Palm Coast to increase staff as building activity increases

By Brian McMillan
| 5:00 a.m. February 12, 2014

Palm Coast Observer
News

In the four Januaries from 2010 to 2013, a combined total of 45 permits for single-family homes were issued by the city of Palm Coast. Last month topped them all.

“In January 2014, it was 46,” City Manager Jim Landon told the City Council last week. “It’s a new world downstairs,” he said. “You can really tell a difference.”

As a result of the increased activity, the city is adding staff. “We hired a zoning technician who is responsible for plan review because a couple of months ago, that was the word we got from the builders — that our zoning review was a bottleneck — and we agreed with that assessment,” Landon said in an interview with the Palm Coast Observer. The city will also hire an inspector.

The hiring comes after a discussion with City Council last month, when Landon said, “I’m in conversations about staffing levels, because we are not where we need to be to get this done.”

Landon told the City Council, “We only have three inspectors, so we’re pulling people off plan review … so the plan review isn’t getting done. … We're evaluating. It’s a good problem to have.”

Community Development Director Nestor Abreu said that, in 2011, the staff was conducting about 40 inspections per day. Now, the average is 70-110.

“The numbers reflect more work, more permitting, more inspections,” Abreu said. “Because of these trends, we’re looking to get more help."

Mayor Netts says …
What is the right size for the staff in the building department? Mayor Jon Netts said to the City Council earlier this month: “Let’s take a look at the historical perspective. During the peak of the building boom, I think we had 20 people in the building inspection department, and we were barely keeping pace. As the recession comes in, you adjust the staff so you’re not having people sitting around. We’ve reached the point where we’re seeing an increase in building, and that’s good. And you can’t ask the same staff to do twice as much work as people are doing.”

He continued: “I don’t want to hire people and having them sitting around. Conversely, I don’t want to not hire people and then having people say, ‘You’re holding us up.’ This is where the city manager has to be very astute.

“It’s a balancing act. You don’t want to spend money needlessly, but on the other hand, you don’t want to inconvenience the people who are investing capital dollars in your community. It’s a nice problem to have. I’d much rather have to hire two building inspectors than to have to lay off two building inspectors.

Netts gave a personal example about buying a couch. “We might talk about it for nine months, but when we decide to do it, we want to buy it tomorrow. That’s the same with the buildings.”

A $300,000 turnaround
In the budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2013, the city projected it would need to dip into Building Department reserves about $200,000. Instead, because of the increase in activity, the reserves were augmented by $100,000.

“And that surplus could continue to grow,” said Chris Quinn, finance director. “If we ended the year today, it’s a difference of $300,000.”

State law prohibits the use of the revenue from building permits for anything other than supporting the department. For example, the surplus could not be used to lower property taxes or build a park.

The city has about $2 million in its building permit reserves. Half of that is set aside to fund the construction of the building department portion of the new City Hall in Town Center.

Trend going vertical
The number of permits issued by the city of Palm Coast for single-family residential homes has been a story of dramatic ups and downs, from a high of 3,950 in 2004 to a low of 81 in 2011. This year, the rebound continues.