City Commission - Special Meeting

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Please take your seats. The meeting is about to begin. Remember to speak into the microphone as this meeting is being recorded for public record. Please stand by. We are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1.

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our special commission meeting to discuss our permitting process and and ways we can uh improve upon it. Uh I'll turn it over to our city clerk. Thank you, mayor. Good afternoon, everyone. The city commission is physically present in the commission chamber at Miami Beach City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, third floor. Members of the public are invited to attend either in person or virtually. If you're joining us virtually, you can log in using the Zoom app or visit the Zoom US on your browser. You can also phone in at 305224-1968. Again, 305224-1968 or toll-free 888-4754499. The webinar ID is 813-928-57671 pound. 813-928-57671 pound. If you would like to speak virtually on an item during the meeting, please click the raise hand icon if using the Zoom app or press star 9 on your phone. The Zoom link, webinar ID, and phone numbers say the same for every commission meeting. All lobbyists must register with the office of the city clerk located on the first floor of city hall. You do not need to register if you're an expert witness giving only technical or specialized testimony, a representative of a neighborhood association or nonprofit speaking without pay or a private citizen speaking on your own behalf without compensation. However, if you if you are an expert witness or a nonprofit or neighborhood representatives, you do need to submit a written disclosure uh form at the office of the city clerk before speaking. a lobbyist uh if a lobbyist gives or agrees to give $1,000 or more to a neighborhood association or its representative regarding a city matter that must be disclosed in writing to the city clerk.

Thank you, mayor. Sorry. Thank you. We'll start off as we usually do with a pledge of allegiance. I think it's appropo. We'll ask Vince Seahas, our building director, to lead us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Excuse me, Mayor. Uh, just for the record, Commissioner Suarez is online and PJ, if you can promote him, please. You sure you want to do that? Hey, I hear uh Commissioner Suarez, you had a birthday yesterday, so happy birthday.

He's still not a panelist. So, well, I said it. [snorts] We have our uh sutnic hour if anyone wants to come up and and say something. So, if anyone wishes to speak on any matter, please approach the podium. Seeing none, is there anyone on Zoom? I see none, mayor.

Okay, great. We'll get started. Thank you uh again to my colleagues for for for being here as we get uh literally down to business. We are speaking with uh really a uniform voice in our commission. So this uh I'll I'll lead it off here, but I think we've all are loud and clear. We're giving the direction to to the city. But I'll also acknowledge we've made a lot of improvements uh recently. So thank you Eric. Uh thank you Maria and and Vince for making those improvements. Um, we the goal and the reason why we're having this special commission meeting is to make Miami Beach the preeminent city in America to do business. And part of that is getting businesses open quickly. Obviously, this also impacts residents and doing work there as well. But certainly, we're highlighting the businesses. Capital is coming to Miami Beach in a big way. We I I I use the term the beach is back, but it's happening. We're seeing the inflow of capital. We're seeing businesses moving here. We're seeing companies, private uh private and public companies moving their headquarters here. We see family offices, hedge funds. You just look at the headlines literally almost every day and you see that it's coming down to South Florida. It's coming to Florida and certainly with with certain states uh California, New York City obviously in the news recently raising taxes. Um it's just going to keep continuing to flow here. So, we have it's it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we are inviting that we are allowing businesses to thrive. Um, and that's the direction that collectively here we're trying to do um to uh to be that worldclass city to to do business. When we issue permits, it's it's an economic impact. It creates jobs. It's investment. It's housing. It's a tax base. And it's a continued opportunity for for our city. two things just today that that happened. I visited early this morning our building department. Two

things were going on simultaneously. One is the uh the walkthroughs which we do three times a week. Um, and it's it's it's great to see in person, to see it working well, to see our residents and businesses telling giving me feedback how they're appreciative that we're doing the walkthroughs again, which had been on hiatus for a long time, but also the the business ready, um, which we were doing quarterly and now we're doing, um, we're going to be, uh, transitioning to do that monthly. And what that does is allows business to get their BTRs if they're small grants or business loans really to help our businesses out. and you have all the departments there in one shot. After that, I actually went to FIU for an event and Mayor Higgins uh was there and I was talking with her and she told me her number one priority is fixing the permitting system in Miami. I'm like, "Wow, sounds like something I've I've heard before." So, uh certainly that's that's uh top of mind across the board. So, I just wanted to start that up. I know a lot of us have had legislation. I know you're going to be showing some slides, Eric, that shows I think it's kind of across the board, we as a collective as commission, I've brought the from the get-go legislation, but I know many others have brought legislation as well. So, we're going to have the opportunity to push, but I think there's there's I think we could probably uh pinpoint several issues in our city that are number one priorities. to me obviously and I think to most of us public safety is always going to be paramount but this is literally on that short list of issues that it's it's we really have to get it right. We have to do it well and we have to make sure that we synthesize the process and make it easier for businesses and our residents to to move forward. Uh because my we're on an international stage now. Is this not I mean we just had a Danish company that's moving their base down to Miami Beach. And when um when you hear people all across the globe when they hear about Miami Beach, South Florida, it's

it's no longer a secret. This is the place. This is this is literally the place people want to be throughout the world. Um and we have a great opportunity to capitalize in it. And we just we just cannot miss this window. It's too great. and uh we're we're shifting Florida and and and Miami Beach to be the number one destination for for people to live, to visit, but also to do business. So, thank you, Eric, uh for uh I know you have a presentation and obviously I want to hear from from all [snorts] my colleagues. Take it away, Eric.

All right. Thank you, mayor. Um, I wanted to say first and foremost, we've heard all of you loud and clear that we need to do better as a city on the permitting front. Um, I'm pleased to say that we've been on a journey over the last two years. So, we're not starting this from ground zero. We're starting this from a place where we've already done a lot of the background work, a lot of the leg work that needs to happen in order to be able to effectuate positive change. Um, and I am pleased to say that I think we've got the team in place now to make this happen. Um, and I am extremely grateful for all of the efforts from all of the departments and they're all here today that touch the permitting process. Um, but at the tip of that has been uh Maria Hernandez, who from day one I've tasked with taking over some responsibilities in the building department and then expanded that to the larger permitting process. And so I'd like to have Maria kind of walk you through how we have gotten to where we are at this moment.

Okay.

Thank you, Maria. Thank you, mayor and commissioners. I'm very happy to be here and do this uh short presentation to you uh to put things into context and to let you know where we want to go. Um there we are. So everybody knows um that we have six departments um that are involved in the permitting process. This these are internal departments. This doesn't include DERM, the Department of Health, uh, which regulates restaurants, um, and, uh, the department D if you have a house on the waterfront. Uh, but these are all our departments that have, um, something to do with the building permit with the permitting process. Um, I always like to put things into context with volume data. I'm not going to go through every number, but u you know in um fiscal year 2025 we issued about 12,200 permits. Um and we have a lot of um submitts about 2,300 a month. Um we also have about 5,600 inspections that we conduct and our call center takes calls from a lot of different places and uh it's about 4,200 calls a month. on the right side is in any given week what the volume is for uh the planning department. The certificates of use are a big part of that. Um that takes a lot of their time. Um now we have completed a lot of milestones and I'm not going to go over every single one. I think the biggest things that really moved the needle when we began um is the fourth bullet on the left which was when we reconfigured or overhauled all of the previous permitting types that we had and we reduced them by about 100. Uh so we had 250 permit types when we started and we reduced it to 150. That took

months and months of work because a lot of things had to be consolidated. on the right side of course launching our phase 2 walkthrough which included residential and then re uh phase three which now includes business has also been something that you'll see in other slides has really uh change things going forward. Um, of course we executed our city services concierge, also known as decision engine. And we also had to retrain a lot of staff and that took the efforts of about 200 employees. Uh, and this was during the time that we had our consultant Bob Moran who is here today uh doing um those meetings with us and helping us um get through that whole initiative. We've also done a lot of brochures and um we also have marketing campaigns. Uh we send these out on social media. We also have them as handouts. Um basically trying to educate the public about everything. In this case, permits, violations, reertifications, business tips. Um we have done a bunch of these. Um and uh you know, of course, there's going to be more to come. So then you all come into the picture um in 2025. Um, and a little bit into late 2024, there's been a lot of legislation that you all have put forth. I'm I apologize in advance if I have missed anything uh cuz I've gathered it from different sources, but this is everything from commission items to referrals, everything from the permit process improvement committee um which met for a year and then we sunseted uh from the get-go which was Commissioner Miner's initiative, the pilot um walkthrough which was sponsored by Commissioner Dominguez. I'm not going to go through all of them, but it's safe to say that all of you have had a big hand in where we are today. Here's even more uh legislation, some of it which is more

current, and then of course we'll have a chance at the end to talk about AI. Um, so we also have proposed legislation in 2026 that we haven't even gotten to yet, but these are things that are either ready to be approved or they're part of discussion items or the referrals to um uh to land use and sustainability having to do with LDRs and changes to LDRs and um our uh planning director will be able to speak to that if you all want to um at the end of the presentation. Um so this is the result of some of the things that we did um last year calendar year between January and February. U I know that permit intake was something that was a sticking point for a lot of people saying that that process was very painful um and took too long. And um I'm happy to say that through training and retraining with our permit clerks um uh we have gone from 2 and 1/2 days that it has it used to take to get uh uh permits um inputed into our system to less than a day. Now I know it says 1.3 average there over the year but we are on a trajectory now to really be less than a day. Um

what does that mean? per day. That's when you bring in your permits electronically and you submit them. Used to take a couple of days to get that done and now it's less than a day. So that's just submittal. That's not talking about a turnaround.

No, we have turnaround in other slides. Um so this is historical data. This goes back to 2018, 2022 and then today. 2018 of course was precoid. 22 was postcoid. 25 is where we are today. [snorts] This is showing the review cycles, which is what you're referring to, Commissioner. Um, in the light blue, one review cycle, two review cycles being in the dark blue, and then the orange and the purple. The worst thing, of course, being the purple. Um back in the day in 2018, um apparently there because this is all data that we have, there were there were a lot of challenges with um big maybe big projects that because we um had just we were introducing electronic reviews at that time. They weren't really going very well. After COVID, we went full electronic and after maybe the first or two years 20 and and 21 that it was a little um uh training period uh on the electronic method is sort of started catching on and um the first and second reviews went up and um the third and fourth reviews went down. today, thanks to the walkthrough process, the fact that we also have over-the-counter permits which don't even require a review, uh that first review cycle has gone way up and today it is the most amount of cycles um review cycles that we have. So these are the numbers. Uh 68% of all of our reviews are done in two cycles or less. When you add to that a third review cycle, which is not um not ideal, but it is sort of normal. Um you have three review cycles, which is just a back and forth three times, and then you get your permit. That brings it up

to 84%. Now, this totals about 10,000 permits that we did last year. Where we don't want to be is in the purple, and that's where we have a lot of work to do, and that is four plus review cycles. I took a deeper dive into those numbers. That's about 1,900 uh reviews. And out of those, half of them, about 52% are four cycles. The rest, which is like 900, are in cycles that go all the way to 20 or 23, which is just unacceptable. How that even happens, I don't know. But we're going to figure that out. In the ideal world, we would only have 1, two, and three at the most, and fours would be gone. And Maria, how long is each review cycle?

