Help wanted: City/County Planning Director
Seems that Monday was a particularly busy day in town, with the Cleveland-Holloway/Housing For New Hope/Dominion Ministries tussle coming to a climax before City Council last night. Stories in the Herald-Sun and N&O discuss the voting at council.
Kevin and Gary have the bloggers's perspective, and get into aspects left out of the news stories, while Michael lays out some of the underlying reasoning behind the Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood's position.
Meanwhile, as Kevin noted, a press release from the city and county yesterday afternoon tersely announced: "Durham City-County Planning Director Frank Duke has been named the new director of the Planning and Community Development Department with the City of Norfolk, Va.
Duke leaves after more than five years on the job with the City and County of Durham. His last day is Friday, September 21, 2007. An interim director will be appointed after City Manager Patrick Baker and County Manager Mike Ruffin meet later this week."
Frank Duke did, in my opinion, a stellar job throughout the process of drafting the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), and overseeing its adoption by the City and County of Durham. The UDO is supposed to govern how Durham allows it undeveloped land to be brought into new uses over the next 30 years or so, while also providing a layer of protection for exisitng neighborhoods. It took a while to hash out, but in the end, i think it's a pretty good document, and Mr. Duke deserves a lot of the credit for that.
But administering a plan like that is quite different from creating it, and it's been becoming more obvious for some time that this is not where Mr. Duke's interest is focused. So now's probably not a bad time to be looking for someone with a different skill set to take over the department.
And that's not a small challenge. City/County Planning is that odd duck in Durham's bureaucracy, answerable to both the City Council and County Commissioners, who are not always in complete agreement about their priorities. On a personal level, having to be available to two sets of bosses, and double the meetings of most other department heads, has got to be taxing, as Duke alludes to in this N&O article.
Now might also be a good time to really think through the structure of the Planning Department. Similar to the changes made in Housing and Community Development a few years ago, splitting that department into an enforcement division (Neighborhood Improvement Services) and a Community Developmetn Department, might not the Planning Department be made more effective by creating something new out of it? Do functions such as enforcing whether signs are placed on utility poles, or whether someone is operating an illegal auto repair shop in their back yard really need to be under the same manager responsible for overseeing whether a 150 acre mixed use development follows proper setbacks, buffers, tree and surface water protections, etc.?
Seems to me the answer is obvious, but hell, i'm just a guy with a keyboard.
Good luck in Norfolk, Frank.
Kevin and Gary have the bloggers's perspective, and get into aspects left out of the news stories, while Michael lays out some of the underlying reasoning behind the Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood's position.
Meanwhile, as Kevin noted, a press release from the city and county yesterday afternoon tersely announced: "Durham City-County Planning Director Frank Duke has been named the new director of the Planning and Community Development Department with the City of Norfolk, Va.
Duke leaves after more than five years on the job with the City and County of Durham. His last day is Friday, September 21, 2007. An interim director will be appointed after City Manager Patrick Baker and County Manager Mike Ruffin meet later this week."
Frank Duke did, in my opinion, a stellar job throughout the process of drafting the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), and overseeing its adoption by the City and County of Durham. The UDO is supposed to govern how Durham allows it undeveloped land to be brought into new uses over the next 30 years or so, while also providing a layer of protection for exisitng neighborhoods. It took a while to hash out, but in the end, i think it's a pretty good document, and Mr. Duke deserves a lot of the credit for that.
But administering a plan like that is quite different from creating it, and it's been becoming more obvious for some time that this is not where Mr. Duke's interest is focused. So now's probably not a bad time to be looking for someone with a different skill set to take over the department.
And that's not a small challenge. City/County Planning is that odd duck in Durham's bureaucracy, answerable to both the City Council and County Commissioners, who are not always in complete agreement about their priorities. On a personal level, having to be available to two sets of bosses, and double the meetings of most other department heads, has got to be taxing, as Duke alludes to in this N&O article.
Now might also be a good time to really think through the structure of the Planning Department. Similar to the changes made in Housing and Community Development a few years ago, splitting that department into an enforcement division (Neighborhood Improvement Services) and a Community Developmetn Department, might not the Planning Department be made more effective by creating something new out of it? Do functions such as enforcing whether signs are placed on utility poles, or whether someone is operating an illegal auto repair shop in their back yard really need to be under the same manager responsible for overseeing whether a 150 acre mixed use development follows proper setbacks, buffers, tree and surface water protections, etc.?
Seems to me the answer is obvious, but hell, i'm just a guy with a keyboard.
Good luck in Norfolk, Frank.
Labels: Durham, local politics
Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.
4 Comments:
well, actually, if one wanted to split up the Planning Dept, a more functional split might be enforcement (including the small AND the large, as it really isn't that different: either someone's doing what they or the law said they should/would, or they aren't) vs actual "planning" - i.e. the creation and revision of long-term plans and the regulations that support them, and the promotion of such visions by monitoring of incoming rezonings/site proposals for their compliance, not merely in letter but in spirit, as well. Sadly, it seems we often lag behind in both areas.
By
Anonymous, at 6:07 PM
i think i like your idea better.
By
Barry, at 8:51 PM
Something needs to be done to stream line the development approval process in Durham. I work for an engineering firm that works on school projects all over the state. In another county we have received approval and constructed two schools in the time it has taken to get one addition to a school in Durham approved!! Our design fees must be three times greater in Durham then in other counties. The taxpayers of the communtiy are paying for this. Durham government is the closest thing to socialism I have ever seen!!
By
Anonymous, at 10:33 AM
Durham government is the closest thing to socialism I have ever seen!!
Which speaks, i think, more to your limited experience than it does to the nature of Durham's government.
Not to say that Durham's approval process doesn't need some changes, but how in the world does this classify as "socialism?"
By
Barry, at 11:09 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home