DECEMBER 2014 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \
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Colorado Pulse
Can you describe your past experience with CPD?
I have always had tremendous respect for the people
who work for the city, their level of commitment, and the
level and amount of passion they have for what they do in
the midst of a pretty daunting workload. Especially coming
out of the recession with very little, if any, new staff added
through the downturn, not to mention the natural process
of attrition and layoffs during that period.
Although you are likely still getting your arms around
the task at hand, do you have any specific near-term
improvements to the department in mind?
Improvements? Absolutely. If you’re not constantly im-
proving and changing, you’re going to rust. First of all, I think
there is truly an opportunity for our Planning Services (short-
term and comprehensive planning services) and Develop-
ment Services (processing of all entitlement and permitting)
groups to work together more closely. As someone who has
done both, and had enough background to know the expe-
rience of the development world, I believe this would be a
positive change.
What else are you working on in terms of improvements?
We plan, we reviewdesign, we inspect the process, so I have a
lot of touch points that allowme to understand what it is that
this department does, and what it needs. We are making prog-
ress with our staff of 185 today. I have also evaluated the work-
loads our inspectors are doing and learned that keeping up
has been a challenge. We have a substantial workload to deal
with. We have proposed substantial increase in positions and
funding to deal with that enormous increase, and our request
has been met by a great deal of support. City Council [met] Oct.
1 to determine our budget for 2015. In his budget proposal, May-
or Hancock asked for five more inspectors for CPD, and two
administrative staff to support our inspectors – this [was] our
first opportunity to request more inspectors since I joined the
department. The full, official mayor’s budget request for CPD is
for 31 new positions overall.
We have also spoken to the fact that there should be a cus-
tomer service center for permitting, a place one can go to help
guide and direct them to where you should go to be success-
ful. On Aug. 4, we opened up our customer service center and
our first month’s customer feedback rating took a considerable
jump.
In terms of permit review in Development Services (sin-
gle-family/duplex or commercial), our commercial permit
process is doing pretty well – in fact, some of our tenant finish
permits can take place the same day, but a historic structure
with a lot of restoration ismuchmore complex, thus time-con-
suming. The initial review time for new commercial plans for
projects valued at more than $500,000 is 20 business days. It is
CPD’s goal to meet this self-imposed deadline with each re-
view. In commercial, at our end, we would like to see the first
set of comments provided within 20 days, then the second set
at 10 days for the resubmittal from the date of questions. It
should be an eight-to 12-week process. We’re doing well meet-
ing deadlines in commercial permitting.
On the residential review side, we are behind. In 2013 we did
double the permit processing we did back in 2009 with less
staff. And in 2014 we’re seeing a 20 percent increase on that!
Although we have some new positions now coming on line, it
will take time to get them up to speed and we have also con-
sidered the possibility of outsourcing to get ahead of the curve.
Do you have a mission or vision for the department yet?
What CPD does is create a vision for the city’s built envi-
ronment, then help implement it. We’re about to embark on
a strategic planning process this fall. We know what we do;
I really want to explore
why
we do it. That’s the difference
in creating healthy communities. I’m very passionate about
that, and very interested in delving deeply into the passion
within the people to this end. I’m also very committed to
working on the bruised relationship between CPD and a lot
of neighborhoods and finding ways to be more transpar-
ent and inclusive in a proactive way moving forward. For
example, for rezoning applications, in the past, we would
send neighborhood notifications 30 days after receiving an
application. Today, we are sending notifications within one
day. This is a substantial improvement.
It also used to be difficult to find what neighborhood
plan applied to your location. We are in the process of com-
pleting an interactive “neighborhood plans map,” which we
hope will be up and running by later this year. This was a
suggestion made by the neighborhoods. In the meantime,
all plans can be viewed at
under
“Planning and Design.” In general, we’re working to improve
communication with our communities. Folks can sign up
to receive e-news from us by visiting our home page, www.
denvergov.org/CPD, or follow us on Twitter at @DenverCPD.
Sustainability is also a part of all that we do – from smart-
growth planning for transit-oriented development to our
goal of adopting the 2015 International Energy Conservation
Code next year (expected to increase energy efficiency by 30
percent over the 2009 IECC).
In your view, what are architects asking of your department?
If architects are coming for a permit, we’re likely a neces-
sary inconvenience. Yet, we’re a necessary part of the pro-
cess to get to their ultimate goal. They want to be sure that
they can keep moving forward in a timely manner.