I I have a slide for that and and I'll explain that to you in more detail um in a couple of slides if you don't mind. Um so the average turnaround times by department are really less than 10 days. Now um this also has been helped by the fact that we have walkthroughs. All these departments are involved in our walkthroughs. So this is an average. It isn't um for every project, but it's it's you know, we're we're targeting a 10day turnaround for all permit types and everybody seems to be less than 6 days. Um so that is at least in the right direction now. Um where where things start and this this goes to your time question um commissioner and we have another slide afterwards. This shows how much the permits are with us and how much they are with the customer. On average, for all permit types, we have them for five business days, the customers have them for 10 business days. So, it's a 15-day cycle for a review. So, 67% on their side, 33% on our side. But where this to your question starts getting um you start figuring out the time in 20125 we had 66 new construction residential permits. The average time with the city was 11 days and the average time with the customer was 27 days. So that's one cycle for a total of 38 days. Let's say and these are business days. So let's say that three cycles is okay. It's it's not ideal, but it's acceptable. If each of those happened in three cycles, we

would still have a total of 114 business days where these things are being reviewed. And when you break that down into, you know, days and months, it's about five months, five and 3/4 months to get a permit for a home like a single family home. It's not as bad for building commercial alteration permits. It's the same formula. And that's if they were in three cycles. And if they were for business, it would be about 3 and 3/4. So it would be about a month better. But if it's um if it's a simple project and it's not very complex and we have that kind of time, it still takes a while. Um we did 3,300 over-the-c counter permits. Those are very fast. So that has helped us move the needle. And since we opened up our walkthrough permits in July of last year, we've done about 408 permits issued. So hopefully that'll continue momentum and we be I don't know at a thousand hopefully in 2026. Maria um can you go back to the prior slide please?

Sure. Um so we can control the average time with city. So if we are able to cut that in half for instance that'd be great. But at the end of the day we cannot control the time with customer. Correct. Do you have any insight into why it's taking the customers 3 to four weeks to get back to us?

Um I can tell you one of the and I'm glad we came back to this slide because I forgot the first bullet the first bullet which is a major issue and it's very important. we get a lot of incomplete and incorrect submittals and that automatically causes a review. So, we're going through an exercise or we're going to go through an exercise. It's in our recommendations where we really try to figure that out and and figure out what it takes to really get a complete and correct submitt because if we're acting as what we call in the industry a QAQC uh u consultant, you know, uh quality control and quality assurance consultant for a lot of uh the people that are bringing the these to us, those are reviews that we are doing that aren't even reviews. We're just telling them, listen, you're missing this, you're missing this, you're missing this. It's a waste of time. It's very cumbersome on our departments. And you know, it it seems to happen a lot. Um, we don't have a check mark that says incomplete in our database. I want to create it so we know how many of those we have. Um, and then we may come up with a with something that's sort of like a characteristic. uh scenario where we can incentivize people that do it correctly and one or two submitts and you know I hate to use the word penalize but if we if we have 10 reviews that are people coming back with the same information and not giving us what we need why are we accepting that AI might help with this too so that's something we're going to look at. So that's so, you know, it's um it's curious to me because um I love the fact that we are helpful and can help

steer people in the right direction, but it also takes away from the efficacy and efficiency of getting things processed from the people who are doing it the right way. And yes, when residents reach out to me and saying, "I'm stuck with a building permit. Can you please help?" Nine times out of 10, I just connect them to the right person. And it's a super simple thing. either something wasn't applied for with the correct number or hadn't been applied for yet and and they thought it had been like so I I'd be very curious to see when you start evaluating what is generating the incomplete and incorrect submitts and you know where are those pain points because I know how hard it is to create a website that is functional for something as complex as this

and it's never going to be perfect and there's you know there's always going to be human error factored into that but I think that is going to be a really important thing for us to dive into. I agree 100% because what also happens when we spend time doing that is that we're not spending time with real reviews and then that backs up everything. It's like a vicious cycle, you know. Um, so this is a simulation. Commissioner Fernandez, how's it Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, that's fine. Just just a question. Um, so we don't know the nature of those incomplete or incorrect submittals.

They're all over the place. I can um that's something that the planning department when we get through the presentation I just have a few slides left we could um get we don't have data do we actually have data we don't have data but anecdotally they deal with it every day so they can speak to that uh especially in planning because what I because what I've heard um a lot from people is that even ministerial things things having to do uh with a stamp and and we we discussed this wet stamps. This

wet stamps, dry stamps, and then all of a sudden people people lose a week, two week, three weeks on something that is really not directly impacting the structure, the safety

or anything is pure bureaucracy that is that is getting in in in the way of that. And it'll be great to see data. You've done such a great job in in collecting this information. It would be great to see next level. Okay. What does the data tell us as [clears throat] to the nature of these incorrect and incomplete submitts? Are there errors by the engineers, by the by the people creating the plans or or or is it just like technical stuff? They signed in the wrong place is uh is is wet instead of dry. They have two stamps. You know, all of these other things are really

they don't make the building any safer or any less safe. You're right. Um, and we will look forward to getting that. We love data. There's nothing better than data. So, it' be great to have got that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So, this is a simulation uh as a result of the from the get-go campaign. Uh, we developed um the city services concierge, also known as the decision engine. Decision engine is the platform. It's the well, it's the software. And this just shows you for those of you that Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Could you're Can we go back a couple slides again to that because I just have a quick question? Thank you. Okay.

Um, one more. Yeah. So, when someone submits and if it's an incomplete or incorrect submittal, they are are they contacted via phone to say this is incorrect or incomplete or do they get an automatic email?

Um, I will let the building official answer that question. Good afternoon everybody. Yes, what the system does once there's a stop or a gig, uh, it sends them an email, a notification. That notification goes to all the contacts on that permit record. So, the contractor, the design professional, whoever registered and did the actual submission, all those people get contacted. Sometimes that was an issue in the past that we had to go through an exercise in cleaning up some of those contacts. someone would forget what their login was or they use their Yahoo account instead of their iCloud account. So the notifications were going in different directions.

And then once that is communicated, they have to complete their information and then they go kind of back to 0 starting point versus being in the same line in the queue or they don't even get into the queue because it's incomplete. Once it's stopped, it's stopped until it's corrected. So once we open up that process number for them and they have to submit a new application or upload a new document, that's just frozen. They are waiting for them to take the action, re-upload, and then they continue forward. Okay? So they don't like go back to the back of the line or anything where they're at.

And and that's some of what what Maria was demonstrating with that time with the customer. So once we give you the notification, the ball's out of our court. We're waiting on them [clears throat] to to take some action to update update those documents or upload the new documents etc. How long that takes is out of our control. Okay. And and and that is sent via email but then a phone call can rectify the situation if someone has questions.

When they provide phone uh phone numbers if they provide a phone number uh we'll make contact with them. But usually that's further on down the trough when it's uh like a three-time review. You've come up that first time at bat. we gave you your first round, your second round. When we're going to that third round, we we we like to put a voice behind the the gig, so to speak, and say, "Hey, we got everything squared away now. Do you have all all your ducks in a row so we can finish getting this permit out?" Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So, continuing on, uh this is a simulation. Uh the decision engine software is basically what um created this. Um it's on our the front page of our website and this just um is an example of one um one thing that you can do on it. Uh really it's it's a tool to make sure that you get the right information and this helps you with everything from paying bills to getting information for permits to business assistance, 311 uh records requests and a lot more. This is an example of an application um that this is particularly for a condominium. Um and it'll just take you to where you need to get everything. So you know uh what it is that you need to do. Um so our city business concierge is uh being spearheaded by the economic development department. Um we have um there's benefits that they have u such as guidance and assisting with navigating. They also have access to um to grants and incentives should businesses need that. Um some of their activity is on the right hand side from last year. Um they're doing a lot more already in this fiscal year. Um we have also just launched uh well yesterday is when we finished the videos for three videos for Miami Beach Means Business. That's our new campaign. and PJ, if you could roll the tape. This is the one for Ma. [music] Hi, I'm Natalia Morales. Welcome to Mika.

[music] Hi, we are Mika, the original Greek frozen yogurt. We are a premium frozen yogurt concept inspired by the authentic of Greece of the Mediterranean culture. Uh we focus on high quality ingredients and a very carefully curated menu. And Mika is not just about an ice cream. Mika is about the whole experience. [music] Miami Beach felt like a natural fit for our brand. It's vibrant. It's international and it's really deeply connected to wellness, design, and lifestyle. [music] The process was really intense, but it was incredible, rewarding. Opening a business in a city like Miami, it's always very challenging. But [music] here in Miami Beach, they helped us along the process and it was really easy for us to to keep on going. If I had to give any advice to a new business, I think it would be like be patient, stay consistent, and don't lose sight of the regional vision. One thing I truly love about being part of the Miami Beach community is its energy and diversity. It's a place where people come all over around the world and they get together. They bring different cultures, ideas, lifestyle and yet there's strong sense of connection [music] and support. Thank you for coming to Mika and we welcome new businesses to the community. [music] So that's a little short. Um we have call them shorts. Uh we have two others. Uh one uh for a business on 41st Street, another for a business in North Beach. And uh we would love to roll some of those out. Um also talking to CEOs that have decided to relocate their businesses here and we can do a little short for them. Um having them tell us why they love being here and why they brought their business here. So that's a whole campaign that um we have launched

or want to launch like as of today. Um so certificates of use and BTRs are a very hot topic. Um and we are already um changing the process for this so that they start much earlier in the process than what has happened before. Before when a business already had their CO and they were ready to open, they didn't know they needed a CU. They didn't know they needed a BTR and that became very problematic. We're going to end that uh by starting that process um much sooner because it is a process that depending on the building that the business is in uh and due to records it um or the lack of records could take a while. So we're not going to let that happen at the very end uh anymore to these businesses. So these are next steps. These are the things we are recommending um that we want to move forward with. uh the very first bullet which is additional workclass analyses. What we want to do here is find more opportunities where we can start really honing uh the amount of reviews that different permit types require and try to weed out the ones that are not applicable. Um we're gonna do this uh again with Bob Moran. Um, this is going to be a much uh more specific assignment than what we had before with him. We're not going to fix the whole building department, but we're going to specifically attack this because what this will do, if we can accomplish it, is it's going to free up a lot of employee times to be able to just focus on the what they really need to review. Um, I will let the uh uh building um I'm sorry, the the planning director Tom discuss uh lots splits and um what they are recommending for land and lots splits as well as the changes

to LDRs and to the city code. Um again, this is the fourth bullet is what I talked about before, which is trying to incentivize one to two review cycles and but it's going to entail customers bringing in correct and complete packages. So, we're still figuring out exactly how to do that. Um, we are also trying to launch a building assistance and business concierge on the first floor of city hall, which is like a one-stop shop for anybody. It's either a business, a resident, um, or condominium uh, uh, that can come and be guided to the right location and and to get information so they can do things right from the beginning. Uh we also have our AI software that you all had approved for us before. Uh that RFQ closes on March 6th and it will help us I think it'll help us with this incorrect and incomplete documentation. I think AI has a very um sophisticated way of figuring that out and I think that's going to help us um get to the bottom of that. Uh the building official also wants to start 20 what he calls 24-hour permits. It's like a digital walkthrough. Uh so it's a quick way for electronic like if you were coming in person but it's done electronically. Uh where a review can happen in 24 hours. And then last but not least, we want to bring back design professionals day which is where people come in one-on-one um with their design professionals to get questions answered that they're struggling with. And that's it. That's the presentation. So I'll take any of your

questions. Thanks, Maria. And one question if I could, Mr. Mayor. Um, somebody comes in, what type of hands-on treatment do they have? And as we're sitting up here, somebody texted me. I'm sure we could all say anecdotal stories, and I don't want to say that that's the rule and not the exception. So, I'm not sure where this falls, but

somebody sent this to me uh looking for an office, right? uh to get a new office um in South Beach. It's already an existing building, already an existing structure, and it took 21 days to essentially set up the review date and then it comes back on the 21st day,

failed. They go, we need a letter of intent to indicate more details of the office use. Why would we need that? I I have no idea, right? Um and that's kind of one of my points, right? Are we being just too ownorous and uh ambiguous on why we're failing some of these things? And then two, it's okay, now he has his next appointment in 21 more days and all of a sudden now we're sitting there two months. And time is money. Time is important to people. We need to respect people's times. Why can't that person that failed in the planning department pick up the phone and call the applicant and say, "I'm reviewing your application, you have this. Here's the details I need. Can you tell me that?"

