CC Minutes 10/02/2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASSELBERRY CITY COMMISSION Minutes of October 2, 2012 — workshop Page 2 of 3 4. DISCUSSION ABOUT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING Presentation: City Manager Randy Newlon presented the Commission with an overview of the City's Community Development Department, stating that the department is responsible for coordination of the fixture growth and economic development of the City. He explained that the department supports three standing boards, those being the Planning and Zoning Commission, the Code Enforcement Board, and the Community Redevelopment Agency. He added that the department also organizes two multi - departmental committees, which are the Development Team and the Development Review Committee. Mr. Newlon advised that the department is separated into five organization divisions, and he briefly outlined the staffing and functions of those five divisions as follows. Planning Division — Mr. Newlon advised that this division administers growth management through the City's Future Land Use Plan and Unified Land Development Regulations. He stated that it assists developers through the approval process and facilitates development planning that reaches high standards. He noted that soon the site plan for Legacy Park Phase Ill would be coming to the City Commission for approval and that input from the Community Development staff, the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Commission had led to revisions that were far superior to those originally submitted at the start of the planning process. Business Tax Division — Mr. Newlon explained that this division is administered under Planning, and that it generates approximately $200,000 in revenues annually. He added that staff performs several hundred reviews, inspections and other services annually. Code Compliance Division — Mr. Newlon advised that staff for this division currently consists of three officers and one support staff member. He stated that the purpose of the code enforcement program is to ensure the health, safety and welfare of City residents and businesses by maintaining minimum community standards consistent with City codes. He added that the City had set a high bar for code compliance, requiring proactive enforcement including patrols of residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors to identify violations. He noted that over 2500 cases had been investigated this year so far. He advised that snipe signs are pulled daily, and that an innovative robo -call program had been implemented to repeatedly call offending businesses to have signs removed and prevent repeat offenses. He added that for the coming fiscal year one part-time support employee and a temporary one -year full time code officer had been authorized to enhance the staff and to improve program effectiveness. He concluded by noting that fines collected had grown from approximately $60,000 in 2010 to approximately $365,000 in 2012 due to stepped up enforcement and a very innovative residential foreclosure registration program. Building Division — Mr. Newlon stated that the Building Division assures that quality construction and conformance to City Code are required in Casselberiy. He advised that the program is supported locally with just one full time employee, but that inspections are entirely outsourced to the City of Altamonte Springs. He noted that the division had collected approximately $200,000 in inspection fees and issued approximately 1,227 permits to date in 2012.