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Developers to get ambassadors within planning department
Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: June 1, 2015, Last Updated: June 1, 2015 6:57 PM EDT
The city is defending a new initiative that will give private developers an ambassador within the planning department.
Staff members were recruited this spring to act as “client relationship leaders” — a fancy bureaucratic term for a role that appears to be equal parts problem solver, facilitator and concierge.
“The CRL is expected to discern what the issues are, communicate with the file lead, client, and management to determine next steps and what possible solutions may exist in order to bring a resolution,” says a document distributed to staff who work in the planning department.
In some cases, the CRL will be able to override decisions by project managers or the city staff member previously tasked with overseeing a particular planning file.
The purpose, says Lee Ann Snedden, acting head of development review services, is to help the planning department “understand and become a little bit more knowledgeable about what our clients’ needs are” so the department can identify gaps in service and possible improvements.
But the only “clients”, at this point, are developers, she said.
If the pilot program goes well, the city might explore ways to roll out a similar program for other stakeholders, such as residents and community associations. But that wouldn’t be until the fall or early next year.
Some question the need for such an initiative.
“I don’t know what problem this solves,” said Michael Powell, president of the Dalhousie Community Association.
It’s never been his impression that developers and city staff have a problem communicating with each other, he said, adding that planners assigned to oversee particular applications are often generous with their time.
Powell also wondered whether this new approach is beneficial when some residents already believe that the relationship between city officials and developers is too cosy. “From an optics perspective, this probably isn’t helpful,” he said.
But the chair of the planning department defended the new program.
The process to move an application through the city’s planning department is cumbersome and difficult, Jan Harder says, and sometimes departments aren’t on the same page.
Planning staff will now have a chance to take on a leadership role and be the one person at city hall a developer can call when they have questions, instead of having to call around to several departments in search of answers.
As for residents and community associations, they won’t be left in the lurch, Harder says.
“The communities have ambassadors and they’re called councillors,” she said, adding the relationship between community associations and the city is strong.
“The No. 1 goal here is customer service and moving applications through the system in a timely fashion,” Harder said.
Snedden said 20 staff members are receiving training in managing relationships, serving clients, problem solving and facilitation. Each will be matched with a single developer later this month.
They didn’t need to be planners or engineers in order to selected, according to the recruiting material distributed to staff.
“You don’t have to have any specific knowledge of planning or of the developer, just an interest in developing relationships with our clients and resolving issues,” the document says.
In addition to the training, ambassadors selected to participate will be supported by managers through regular office hours and will share tactics among each other.
Snedden said she’s not concerned that the new program could create cheerleaders within the department who will lobby hard for the developer he or she is assigned to.
“I don’t believe that they would become an advocate for the developer. That’s not the expectation or the role that the staff will play,” she said. “It is really to focus on understanding client needs, where there are issues of consistency that we may identify or gaps in service.”
There is no budget for the program. The staff members selected to participate are volunteers, though they will be volunteering on work time, meaning they will have a reduced workload to accommodate the time needed for the program, Snedden said.
“The idea of this program is really to improve services, so I do believe, from a taxpayers’ perspective, this is all about efficiencies,” she said.
mpearson@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...ing-department
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