Or like have a 24-hour period when you can come in and provide whatever is missing. Like if you need more information rather than failing and putting the person out through a new review, reach out and be like, "Hey, listen. Reviewing this, you're missing this. giving do you have 24 hours to submit this otherwise I have to fail you but at least giving people a window that's a great idea

secure like why why do we have no hands-on personalization instead of this person saying oh failed why do they not pick up the phone and call the applicant and say you know what this will take one minute I need a quick description on the intent of your office use the fact that it wasn't reviewed for 21 days something an incredibly easy seemingly easy application But now that all of a sudden crosses into two months, I guess I'm asking, do we pick up the phone and call an applicant?

Well, I would say that to begin with, I think that's what our business concierge ought to be able to do. If it's a business and they reach out to economic development, that is their role is to help them navigate through that. I get that. But just the but just the normal process, right? Just the normal process. I'm a normal guy. Nobody wants to coordinate with 40 different departments in the city. I submit my plans. I'm waiting. [cough] For some reason, there's something that's wrong with the application.

Why is this lady that's sitting in the planning department just going fail? Why does she not pick up the phone and call the applicant and say, "Sir, ma'am, I need one minute of your time. Can you explain what the details of the office use are?" We've turned a threeweek process or what could take one minute into a prolonged now 3-w week extension, right? Tom, do people pick up the phone and call? Do they not? Should we? Should we not? I think to your point, yes. I mean, people um should um

they should do when they do that. uh my staff will typically uh call people when they return or when they reach out to my staff to ask them with a specific question often times.

But that's not what Commissioner Magazine is asking. Commissioner Magazine is not will they call when when the public reaches out to us. Well, yeah, the public is reaching out to the city. One would hope that we're returning the call, but in the middle of the review process and there is planning department reviewers identifying uh something missing, do we proactively reach out to that applicant rather than failing telling them, hey, listen, we're here to serve you and we're reviewing this to serve you better. Uh we're giving you 24 hours to give you the opportunity to fix this rather than to gotcha failed you. Now you have to wait 20 21 days. As a matter of course, that's not something that we do with every single application. There could be instances where if something has been um submitted more than once, a proactive call is made. But as a typical course of the review, we provide the initial comments via email.

So, would that not make sense? Is there something that I'm missing why that's our standard protocol? uh because we're essentially just prolonging for weeks what could be solved by picking up a phone. I is the planning department staff and all the departments uh that are involved here are we all working in person from city hall? Yeah. Yeah. So people would they be able to come in to cure this?

So the three walkthrough days we have the opportunity for people to come in. Um, we also will set up appointments or if people reach out, I mean, we frequently will respond via email or call people back same day.

And thank you for that. But for this, what we're pointing out here, it just seems as if we're being paper pushers instead of trying to solve a problem. Right? If my intent was just to do the process, I'd take a look and go, "Oh, they're missing data. Fail." Right? If my only intent was to clear my numbers and, you know, hit that, but if my intent was to be a public servant and serve our city and serve our residents and find a solution, I wouldn't sit there and go on the last day of the application, oh, fail. I'll see you again another month. I would say, Mike, Harry, you know what? I'm looking at your application right now and you're a bit ambiguous about what our use what the usage of that office is. Why don't I walk you through this for the next minute? And now we've saved so much time that is exerted going forward because my guess is once that's failed, I'm sure that has to go back to all the other departments and get their sign right get their sign off again. And and also one one of the bigger bigger issues is once you fail them and they have to go back and now come in for another review, what I hear a lot is that then they have a different reviewer.

Mhm. and now that reviewer might pick up on other things that were not identified the first time around. Whereas if you start from that first review and to commissioner magazines perhaps it most incredible and enlightening point is communication. Communication. We are here to serve these individuals. It's not a test where you pass or you or you fail. Our goal should be not to fail fail you, but to help you pass and get your get get your permit. If you're missing something, okay, rather than fail, let me call you. Let me give you a grace period during which you can bring this in. And if for whatever reason, you know, you you have to come back. Well, then at least do it with the same reviewer. uh but avoiding that even altogether by giving people a simple grace period to correct whatever it is without having to go through another review process.

Does that make sense? It so just to reiterate, we shouldn't be just trying to clear a queue. And I get the sense that that I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but that's part of what we're doing. Our goal should be we're all customer service agents, right? If I call any department in city hall, I want the phones picked up. How can I help you? How can I make your experience here better? Right? So, it's not just clearing these out of a queue. We've all sat there, some of us have sat there and been in paper pusher jobs where it's just been notice. We should be looking to provide solutions to serve our residents. And as part of that, it's not just being so dogmatic of going through a process and clearing a queue. It is having a more personalized touch and what could seem like it'll take two more minutes now saves a whole host of a lot of people's time most importantly our residents time going forward right so we can't have this processoriented uh mentality it has to be truly about serving our residents so how how can we affect that type of change I mean that's something that we can look at uh implementing on a mo on a more proactive basis Um, I think we probably would want to identify certain types that we would do that for in a situation like that because because of the volume of permits, I don't think that we could do it on every single one, but on ones that seem to be more of a simple question or a simple comment that doesn't require as much uh feedback or as much in terms of changes like say structural calculations or needing a survey or something like that.

Of course. Yeah.

But I think and and and I think to Commissioner Magazine's point, if you're giving people a grace period of let's say 24 hours, that by itself will filter out the type of stuff that can be fixed in that 24-hour period. If you're talking about weight loads and and that type of stuff, you're going to need probably more than 24 hours to fix something like that. But so, but you still let the person know, hey, listen, you know, I'm reviewing this just, you know, bringing it to your attention. This is going on. Clearly, that person's not going to be able to fix it in 24 hours. But I think when we're saying we try to find areas where we can imple it should actually not it should be the standard. It should not be okay, we're going to find areas in which this is going to be the exception where we reach out. No, the standard should be in general that if I'm finding something that's wrong, give you that opportunity, that grace period to to to fix it. And by nature of doing that, you probably won't hold everything else up because it'll be the more ministerial stuff that you'll be able to fix very quickly. it won't be the bigger uh more intense technical stuff um that usually you can't fix with with with that short of a of a turnaround.

Commissioner Mateo Selenus,

I just want to um express that I agree with what Commissioner Magazine and what Commissioner Fernandez is saying and I think we're all on the same page here when it comes down to the communication of staff being helpful when someone is about to fail. Is there a way that we can call them like they were saying a few days before saying, "Hey, you're going to fail your plans because you're missing XYZ. Can you get that to us in 48 hours or 3 days or whatever that time window is?" And I don't know what an acceptable time window is because I feel like when we give people this feedback on the front end, it it might it might seem like it it takes more time, but then it it shortens the time on that we have to spend on a certain case in the long term because then they might be able to fix their issue and instead of being rejected and then sent back to zero, now they can just get get passed on the first round instead of having to deal with it again in another 21 days. So, having said that, I want to echo Commissioner Magazine and Commissioner Fernandez's um uh sentiment. How do we make sure that this is happening? And do you not have enough staff where you would be able to call folks more often or is that the issue that we couldn't do this more often with?

Um, in terms of planning, we certainly are challenged in terms of our review staff. Um, and we're we're dealing with um vacancies, we're dealing with training people, we're dealing with things like maternity leave. So, there's some fluctuation there that um kind of makes it challenging to keep up with our our current workload. That's not to say that we couldn't begin to reach out to people on a more proactive basis in that regard. And then so then how do we ensure that this starts to change to to work to to get implemented?

This is something that I can work with my staff on in terms of uh getting the message down to uh our senior planners. Okay. Thanks Tom. And also the other departments too that interface with anyone that's trying to get a permit or a CU or any you know all the other departments. I don't have the circular ven diagram. Sure. And and and and also I have one more question for the city manager and you had mentioned that there's a three day of a week walk-in or didn't you just say that right now there's three days a week that we do the walkth through process because we have individuals from each of the departments that are involved in the permitting process sitting on the second floor in the building department so that people can go station to station to station

and it's pretty successful would you say? I I believe it's been successful. Um, is there any reason why we're not doing it five days a week and that's just our standard?

I I think the volume is what's dictating what we're doing currently. Um, we started off with one day a week and we've expanded. Um, ultimately, if we see that the volumes there, we don't have a problem with continuing to expand. It is taking people away from their desks where they would have normally done their their review time. So, we want to make sure that they're they're fully engaged in doing the walkthroughs at those times. Um, and to your other questions slash comment, um, I think there are ways to try to continue to align the incentives for both the applicants as well as the reviewers to get to that one to two review cycle. Um, and we'll have to work on this a little bit, but I think there's there's definitely some good ideas there. Um, because it isn't about clearing the queue. It's about getting people their permits so that they can move on with their lives and and get their work done. And so, I think there's ways that we can try to incentivize people to, you know, get folks out the door. you can look at the data and see that we've come a long way in that. Um, but we need to get better.

So, I just want to again because what I'm not understanding is if there's a three-day a week where folks come in person and then they meet with someone in person and they get all their needs. So, you're saying that when there's no one there, they don't have a moment to review plans as well. So, that, you know, I'm just trying to say the two days a week that they're not doing that, they're just reviewing plans. So, we couldn't do five days a week and then they review plans when there's no one in front of them. So, I'd ask our Do you see what I'm saying with this? Like, echo that question because I just want to piggy back on the vice mayor's question regarding that. Those three days a week, how many hours are they doing uh these uh attending the public during these three hours?

So, the walkthrough is currently, you know, people walk in, you're there from 8 to 12:00. The last ticket is issued at 11 because you got to go through all the station. It's a little loud and distracting. Okay. But efficient. Yes. In the walkthrough because it's in person. But to your point, it does take a little bit longer that initial touch when you're going station to station, but you succeed that first round. So there's not going to be a second round.

