After forming a number of citizen committees to grapple with planning issues, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors either didn’t adequately execute committee recommendations, or the committees fell apart before getting off the ground, according to a county Civil Grand Jury report released yesterday.
The report, titled “Got a planning problem? Appoint a committee: Worthy goals, little follow-through,” blasts the Board of Supervisors for forming four committees over the last decade to examine the Planning and Development and Housing and Community Development departments, and doing little if anything to ensure the committees were a success.
“In return for their response to the county’s calls for help, these committees were met with passivity from the Board of Supervisors that could discourage future participation from all but the most ardent citizen volunteers,” the report says. “The jury found that one of the committees had simply been allowed to disappear without a trace. Another had met its commitment and submitted a report to the board, but few recommendations have yet seen the light of day.”
The Grand Jury studied four citizen committees, the Housing Advisory Committee (HAC), Affordable Housing Policy Committee (AHPC), Process Improvement Team (PIT), and the Process Improvement Oversight Committee (PIOC).
In the case of the Housing Advisory Committee, formed by the board in 2003 to address problems with the county’s affordable housing program, the Grand Jury found that it and eight other subcommittees dissolved with little to show for its efforts.
According to the report, the goal of the HAC was to conduct an affordable housing audit and develop a baseline for growth. The committee would then work with the planning and development department to identify resources necessary to address housing needs. This would be followed with a report to the Board of Supervisors.
“The Grand Jury was unable to locate any evidence that a report was ever submitted to the Board of Supervisors,” the report says.
Despite apparently serving no purpose, the report says the HAC was listed as an advisory body to the department of housing and community development and the Board of Supervisors as late as the 2007-2008 budget.
Grand Jury foreman Ted Sten said he didn’t know how much, if any county money was spent on the HAC between its formation in 2003 and 2008.
“The jury concluded that this committee had dissolved well prior to that period with nothing to show for its efforts and with no formal notification to the Board of Supervisors,” the report says.
The report says the budget for the current fiscal year makes no mention of the HAC.
Phone calls seeking comment from Planning and Development Director John Baker were not immediately returned to the Daily Sound.
The Affordable Housing Policy Committee, formed in 2006, was a five-person body charged with reviewing the “goals, policies and outcomes of the inclusionary housing program and alternatives to the inclusionary housing program.”
According to the report, the formation of the AHPC was triggered by problems associated with the county’s affordable housing programs, particularly in the oversight of for-sale units.
Six months after its formation, the AHPC submitted 13 recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, all of which county staff recommended for approval, with the condition that nine be subject to further review.
By late 2007, the Board of Supervisors had approved all but one of the 13 recommendations. The lone rejection, the report says, dealt with expanding “in-lieu fees” (paid by developers who decline to build affordable units on their property), to all residential projects. As it stands, the report says such fees apply only to developments of five or more residential units.
The Grand Jury found this recommendation offered “significant potential for generating additional funding” to help provide affordable housing, but for whatever reason it was denied.
However, after reviewing audio from the meeting, the Grand Jury report says it appears county staff “did not adequately address the intent and impacts of this recommendation.” As a result, it says the Board of Supervisors “did not have sufficient information necessary to make an informed decision.”
Though he said he doubted staff had purposely misrepresented the recommendation, 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal said he was interested to see staff’s response.
“[The Grand Jury] obviously felt it was inaccurate so I’m very eager to understand perhaps what validity that finding has or doesn’t have,” he said.
Though the other 12 recommendations from the AHPC were approved by the board in 2007, the Grand Jury found only three have been implemented, with the remainder hinging on changes to the county’s general plan, a process scheduled for this August.
The Grand Jury also analyzed the Process Improvement Team, an in-house body formed in 2003 to remedy internal problems in the Planning and Development Department.
This team’s purpose was apparently to help streamline the “ministerial” permit process, or permits requiring little administrative oversight and generally considered uncontroversial.
However, the Grand Jury notes that during its investigation, it heard repeated complaints that this process remains “slow, frustrating and confusing.”
The only functioning committee looked at by the Grand Jury was the Process Improvement Oversight Committee, a 25-member body that essentially replaced PIT in 2005.
The Grand Jury found that the committee, hampered by lack of effort by planning and development and the PIOC to outline specific measures of success related to assigned goals, has resulted in little improvement to the planning process.
Measurable progress aside, the Grand Jury says the PIOC could and should be a tool used to improve the planning process. The report cites consistent attendance at PIOC meetings and a willingness of committee members to make improvements.
The Grand Jury says the reports generated by the PIOC and presented to the Board of Supervisors come across as “political documents that do not, in the opinion of this jury, distinguish between the wheat and the chaff.”
The Grand Jury report says it got the impression Planning and Development and the PIOC are more “interested in obtaining approval for recommendations than in the recommendations themselves.”
In order to improve the operations of the PIOC, the Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors regularly attend the meetings, that the PIOC be given authority to participate in selecting items for review, and that the PIOC identify problems in the planning process that require analysis and improvement, without regard to the problems potential political implications.
The Grand Jury also recommends the board reconsider the recommendation from the former Affordable Housing Policy Committee on expanding in-lieu fees to all residential developments.
Carbajal acknowledged the Board of Supervisors needs to ensure the purpose and lifespan of citizen committees are explicit from the beginning, and the board needs to be as thorough as possible when executing recommendations from such committees.
“There are clear examples where we could have done that better,” he said. We need to “do a better job for their time and everybody wins in the end.”
The Board of Supervisors has 90 days to issue a response to the Grand Jury, while the Planning and Development Department must respond in 60 days.
http://www.thedailysound.com/040309grandjury
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