineering right away permit.
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  We've taken that workflow and we've tried to streamline it.
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  So it maybe have has taken 25 30 steps.
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  In the past,
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  we've been able to compress that into a 12 step process.
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  So it'll make the city more efficient.
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  It'll make it a little bit easier for residents and people who want to submit for building permits.
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  Um The,
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  the go live date is July 31st.
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  So we're excited about that.
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  Can't tell you how much work has gone into getting us ready for this and we'll have,
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  I'm sure a few glitches,
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  but we think we've ironed out most of the issues.
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  Um,
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  but we're very excited about this process.
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  And then more importantly,
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  it's gonna make it easier for both residents and the city staff as well.
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  Right.
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  So it's new technology and it makes life easier for everybody.
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  Rick.
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  Thanks so much for being here.
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  Now,
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  this is our last opportunity to,
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  to think about a message that you'd want to share with the residents about what you do and what your team does.
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  What would you like to say to them?
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  Well,
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  first and foremost,
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  you know,
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  our,
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  our duty is to the residents.
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  We,
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  we want good projects to come in.
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  Um So we want to hear from residents,
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  we want to hear what they like,
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  what they don't like.
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  Um And,
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  and certainly we welcome every opportunity for the residents to voice their concerns about,
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  you know,
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  a project,
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  a zoning code change,
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  anything we may be doing.
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  Um I,
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  I can't say enough good things about my staff.
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  They work exceptionally hard.
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  Um We got a lot on the plate,
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  as you mentioned,
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  but it's an exciting time to be in the city.
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  Um Prior to last year,
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  I'll mention that,
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  you know,
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  we've averaged about a 6.4% growth in our tax base over the previous 10 years.
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  Last year,
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  we did over 17% this year.
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  We're hoping to do about 15 or 16%.
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  So the values within the city of West Palm Beach is increasing and with the level of activity we have,
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  we don't see it slowing down any time over the next couple of years.
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  Fantastic,
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  Rick.
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  Thank you for your time and thank you for sharing uh your perspective on all the things that are happening in the city and the and your department development services.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  The City Center podcast is produced by the City of West Palm Beach.
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  We hope you found today's discussion useful.
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  And if,
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  if you did,
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  please subscribe,
• 10:49
  if you have any questions or comments,
• 10:50
  please write us at podcast at W PB dot org.
• 10:54
  If you wish to learn more about the city's development services department,
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  please visit the city's website at W PB dot org slash development.
• 11:03
  This is Jerry Marcelo.
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  We'll see you next time.