So there's a balance, a delicate balance there. And that's why the walkthrough is limited work classes. It's not a high-rise. It's not anything enormous. Okay? These are things that we could knock out with the staff that's there and get you successfully. Windows or a roof, things that you need day-to-day, right? Uh that's part of the concept behind the 24-hour permit, so you can't get out of work or you don't have a sitter. You could upload these documents now and they have a 24-hour turnaround time. Okay? You're not you don't have the benefit of sitting there and talking to the person, hey, can you fix this? Can you change this? and you're identifying it to the individual, the contractor or the homeowner on the paper what needs to get changed or what needs to get uh adjusted so that you do have success on the next go around. But with the 24-hour permit, you're not waiting 21 days, okay? You have it from one day to the next. So, if you have to go back to a design professional or what have you to fix something, you can. And it it it shortens that time period. So, we're trying to find that sweet spot where there's a balance between interaction and and easy communication face to face or a quick turnaround with clear comments so that people have success. Decision engine is part of that to help with the ends of a complete submission. So, that gives you that checklist. Hey, I need a survey. I need this. I need this. And if they see that they miss one of those spots, they shouldn't expect success because they're missing one of the critical components for that successful application.

So, just so I understand and then I'll shut up. 3 days a week from 8 to 12, there is a walk-in process and every single department is there to clear permits. And so, it's realistically the quickest inerson people will help you 3 days a week from 8 to 12 on the second floor. And you're dealing directly with a person. Yes, ma'am. from each department that needs to be Yes, ma'am. Okay. But it's a limited scope, Commissioner. It's not walk-in. No. Right. We have the It has to be limited. Okay. It's not like a 100 sheets. It's it's small things. But we also And also and just And it's also residential but also commercial. So if someone wants to open up a business, they can do that. Or if someone wants to redo their bathroom, they can do that. Correct. Okay.

Precisely. As a matter of fact, Mika was one of those that before the legislation was passed, we we evaluated it because they had the records. It was so I don't want to say pedestrian, but it was something small enough that we could run it through. The first time they came through, there were a few gigs. We told them what had to be corrected and that we needed durm. Okay. So, when they came back the second time, they were out 12.

They came back 12 days later. 12 days later. Okay. And I guess to the commissioner's point, if there's a customer service agent that's manning that walk-in desk while there's no residents or people coming in to submit an application, are they able to multitask and review the online applications? She must be one of those fancy people that chews gum while she walks, you know, two things at once. But are they able to essentially they they absolutely uh commissioner to to answer your question? Yes, they absolutely that is the intent, but it is a little

ruckusy and loud uh in there. So, it's very distracting. And then the the way the queue works is they're going from station to station. So, someone starts at station one with fire, then they go to building and and we're trying to keep everyone going through all those stations. So, you don't have a whole lot of time. Uh it's really dedicated to that interaction right then and there um as the people make their way through the assembly line if you would um and getting their their comments addressed uh and and corrected right then on the spot.

Yeah. And I I tooured it this morning and it went really well. And literally I think by by chance the one of the people I met this morning, never met him before, he says, "Great meeting you this morning. The brief encounter brought me luck because a few minutes later I was able to walk out happily with all of my permits signed off. And generally you saw that from people. I was going around to people asking them is how's it going? And and it it works well. And then of course we had the uh business ready uh form as well which our commission this was done quarterly and then I brought up and our commission uh unanimously agreed that we should try to do this monthly. So which I know you're you're you're going to be doing.

So that's helpful as well. I have a question. So, how are the salaries? How's the compensation structure for the reviewers? Is it a set salary and it's completely independent from from uh from any factors relating to the review? How does it work?

Well, we pay our individuals a salary based on their credentials. If they're going to be an inspector, that that's just one credential. If you're going to be a plan reviewer and inspector, that takes two credentials from the state. Locally here in Miami date county, we have additional requirements that no one else in the state has. Uh that's a result of having been at this since 1957. We have a board of rules and appeals that also requires certification. So in Miami Date County, anyone that you see in my staff that's a building inspector or a plan reviewer is either a contractor as well, an architect or an engineer. Okay? So they have that additional training and understanding of the industry overall. Uh we have our salaries. We HR and and through the leadership of the city manager has been very cooperative to bring a lot of salary parody because right now there's an enormous uh movement with uh private industry to hobble and poach all of our quality staff. Uh I saw it in the military as well with private security firms.

Is any part of the compens compensation structure based on how many? Absolutely not.

Nothing. There is no incentive to do 100 reviews or 10. There are what we call like overtime inspections. So if an off hours job, something at midnight, which is not, you know, your 9 to5 regular route, uh, and you need someone to come out because that's the only time it's available, or an overnight process review, there are additional fees that you could pay for that u to get that knocked out immediately. Uh, so you could get whatever comments and that's usually associated with something very large. you know, you're not going to do something like that for the impact windows at your home or or or your roof. That's a larger facility uh type setup where you can't have the public there, but you need to get certain work done. I hope that answered your question.

Yes. And by the way, Higgins sent her building official over to copy our walkthrough, sir last week. And I will say that her primary goal for improving the process is to help facilitate further housing. So let me let me let me ask this uh because I do I do think that the point that Commissioner Magazine touched on it's you know whenever we've seen an issue in government uh whether it be capital projects or or contract or anything it boils down to communication

and and communicating is the the way we can best serve the public. And so and so Commissioner Magazine brought up the issue of making sure that in the process of reviewing this, we're we're reaching out. Um you know, a lot of times these are tech technical terms

that a reviewer calling an applicant and telling them, hey, listen, you're you're you're missing you're missing something. It might not be something that a person might clearly understand by phone. And it might be better if it's documented by email so that so that then they can reference it when they're you know engaging again with their professional. Um, is there a way to do that rather and and I don't know if Tom Vince Maria rather rather than it just being a phone call can it be an email uh where it's documented and now and now we also have for tracking purposes. Okay, we have that email we have is timestamp and it gives the opportunity for the person then to respond with whatever it is that we're asking them for.

Uh to those ends, uh that is already in state statute. I'm not going to get into the numbers cuz I know you guys don't like the numbers, but that is a mandate and that's part of the system. So, every time that we provide a gig, we have to identify the code section that makes that application nonapprovable. Okay? So, we communicate it there. And again, just like uh um the vice mayor had asked before, that gives you a notification when it goes through the entire process, you get that laundry list of items, that punch list that building needs this, fire needs this, planning and zoning needs this, etc. And it tells you each discipline, what component of your submission does not comply and how to address it.

Understood. And thank you for that. But I but but before we even get to that point of of failing them, you know, mid-process while they're still going to review, doing that email, doing that email to the applicant saying, "We're about to complete your your your review. This is this is what we found. This is what you need to correct in order not to fail the application." And rather than making it a phone call, making it an email, that way, Mr. manager, the applicant um has something that they can reference other than just a phone call with uh with something technical. So, let me try.

The only thing that I can equate it to is way back in the stone ages when I was the public works director in another municipality where I had to review the permits personally. Um, there were occasionally issues where it was just a scrivener's error or it was just something very simple on the plans that got misstated and I would call the engineer of record and I would say, "Hey, did you mean to say this on the plans?" And then I would get them to come in and do a strike through and initial the change.

Um, something along those lines. I just think we have to be careful because there are certain circumstances where um people will will claim that you change their plans or something. So we have to work with it to see how we can upload additional documents mid review cycle

and that yeah but but that way not only my point is rather than calling the person we have a a documented process where we reached out by by email. So now we have that verification that we sent something to the applicant. We're putting it in writing for them because sometimes the applicant themselves might not know the technicalities and which in fact can help them respond uh more efficiently and more completely to the city uh with with what it is that they need in order to pass rather than to fail. 100% agree with the the concept and the spirit behind it. I just have to do a little bit more work to figure out how we could effectuate that.

Yeah.

That and and commissioner to your point that's something that in design professional day you could sit down you uploaded your corrections and you sit down with your reviewer. Hey look on this sheet this is where I corrected this this this and this. You you're done with that person or that discipline. You go to the next one and you knock it out. Okay. That's something back of the stone ages that we used to call like a super reviewer, but it was done in paper at that time. And you go literally station to station. In this modern digital medium, that's probably the fastest way to address that. And it's going to really change the needle or push the needle in a positive way for those larger jobs that have several comments. and dedicating that time with those design professionals where they're not dealing with the public, where they're not dealing with homeowners and they could focus on these bigger jobs. That would be the dedicated time. Right now, it's like an appointment. I'm just going to highlight something because you know and and I just just want to highlight where we've drifted here

is Tom was Tom stood here and Tom felt that this was something that could be implemented

and [clears throat] and I feel like the conversation now has shifted away from that from being able to be implemented to see whether it can be implemented and and so and so you know is it something that can be implemented or is it something that it cannot be implemented is maybe maybe it's different from for for building than what it is for planning but when uh it seemed [clears throat] with Tom with your reviews an outreach before failing could be possible. Yeah, it a lot will depend upon the application um and the nature of the improvements that are proposed. If what needs to be provided are additional drawings or significant modifications to the drawings, doing things midstream at this point is challenging because of our current um permit system. And so often times we will fail it so that they can then quickly upload the new drawings and then they'll let us know when the workflow opens and then we can uh review that quickly thereafter. Um what I was talking about in terms of the phone call is if it's a very narrow issue that is more of a narrative um and they still might need to update the drawings but rather than just um putting in a comment that they will get electronically picking up the phone and saying hey this seems pretty minor if you just can provide this this should move this along or I need to clarify what is it that you're doing here. But Tom, I guess I guess the problem is that people are not being failed on the fifth day so that then they can come in uh and the following day and bring in whatever corrections is they're being failed on the 21st day. And I and I sense that that that is the challenge. people were being failed the second or third day. Well, then we're not wasting 21 days for for for the people that the the

frustration the frust frustration that people have is that besides not being able to fix it midstream is that is that it's taking us till the very last day to fail them and and then and then it delays their ability to start the correction process. And so if we're going to fail them, how do we how do we not wait till the very last day? How do we, you know, let them know, hey, listen, you're not ready. We're not going to waste, you know, your time for 21 days. You need to go back and start fixing things up because this isn't ready. And I think that that's one of the things that we're very excited about what we think AI can provide to help troubleshoot some of those things so that maybe people can't get through the door until they've got a complete package because if they submit an incomplete package and we're taking and I think there's very few instances where we're 21 days but we're typically you know 5 to 10 business days um we're typ we're taking two weeks to do it. We want to give them the feedback before they have to wait two weeks to find that feedback. And I think that that's where we could get some benefit from some of these um you know AI processing. [snorts]

Mr. Mayor, Commissioner Selenas.

Thank you. So again, I just want to I feel like we're talking in circles and I don't know what the the holdup is um or the disconnect rather. So what we're requesting though is um that it's implemented that before waiting to the last 21st day of the process to call the applicant on the phone to say hey you're provided it's simple enough to do this because I get it sometimes they're missing a notary from a lawyer in Italy. I don't know but so we call them and we say you're missing X Y and Z. Can you get that to us before we fail you? Because my idea is before they fail, they have some time to modify so that way they don't get that first failure so that way it doesn't trigger to go back to the drawing board. Is that possible? Does that make sense?

Yeah. Again, yes, that that would be ideal. And again, but there are limited things like you said technical drawings that's going to take, you know, calculations, redrawing, reddrafting. That's a heavier lift. But hey, you forgot to submit this affidavit or you Absolutely. That's something we could definitely work on and implement into our SOPs. Okay. So, you guys are ready to work on and implement where there's more of a communication where they're calling people to say, "This is what you're missing. I need this before I fail you. Can you get this to me in a reasonable amount of time?"

Commissioner, we're constantly looking at the process and how we could tweak and help people out. And absolutely if there's something we could that that's lowlying fruit like something like that, we're happy to to to pick that up and make that part of our regular operating procedure. It's just finding that sweet spot of what's something we could wait a day or two for because the same time the clock is ticking on us. I do have a state mandate to turn around plans in a very rigid time and if not I have to give a 10% discount. So I hope this would help. I'm not trying to clear just a quue but provide intelligent comments to get success and life safety but I do have that coming down from the state. So I do have a narrow window uh to turn

wouldn't this help that narrow window? I mean it's it's it wouldn't it help the narrow window to call? It's okay. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention that we've kind of circled around we mentioned briefly but didn't touch on it that much is um inspectors. It's Is it possible to have the same inspector every time, not to get a different inspector? Well, as long as no one gets sick, right? Um and and the workflow is kind of funny that way. So, some stuff will be more busy or more intense in North Beach for a given period of time and then South Beach. So, we have to keep everybody busy and we have certain guidelines through the building code enforcement schedule and grading schedule. Just for clarity, I'm sorry. You mean in the permit review process? You mean the reviewer? Yeah,

the reviewer, the person that before you got the permit. Okay, our our system is pretty consistent as far as that. So, if uh Commissioner Fernandez reviewed the plan, it's likely coming back to Commissioner Fernandez unless for some reason he's out. So, he's not available. Instead of leaving it waiting for him to come back from vacation, I got to give it to somebody else to keep it going. But do we give the option to the person because like for example me like I would rather if if you if if the building department tells me hey listen you know the person Vince was reviewing your plans Vince is out on vacation. You want to wait a week for Vince to get back and or do or or are you in a hurry and you rather have Tom review your plan?

At that point I tell you please don't submit because the clock from the state is counting against me. But Vince, sorry, Commissioner, I thought you're done. So, um, [clears throat] you brought up exceptions, right? Okay. Somebody gets sick, we we'll navigate around it, right? That that's just life.

But let's talk about the 99% of time, right? Can't we implement some sort of system where the default goes to the same inspector, right? Yes, we could have workarounds for people are sick, but we shouldn't not implement that just based on a one-off possibility. How do we make that the default? That's that's cooked into the program. So once you've touched it, it's coming back to you for all departments that oversee all and building. That's how we have it set up. That's how our configuration planning as well. Okay. And what about the other four departments that it goes to? Do are we is there representation here? Can I get that ven diagram?

And also, I don't know if we have this data, but is it common that when something is resubmitted, there's a change of plans that it'll fail from a department that previously passed it? Uh, generally speaking, no. That was one of the first uh corrections that we did uh when I when I started here that it wouldn't go back to all the departments again. So as you pass disciplines, you wouldn't go back to that discipline.

Now in in in correcting one feature perhaps that reviewer sees, hey, now they changed your egress path, your escapability, uh let's say for a building, then they might cue it back to a previously approved section like building or fire. in in that instance. But to confirm though, we we've already tackled that issue. We tackled that. That's one of the things that helped move the needle to less reviews because now we're not going back through that washing machine again and again and again. Once you've gotten your approval, you keep going and that one's in the bag. You just keep going to the other discipline.

And while we're looking to make this even more efficient, please don't anybody take uh that as any indication that we're not incredibly appreciative and grateful and recognizing the progress that we made. We're just looking to fine-tune this even more. Always. May I also say something? Commissioner Bot. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um,

I would definitely rather wait than get a different inspector on my project. And in addition to that, how do we eliminate the comments that I received? Um when you know years ago at a different house, um a second inspector would come in to check on the work that was requested by the first inspector, it was a different person. And instead of looking at the notes that were in the plan and the requirement that had been addressed, the second inspector said, "Well, that's not how I did it in where I used to live and therefore it's not okay." Like that to me, I was I was very polite, but you can imagine how that made my blood boil because that is not the standard. Like I have all the respect in the world for people doing things in a resourceful manner wherever they lived. But right now in theory what should be being evaluated is what was done based on what was requested to be done. And it's not just me. I've heard that story from so I know one business owner who literally got so frustrated by the fourth inspection. She bought every single one of the things that had been requested to be installed because she had installed and then taken out and installed a different one and taken out and installed a third one. And so on the fourth inspection, she's like, "These are the options available to available to us to install. Just tell us which one you want." So, it's not a me thing. This is something I hear constantly. So, how do we make that go away?

Well, the only thing that the inspector should be looking at, it's it's not a subjective inspection. It should be objective and it's for code compliance. Again, the code is a minimum standard. So, the way I did it when I was in the field is not what I'm out there to verify. I'm out there to verify that the three nails are where they are, the screws are as they have to be, the trusses are setting where they have to be, the rebar is where it is, the thickness of the concrete, the form. Those are the things that staff should be looking at. Uh again, objective. Now, uh, if there's something specified in those drawings, uh, specifically, I could think of like fire rating or fireproofing materials, some of those different products do have a different tolerance. Okay? Uh, they'll they'll hold out for an extra 20 minutes or half an hour over another one. That's very specific to the safety of that building. So, sometimes those are specifications that the designers,

example, from the small business owner, that was not what was being inspected. It wasn't that would be that would be a conversation I would have with them.

So is that part of the training? I mean is that something you know when we bring stuff up to police for instance and we say hey maybe at roll call you guys can remind or code you can can remind your your shifts that X is happening and it can't shouldn't be happening anymore and it's something that's addressed. Do you is there a way for you to refresh your your inspectors and say, "By the way, let's remember what you are looking at if you're taking over somebody else's inspection on a on a project is what the the person's prior notes were and nothing else." Like, you're there to look at X. And if X is complete, then great. If X isn't complete, then that's something else. But it's not like, oh, I would have done X differently. Like

again, commissioner, if one of my uh staff does that, please let me know so I can have like a conversation. We have we do have uh continuing ed annually. We just registered for it. We get 16 hours every year minimum uh in Miami Day County. Uh but again, yes, that's something that we we go over during continuing education and in our periodic meetings that we have. We bring in manufacturers from all over uh to go over new products. That's one thing. the code changes every three years and it's just to stay up with technology.

So I with all due respect to the continuing ed and and getting the updates from new products which is all super important. I I'm not going to hear about every time this happens. I could come off with come up with two off the top of my head. One of which obviously happened to me so I know about that one. But but I'm sure they happen more than that. And so can you just have a chat with your crew and remind them that you know the standard is the notes that were made by the prior inspection full. Absolutely. Please and thank you. Okay, Miss Commissioner Magazine.

Yeah, I I was just going to say I think the mayor was up maybe we hear from the public and see what they think about what they've heard here where some of the gaps may still remain. Chief, if you had something to No, it was just uh fire chief techno to answer your question. Yes. Usually, we try to keep the same reviewer being the same one that does the follow-ups. Thank you, Chief. And actually, we did have the dream team up here. We had um sustainability, parking, public works. I saw you guys all approached because I know you wanted to confirm that if you were able to and I just before we hear from the public, do you mind coming back up and and and confirming that you can have the same inspector or or does it your thoughts on as you um review?

Um yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you. uh Amy Nullles, chief resilience officer. So we have reviewers for environmental and as well as for urban forestry and in general the same reviewer is able to handle any issues. Um we routinely call if there's something simple for people to just submit so we can pass it. That is part of our best practices and we do that when we can get to the reviews quickly. Um because we do have to meet our turnaround times as well and um our inspections in the field normally urban forestry and it's a very small team so it's pretty consistent. Okay, thank you Amy. John Norris, public works director.

Kind of to echo what Amy just said. We have a very small team, so it's not likely you're going to get another reviewer anyways. Um, but we can certainly make that happen to where it goes back to the same reviewer if there are comments. That's not an issue. Okay. So, you you can both do that. Okay. And you do do that. Great. And then I'm only missing parking. I believe parking's busy. Full McDonald, director of parking. We have one uh parking engineer reviewer with inside our system. So it goes through that single individual um for all of the permits only one. Yes sir. Yeah. Is that sufficient? I mean is that sufficient will question you never ask?

Well no but [laughter] but no but we know but we know with the planning sufficient well be good. I one thing we never want to over supply you know and you always ask government and they always need but if with we were just talking about if someone gets sick is if someone goes on vacation but now you're holding up the review for a person that one reviewer is out. I understand um I I would offer that if you look at the average turnaround times by department parking is right in the middle. So, I don't think that they're lacking of sufficient reviewers, but if Will has a different opinion, I certainly would welcome that. Yeah. Will,

do you mind if I go with Commissioner Magazine and say I'll take 110 search? Is that an option? [clears throat]

Um, so we are uh right now that that that that position is bifurcated. We've identified that we could have that position focused a little bit more on this permitting system. when we've been when you brought parking into the conversation probably, you know, since the day I've got here. Um, so under the new budget, there has been some uh uh additions that would help take some ease off this position so that position could focus solely um on these reviews and CPMPS. So, I think uh depending on how that pans out, the one would be enough um and then we we would have a backup when that person goes out like we do right now. Thank you,

Vice Mayor. Um, we could have we could have a um additional parking reviewer mascot and to kill two birds with one stone. Make a motion. Um, so yes, let's hear from the public. Um, hello.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Commission Steven Polasar, attorney in Miami Beach, currently the chairman of the nightlife task force. [snorts] First thing I'd like to say is I love the city of Miami Beach. I grew up here. I've had businesses here and I practice law here and the city's been good to me. However, I have the curse of having been around here for a while. And unfortunately, I've seen different segments of the city change over the years. I was here when the city took off. I opened up on Ocean Drive. I went and got permits. I've opened several businesses on Miami Beach. And permits used to be something that happened where the city and the public sector and the private sector were working together. The attitude of the city was really good. And I got to say right now, the attitude of the city is really good. Again, I appreciate what you guys are appreciate you're having today's meeting. There's been spring break and the pandemic and then it's a little bit like the frog. They slowly change and nobody really realizes that. Okay. So, I get people in my office and I'm right on Lincoln Road and I I don't do a lot of bathrooms. I'll admit Mr. Seahas may do them. I don't. I do a lot of commercial spaces. is I do a lot of hospitality venues and I get a lot of people good investors coming in my office on a regular basis and I say why don't you open up on Miami Beach they say I don't want to get involved with the city of Miami Beach that's why we have so many vacancies we didn't have them for years and I'm not make I'm making as much money now as I did in the old days it's not personal to me they'll open up in Coral Gables they'll open up in Dural they'll go to North Miami I'll still repres present them in those places. You call them up and the commissioners like magazine and Fernandez said and I had an opportunity

to meet with Mr. Carpenter the city manager. I had a meeting where Mr. Seahas was there. I had Miss Hernandez was there, Carmen was there, Mr. Mooney was there and we were able to establish a lot of issues that were brought up today by the city commission that make a lot of sense. Let me just say two things that came out of those meetings. One, the walkthrough process, which should be mentioned today, is limited to 2500 square ft. Okay, which doesn't cover a lot of great places. Number two, it was brought to my attention. I won't mention who brought it up or what division it's in because if I have another meeting, I'd like them to show up. [snorts] But that said, they said they need more money from this city. They have 12,000 applications, ladies and gentlemen, with one person that's reviewing them. Okay? Nobody's going to tell you that. I'm going to tell you that because that's one of the things that's slowing things up. And Fernandez brought up the 21 days. I have landlords who call me up complaining that they cannot get a tenant because it's taking them so long to give free rent. I had clients that came to me crying saying, "I was paying rent and I never got open and I had to close down because it cost me so much money." And I think it was Mr. Magazine that said, "Time is money." And he was right. And then the mayor said, "It's we're growing again." Ladies and gentlemen, this city needs to I think we have to separate maybe the commercial from the residential. I don't know that the walkthrough for a bathroom or a backdoor fence is the same as a guy that's paying rent to open up a hospitality venue, but I would make a recommendation that we take a look at that. Mel Schleser, who's here, who used to be the chairman of the planning board, is going to speak after I do, and he's going to explain to you some of the problems he's encountered as a landlord. And I have Josh Robbins, who's a big property owner. He's going

to explain to you some of the problems he's encountered. And you guys are the mothers and fathers of this city. You guys are going to go back to whatever you're going to do. You've asked the right questions today. Let me make one last suggestion. I suggest that the private sector and the public sector work together. The public sector is trying. I'm not saying they're not. They're getting a [snorts] lot of applications, but what they would require, I think, is a little input from the private sector. So the some of the guys that have come up today, they're at the top of the food chain, but people lower down have a different attitude toward how things are run. So I would suggest let's have a meeting of the private sector and the public sector on the building permits and see if we can't come up with a more streamlined, faster permit. And this will help the residents, it'll help the city commission, it'll help the businesses and help city Miami Beach. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm uh I'm sorry for the the late hour. I I need to leave. I have an appointment. But uh I did want to just say I'm not here to to complain about anything. Just bring something into the light. And Steve and I just finished a deal. He was representing a restaurant and of course it was at my building and it's going to be a very special place that's going to happen. But uh it took us six or seven months to get it done. And one of the leading issues was the reputation that Miami Beach has unfortunately with restaurants that we cannot accommodate them into the landlords of course have to give in significant amount of free time in order to make the deal happen. That's what we did. We worked it out. Uh the uh I think the the restaurant operators are first class and they have the funds to be able to sustain the time period. And I of course I guess I have the uh the ability and the care to get this quality restaurant there. So I'm going to have to suffer the 9 months or a year to make this thing happen. The problem is uh one with again reputation. We should not

have that reputation that Miami Beach is too hard for restaurants to open. It definitely affects us. There are a number of brokers that have come to me and complained uh that they can't make the deals because of the time that has to be given for free rent in order to make these things happen. My suggestion, and I suggested it at a meeting last month with the assistant city manager, Hernandez, is that we think about setting up a special program where restaurants can come in separately. Restaurant deal if especially if it's a a change of use. It's going to be an issue and there are many items that come up that are difficult to review and and get done. And that is the problem why the time period exists. I suggested at that time that we have a separate program where restaurants can be handled separately. You have some designated uh folks at the building department who can go through it with the permitting with the uh [clears throat] excuse me, inform the architects, teach the architects and designers and engineers what they have to do and it will not only move the process forward for the restaurant, excuse me. It will give us a reputational change and frankly we're making a statement. When you do something like that, you make a statement to the brokerage community and to the restaurant community that Miami Beach cares about this issue and is trying to solve it. So again, I think and I would recommend that you consider working out a program where there is a special special uh way for the restaurants to navigate that system and and get it out there.

Let quick question for you u with the with the restaurants that you're working with. Yes. What's the average uh what do you say the average interior square footage that we're talking about? Uh the one we're talking about well it's about 1,700 on the ground floor and the uniqueness of this restaurant it will be a second floor. So there is probably another 600 700 ft up there but they're not huge. So that's so we're talking about 2300 square feet roughly. Yes. Okay. So, we just have we we we launched the walkthrough process uh for for for commercial spaces less than 2500 square ft for interior renovations. Why wouldn't they why

they may they may but this is this is a unique situation because most restaurants are bigger. So my suggestion is what's the size for what would you say because I want to make sure we launch the program and if the program is is not broad enough to to to really make the difference that we hope for it to make then we need to amend the program which so so what what's the average size of the restaurants that we're bringing to

I I don't know the answer to that question all I can say is that most cases the size of the restaurant the kitchens may be a little bit smaller a little bit bigger they really don't define uh what the problem. They define what the problem is. The restaurant where you're having the tables, the chairs, the service areas really does not, in my opinion, have much of an effect upon the permitting process. Uh the permitting process usually relates to the number of bathrooms and of course the uh the [clears throat] uh grease traps and the kitchen. So, I'm not sure that limiting in a restaurant limiting the uh square footage uh that would allow you to come in to uh [clears throat] to uh expedite your permit is the right way of looking at it because so much of the restaurant really doesn't affect it.

So, so let me ask our our assistant city manager when it comes to restaurant. So, we have the the commercial walkthrough for up to 2500 square feet, right? And however, when it comes to restaurants, can we expand that square footage for restaurants given given some of the concerns that Mel has raised?

I think um when it comes to the commercial program that we have, we analyzed how many commercial spaces we have available in Miami Beach before we determined the square footage. Um and the majority were 2500 ft² or less. I think we only had about 30 or 40 that were larger than that in the whole Miami Beach. But the issue with the commercial permit walkth through is that you need to come to the city and get a process number and go to durm and then come back with your derm approval. So that is step one. So, it's a walkth through,

but it's already got Derm approval because if that's how we have it set up. So, I'm sorry. That's how you have it set up because that's what's mandated or that's just how we have it set up. Uh, if I may, yes, it is mandated. Chapter 24 of the code of Miami date county is where Durham's enabling legislation comes from and they are a requirement. We can't issue the permit until their approvals given. So, but Durm has to review it before we're able to review the permit. We could we could review concurrently. We could work we could work [snorts] at the same time, but they need our process number so that the two processes are married. So, they come in forward together.

They come in, they get the process number, and then the next step is to at the same time have us start reviewing it and have Durham start reviewing it. And hopefully they end up, you know, at the same finishing point and continue from there. correct that that is the concept of the concurrent review and that that was one of the wonderful things that digital review was going to bring into into the uh into the industry. Uh but yeah, they could happen concurrently and we are required to have durm there are pertinent law rules specifically for restaurants and coincidentally the the fog fat oils and grease program which is what really uh makes it an arduous process for a restaurant. But if they can if they can work simultaneously with you save a lot of time and again uh my my suggestion was and and we spoke about it at that meeting Mary that the you have a special uh program for the restaurants and it will be to accomplish two things. It will of course accomplish some sort of expedition of the expediting the the uh restaurant permitting but it will also make a very big statement to the restaurant community to people who are investing in it and to the brokers. Uh it's really disappointing to hear cuz I I've been here a long time. I've done a lot also as Steve has said we we work together many years. Um I don't like to hear these restaurants say oh I don't want to come to Miami Beach or it's too costly. I'll go somewhere else. Uh, so we need to make a positive statement and I think setting up a special program will make the statement as well as get the restaurants open quicker. So I'll leave you with that. Please consider it. If there's any questions, thank you.

Hello. Thank you guys for letting me speak here today. Um, I was actually I had a laundry list of things I was going to talk about, but I think Commissioner Magazine hit it right on the head. It really comes down to communication. So, a lot of times when you're going through the permitting process and you get a comment that's ambiguous. You like you have the reviewer's emails and you're able to email them and they're pretty responsive and they help you navigate the ambiguity and clear up any confusion. But then the moment you have your plans and you're ready to give it back to them, they go, "Oh, no, no, no. You you can't submit it to me. You have to submit it. You have to go through the formal simol cycle. You have to start a brand new cycle. You have to go through intake again. And it really it really kills a lot of time. Like if you could just if you could just talk to that reviewer, you give them the plans after they've given you your comments, they look at it, they approve it. A lot of times it's it's small stuff at that point. It's the second or third cycle instead of having to start a brand new cycle and just them just switching out the files and passing you. You'd save a lot of time that way.

Josh, and from what you're familiar with, would having that 24, 48 hour grace period, cure period, help the overwhelming majority of issues where it's like you're still part of that cycle? And if you can cure within 24, 48 hours, does that encompass 90% of issues, would you say? Honestly, it would help. But I think more importantly, like if I get a fail, it wouldn't be the biggest deal if I didn't have to start the formal cycle all over again. Well, I think that's what this cure period would do is keep you right there live in the same queue where you are. It's not as if you're getting kicked back and starting things over. Right. It kind of keeps you right there at the finish line.

Same review.

Exactly. And that's kind of what I've done. Like reviewer, I'll be emailing reviewers and I'll before the cycle ends and I'm like, "Please don't fail me. Don't don't give me a fail. I don't want to the cycle to start over. Please just let me re let me give this to someone in the building department who could like secretly re change out the file for me." And it's there should be a less I don't think it'd be a hard process to to create. It doesn't require anything technical. It's just allowing the reviewers to switch out a bad electrical plan and putting in the correct one that that they'd approve. Cuz then a lot of times you're emailing the reviewer, they tell you what they want corrected, you correct it, then you resubmit the cycle and then all of a sudden you have a brand new reviewer. And the things that you've done and submitted, would you say the things that you kind of get uh failed for, you'd be able to solve the majority, not all of them, but a good portion within 24 to 48 hours?

Yeah. After cycle 2, absolutely. It's all it's all really administrative stuff at that point. Thank you. I'm sorry, I didn't catch her. Uh Josh Robbins,

just as an afterthought, Mr. Ladies and gentlemen, how would we impart to the [clears throat] permitting process the ideas that we've established today that may be helpful for the city going forward? Is there going to be a process that we sit down with them and direct them to redo the permitting process? I think the city manager listening. I think the city manager, assistant city manager, I think I think they're getting all of our feedback and I think they're probably going to be implementing a lot of this stuff. Yeah, this is I've certainly been listening. I've certainly been hearing a lot of the feedback. Um I've been taking notes on the public comment portion.

Um I do have a couple of questions that I have to work through with my staff. Um, I I do want to just point out that we are removing some checks and balances from the system if we're going to do this. And so the gotcha moments that are going to come at some point in the future are are going to come, but we can certainly make it easier. Did you say, Mr. Manager, we're removing obstacles from red tape? Is that what you said? Something like that. There you go,

Mr. Mayor. Commissioner M. Um, for those of you who've come up, Steve, and and Mel and others who've come up, um, just you you may not be aware, but when um, we were elected, Joe, and and the mayor was elected as mayor and I were uh, was elected and commissioner Suarez, who's not here, but um, one of the things that we felt very strongly about with the support of our colleagues um, was getting residents and business owners in in a room together with staff, Yes, ma'am.

to have these conversations. And so there was a a committee that was impanled that ran through a year at least maybe longer. Um and I think a lot of the progress that you've seen today was as a result collaboratively with the consultant who was hired who's here and various staff members who got really involved. So it is an ongoing process, but please don't feel like this is the first time that residents and business owners are being heard because we had people meeting on a monthly basis. Um and and so progress has been made, progress will continue to to be made and your feedback collectively is really important to us to make sure that we keep moving forward.

Thank you, Commissioner Bad. I appreciate that. Let me just point out that we had a nice meeting recently. The city manager, by the way, has done a great job on this. The assistant city manager, the zoning department, the building department, and we had a lot of the I had a lot more people show up than we expected from the private sector. Can I I I I I'll I'll speak directly with you, Commissioner. It shouldn't take months. It shouldn't take a year. That's just pushing this thing down the kicking the can down the road. There's guy this the mayor said, we got this city's growing now. [snorts] Like I said, I've been I've had the curse of having been around for a long time. I know this thing can work honestly. We need checks and balances are great. We need honest uh applications. magazine. Commissioner Magazine was right. He said, "Let's get on the phone and call them up." It takes forever to get something done through this city right now. And that's a mistake. You guys are doing the right thing by investigating the issue. The next step is to have something directly done. I hope that you guys will communicate from today's meeting with the city manager. And this should be done in 30 days. What do you think, Mr. Manager?

Mr. Mayor, I'll be happy to second Commissioner Magazine's motion about getting something like this implemented if if he's so willing to make it. Uh uh communication the motion you second. There you go. [laughter]

But but I mean I I I do think that this is this is just seeing the body language and the audience of the individuals who are working day in day out in the industry and just just from my basic experience in in government. I'm just a simple public servant. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a I'm not a contractor. Um but I do know many of the challenges that we face in government can be solved by simple communication and and and that is the one thing that Commissioner Magazine has has very very well put a focus on today. um you know mid-process communicate hey listen you have uh this this this this error or this thing that's that's missing here's your grace period of 24 hours I think 24 hours will dictate then how long I mean how what type of things they'll be able to solve if you let them know hey listen you have a uh a wake load you have a wake load issue that's incorrect obviously That's not something that can be fixed in 24 hours. So, but you so you let them know and you give them that grace period by by circumstance. They won't be able to fix it in that 24-hour period, but you're letting them know and so that then the smaller things that they can fix in that 24-hour period, well, then they can come in and and and fix it. So, uh, Commissioner Magazine, I'd be happy to second your your motion asking the city administration to find a way to implement this type of communication, uh, mid review um, within within 30 days. And maybe we can get some sort of of quarterly update on the amount of of cases that were amount of permits that were able to be solved as a result of that type of communication. That way we can make sure that this is actually

being implemented the way that we're being asked of. So, Commissioner Magazine, I don't know if you're willing to make that motion and I'll second to you. Absolutely. All right. Great. We'll [clears throat] take that commission approved. Thank you. Awesome. Commissioner Dominguez.

Thank you. Um, so this has been quite the work in progress and uh been years in the making. I know that uh as a resident firsthand experience, I had what several people have already mentioned where I had um uh different renovations happening in my condo and every single time an inspector came, it was a different one. Everything got great and then the last one came and something that was not related. He felt that the architect didn't list something that was unrelated to any of the work being done, he failed it. And um that was uh and the answer was like, "Oh, you could just go back to the architect and reopen the permit." And all of that costs money, thousands of dollars. And I've heard from residents that uh getting a bathroom done takes two or three years and it shouldn't be that way or businesses that it's not just Durm, it was city uh problems in getting permitting. So when we had the um uh Bob Moran, the consultant come in, I met with him multiple times and gave him many many different residents and businesses, uh home uh part apartments, homeowners, and I know that uh when Vince came on board, uh he's made at least 30 or 40 of those implementations to streamline the process and make it better. And I see a difference. And we're almost there. We're almost there where we need to be. Um, I do also have to mention that um, Leonor in your department is a superstar and I don't know what I would do without her because I try to figure things out and my aids do too uh, in getting the job done and sometimes uh, getting it over the finish line means calling Leonor because she is exceptional. Um, but this has been a great discussion and our city is going in the right direction. I'm glad that the mayor called this meeting and I'm

happy to support this item.

And by the way, I want to echo the the comments about Leonor. I I don't know if anyone that understands the process in this city better than Leonor Hernandez. And the amount of residents, the amount of residents, actually a lady, a lady reached out with an issue. Uh I think it was a bathroom. uh she was stuck in a nursing home not being able to go back to her apartment over some sort of an issue with a bathroom permit and the only person that was really able to figure it out it was Leonor and these are things that for us it's just bureaucracy for us is a permit for this person is this person's quality of life uh being stuck in a nursing home not being able to go back home uh because of a something like a bathroom remod re remodels So you Mr. Manager, you know, thank you because Leonor is an amazing part of the team and really has helped a lot of people with a lot of good in the city.

Thank you, city. I just like to say I think the city and the private sector their hearts in the right place and I think we can get this corrected. Thank you.

Good afternoon everybody. Um Sam Laton here. Good afternoon. I commend all of you for really taking this matter very seriously and for trying to address it in a very positive manner. [clears throat] Um I just want to touch on something that uh Commissioner Dominguez mentioned, but I think that you have we have to look at this holistically. There's three components to getting a project from start to finish. You have the permit process, you have third parties like Durm, which have been mentioned, and you have the inspection process. And we can fall down in all three elements. Granted, I I understand there's probably not much we can do with third parties, but I would hope that with inter agency uh cooperation, there might be some level of at least influence, if not necessarily control. Um, but would certainly encourage all of you to look at this holistically for both the permit process and the inspection process because I've experienced the exact same thing that Commissioner Ramingus experienced, which is you have an inspector that comes and asks you to make a change and another inspector comes back the second time and doesn't like what the first inspector told you to change and then fails you the second time. Um, and that's that's a problem.

So, uh, please look at this holistically. Thank you, mayor. We have one individual in Zoom, uh, Susanna Santoro.

Good afternoon. First of all, thank you commissioners for making this happen for us and also uh to the different departments for the improvements in the permitting process because there have been improvements as compared to uh even a year ago. So, thank you for that. Um, I heard us talking about businesses and fasttracking for on the commercial side, but let's not forget condominiums. Condominiums have, you know, at least on Collins Avenue, at least 500 residents living in them at any one time and delays are impact buildings both financially and operationally. Um one thing that I would like to ask is on the accountability and uh how we can go about having more transparency and accountability in the process. Um there was a mention about the if the email is registered by the contractor or permit runner at the beginning then they get alert. I think that this should be mandatory that also the uh property or the property manager's email is included. That way any alerts on that permit are um advised to the property so that the property is in the know and also the change or who's working on the permit at the point because there have been instances of where the contractor fails to uh renew the permit and that permit expires and then the process has to start over or the permit goes in abandoned status And I can give you many many example both that happened in my property but also in our neighborhood buildings where basically the association was not even aware that there was no movement uh whether it was

on the city part or it was on the contractor part or in the engineer. So I think that it needs uh to be clearly indicated who's working on what and and where the uh delay is. and and then there was talk about um I am giving a phone call or sending an email uh while the um city is looking at the file. In my experience, I think with any type of work, if you're working on a file and you have it in front of you and you make that phone call or you send that email in that moment, uh, as a commissioner said that, you could address the issue and resolve it right there and there versus putting that file away and then even for the city employees when you have to pick up.

Hello. Thank you so much. I need you to wrap it up if you possible, please. M. Okay. Okay. I mean, I'll wrap it up, but I mean, different people that are in person have talked, you know, continuously and they were not interrupted, but that's okay. Uh, I'll wrap it up. Uh, so permit efficiency affects safety, livability, and property values. We need transparency, measurable performance standards. I don't know if you have KPIs, but I think you should if you don't. And a system that prevents permits from sitting in a limbo. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to build on something that Miss Buro mentioned. Um, every permit, every process should have the property owner um, listed and receiving email updates. Um, it doesn't happen now. And you know, I've gone through it, other people I know have gone through it where a project gets ground to a screeching halt and nobody can figure out why. And so the contractor then calls me and says, "Can you figure or the the homeowner, can you figure out what's going on?" And it's some thing, some small thing to be corrected, but because it went to a defunct email or something that the the contractor isn't checking regularly, it doesn't reach the intended recipient. So if the owner of the property is copied on it, even if they're not the first line of defense, if they know that something's going a miss, they can intercede with it before it becomes a dead a dead project. So that's should be a super easy thing to implement. And I'd like to see that implemented, you know, as soon as Frank can fix the system to to update that.

If I can ask a question to Eric about that, I I think it was before you were even elected. I was like a baby commissioner. I brought an item on that that the owner's email had you like that [laughter] you uh it was mandatory that the owner's email be included on the alerts. Can you address that? Thank you for bringing that up, Commissioner. So, uh good afternoon. Yes, the owner's information is on the permit application. they don't always provide the uh most accurate email uh or contact information when submitting when they're using third parties or the contractors doing it directly. So when we send the communication to all the contacts,

we don't know where it's landing. But Vince, we don't control that part of it. No sir. What we do control is that that field has to be filled out.

Yes. In cons consistent with the direction from the commission and consistent with the direction that I've given, we do require that that field be filled. So, is there a way to put in a check so that um there's an automatic email um sent like when you subscribe to something, you get a notification, thank you for your subscription, it will renew in 12 months or whatever, but an automatic email saying please respond to this to make sure that you're receiving it. And if within 24 hours or whatever the right window is, you're not getting a response. Yes, I received it. then you can contact not you Vince but the department can contact um the applicant and say this email you provided is incorrect can you check the spelling or can you update that so that this is not a problem because it's much easier to correct in the very beginning than it is when you're six months into the process and you can't find the people you need and you know everyone's like I don't know

and then the system is friendly that way uh homeowners businesses contractors anyone can make their contact and we can attach that contact to their submission going forward, like I said, they'll be contacted every time. It's when they fill in or someone that But my point is, my point I understand that my point is when it is initially filled out, could there be an automated email that goes out to the email with like a verification code? A verification email. I mean, but I don't think that's the problem. I don't think that's the issue. Well, that's part of the issue because it is in some cases it is the issue that it either isn't provided or it's it's misspelled or it's a dead email.

Here's what Vince is is stating is is that an email is being provided, but sometimes let's say if I'm the GC and I, you know, I don't want the property owner knowing what's going on. I might be putting in a wrong email address and now the property owner I'm sorry. There's no there is nothing to to suggest that there is a reason why the property owner shouldn't know what's going on. I know I'm siding with you that So, so to avoid something like that from happening, you know, there should be, to your point, a verification email sent to the property owner

to the property owner that has a verification code or something like that so that we can verify, okay, this is indeed the correct email address. And frankly, it should be to for all the emails that are provided because I've had a situ, you know, I've heard of situations where the contractor provides an email, but it doesn't go to him. It goes to his boss and his boss doesn't let him know. So, or whatever all kinds of nonsense. So, we need to make sure like if this is the way that we're supposed to be contacting these folks that these folks are getting the notifications so that we can eliminate these three-week turnarounds and getting shunted back into another cycle. I mean, it's it doesn't seem so ownorous. we get to, you know, anytime any of us do anything personally, everyone gets verification codes every every time they do anything, it seems like. So, why not do it to expedite the process?

And and and and as far is this is this an online application that is being filled up? I know in the day back in the day when I've had to pull permits, it was a paper form and so I could get like if it was hard to read or something like that, there'd be an an issue. But this is now all online.

Correct. And and to those ends, they also have a CSS uh portal uh that they create their own account. So you would create your own account with your email and you get your verification and put your your your password. So what Commissioner Ba is saying if then if this is being done online and that email address is being put there um before being able to accept on our end that application an email is sent to that email address with some sort of code or some sort of verification making sure okay yes this is a real email address of the person that this belongs to. [clears throat] If I may, good afternoon, Frankie, CIO. Um, I [clears throat] can't validate whether that's possible today with the configuration, but I can certainly take that back and find out if there's a way to trigger that email. Um, and the val uh the verification that we're talking about. I'd have to look into that as well. Um, that's not something that's currently set up. I don't know if it's a limitation of the system per se or if it's just something that we can uh configure through some alternate means. So, we can certainly get back to you on that. Commissioner Matas Selenas,

I agree uh with both Commissioner Bot and Commissioner Fernandez about the issue and I think we're all saying the same thing, but we're we just the issue is making sure that the property owner, the homeowner is aware of the permit process and making sure they have the correct information in there. And I don't know the answer of how to make sure. I mean, is it like a notorized document from the owner, a piece of paper that but they anybody could forge that, too, but I don't know the answers.

Yeah, that that's a permit application as Commissioner Fernandez was describing. The the paper application, the owner and the qualifier sign and they're notorized and it goes forward. Uh, with the digital systems, you have a CSS contact, right? So that contact they get all attached and every time there's an update in the process boom all those three five 10 20 people get notified as long as there's a valid contact the issue is verifying that correct the contact that's on there is actually commissioner Fernandez that's where the the the the issue becomes because a an expediter I mean I don't know why they would do that uh but somebody that's doing the submission can create another contact for and say it's Commissioner Fernandez when it's in fact it's not. So that that's kind of sometimes the bouncing around and when we're dealing with associations, people change. So the managements change and then sometimes those notifications bounce back and now instead of one management firm, it's another management firm.

I get it. I I'm just saying I don't know what the the best solution is for that because, you know, I guess the notorized form so that way it can't be forged because I could also see a homeowner saying, "Hey, you know, Mr. Contractor, I hired you to take care of all of this, you know, and they don't even know or care to put their email address in." You know, I don't I don't know. Unfortunately, that happens more often than than we we care to admit. Commissioner Dominguez,

I have a question. So, I remember a couple years ago I um had visited with a business and they had been waiting for approval for their sign, a permit for their sign up in North Beach and um contractor had it had been like six or seven months. The contractor had uploaded the form to the wrong area and it turned out that there wasn't a mechanism to let the contractor knowh this is not right. And so I'm wondering if that's been updated like if does something go into Never Neverland and somebody thinks that they're waiting for a permit but it turns out it's not even in the right place.

That was one of the first things that we tackled head on. Uh Maria on the slide identified the 250 different uh processes that we cut. We got rid of 40 uh proc 40% of the processes. We went from 250 applications uh potential applications down to 150. So people going down the wrong path if you would. We we attacked that uh very aggressively and now what we're doing is through the data is seeing where the other hang-ups are so we could again keep streamlining the process. If if that's the situation um we have other checks to to to get to those ends where we could square them away and get them back on the right track. Uh but again, it's just consolidating, consolidating, getting everybody rolling in the same one, in the same direction. Once they get gigged and it comes back to that contractor or that homeowner, they know, hey, we applied incorrectly or we went to the wrong department or we're missing a document. And that's the point of the system to to get back to them.

I had a couple of questions. Oh, did you want to speak? Sorry.

Yeah. Thank you uh everybody for working hard. Tyler Crutzfeld, resident south of Fifth. Um the question on compensation was really good. Mayor Miner, is it reasonable to ask for a a best efforts plan that aligns your very well-intended success criteria with compensation? That is a a collective inclusive plan that's presented to the county commissioners that align quantitative success criteria with compensation targets, bonuses, whatever is legal within the the framework of the uh collectives that are here. It seems like a very reasonable approach to the best success is an ownership of the outcomes would be alignment with the compensation targets or or not targets uh that any business would look at for including KPIs.

So my question was actually it was really twofold. One was to ensure that the reviewers weren't being incentivized cuz my understanding is we used to use a lot of contractors. That is not so much the case anymore uh since uh Maria and Vince uh took took control. But so that was one part of my question to ensure that they weren't being incentivized to keep the process going longer than it had to. But your point and and the second part was to your point as well. Is there a way we could package this so um we we uh we we incentivize and through compensation uh better processes?

Absolutely. So the regular review process uh when you get a promotion uh in the military we used to call them a fit rest uh rep fitness report uh you get an evaluation on how good or how bad you do your job. You get your 3% increase 2% 1% etc. And performance is a huge part of that uh evaluation process. So, if you're not hitting your numbers, if uh you're not communicating clearly, etc., you're not going to get, you know, the ideal 3% increase, right? Uh if you're falling just a little bit short, it might be two. If you're falling weightfully short, you may get none. So, a merit increase or a merit raise is not a guarantee. And that's why the the annual evaluation and we have regular spot checks like, hey, we've noticed your numbers dropping, things like that. That's what the chiefs are are regularly doing and managing their respective disciplines. That's a lot harder to do as you identified when we have contract or outside vendors uh supporting us. Uh fortunately, I've been able to recruit a lot of staff uh not exactly everywhere I want to be uh because there's such an attrition rate and and there's a serious deficiency uh I think in every industry both private and public uh with getting qualified staff as far as for all the trades and disciplines. Uh but we're making great strides. We were getting a gentleman's uh onboarded on Monday for mechanical or air conditioning uh as everyone else knows it. Uh so we're we're pushing the needle in that direction and again the evaluation process and the supervisors sitting down going out with the inspectors and at the same time also re-reviewing some plans, spot-checking things with the reviewers. Keeps that quality control in place and if there's something that they're uh going down a rabbit hole, we could kind of correct them and and get them back on track. At the risk of losing folks here, I just want a couple of wrap wrap up questions. We obviously have software that we use for this online when people submit their applications online. Yes, sir.

Is it a good program? Is it the best practice? What's your assessment? Sir, I'm a Marine. You give me a tool, I I'll put it to use. Uh there's a lot of municipalities that use uh the the Tyler Ingov platform that we have. Uh I used it in Dorado. Uh Halia has it. I know there's about what eight other municipalities in Miami date county using the Tyler Iniggov platform. Um it's all in configuration and and how you you mold it to do what you uh you needed to do. You seem to be hedging. No, no, I'm not hedging. It's just it's a very simple. The mayor asked you if it was the best. If it's the best. If you had your pick, would you Is there another software out there that would you utilize?

I don't know. I Let me go. I'd have to go shopping. Yeah. So credit we have to assume credit card it's not the best software out there. He's not saying yes. So hello again. I guess another way of asking it is are some of the delays attributable to the software program we're using.

Um so I I would say that that's not the case. Um when we talk about whether it's the best software that's a very relative, you know, term. Does the software operationally do the things that we need to do to be able to process permits and do PTRs and do inspections and all that? Yes. Um that said, when we look at and we've had exercises where we've gone out and looked at things that are out in the market. Um we've done RFIs in the past. We've assessed what's out there, what we currently own. Um the only place that I could say that there may be opportunities is for the ability to do more than just the basics. I would say um the Intergov product is is very good at doing what it does. It doesn't give you a lot of leeway, if that makes sense. So if if you can configure it to do something, it will do that consistently. Um but when we talk about some of these other nice to haves that you know we've discussed at some of the committees and commission meetings um that's where some of the limitations may exist. But as far as its ability to process permits to do uh reviews to do the inspection portion there many departments in the city the vast majority of them use intergov in some capacity for different components. I think what Frank is trying to say in a very nice manner is it's not a Ferrari, but it is a Chevrolet and it does serve the purpose and we believe that we can utilize it to continue to improve the process. Are we ruling out the fact that we might be interested in looking at other options in the future? No, we're not ruling that out at this point.

Okay. Um, obviously there's expense involved in that, but so we we can revisit that. Um, conscious of time, I'll move on to the next question I have. I know last year this issue came up when when there were some businesses that were late in paying their business tax receipt, BTR, and that caused um a certificate of use review, which then turned into a greaser durm review, which would not have otherwise been required. Where where we are, where are we with that at this point? So Tom can speak to that. Um, but we have significantly modified that process to make it much easier and much more businessfriendly. Tom, do you want to talk?

Yeah, as the manager indicated, Mr. Mayor, last year, this was back in 2024, we came up with a process working very closely with the finance department to um basically um reactivate BTRs that have been expired if the use had not changed. So, let's say it was a restaurant or a retail store and they were relying on somebody to yearly renew their BTR and that person didn't do it and it's the same exact use. Um, and they haven't changed. What we did was we just simply renewed the BTR without making them go through the CU process. They would have to pay their back BTR renewal fees, but they could do that and I think that has proven to be very successful.

Okay. Okay. So, you don't reject it outright anymore? No. Okay. Um, also, what happens like if a restaurant doesn't pay their their business tax? My understanding is, for example, the county um does not shut them down without a court order, what what does the city do? uh in terms of uh if a if a restaurant or any other use does not renew their BTR timely, they are sent notices and um as long as they come whole and pay that, it won't be an issue. But I'm not aware of the city shutting down a business simply because they didn't pay their fee. Okay. Oh, or Mandy, if you could speak to that. Welcome, Manny.

Hi there. I'm Manny Marcus, assistant director of finance. If a business doesn't pay their business tax receipt, we forward a list to code compliance and we forward the high liability businesses first. Uh nightclubs, bars, uh tattoo uh places, massage parlors. So they tackle, I believe they tackle those high liability places first, anybody that touches uh folks and but we send a list and they do get a violation and they will be shut down eventually for for not having a BTR. Right. Okay. or they get multiple

they get multiple notices. Uh actually I have data from from our BTRs for the past 5 years we've averaged uh businesses paying the BTR over 90% of businesses pay the BTR by the due date September 30th. So we we've come a long way. Uh city manager helped us with that. He's given us the resources. We send out email notifications, snail mail notifications, [snorts] outbound phone calls. So nine out of 10 businesses pay their BTRs by the due date. Okay, Mr. Mayor, we have one more. Uh, Miss Santo is requesting to briefly speak again. Just a question. Commissioner Fernandez.

Yeah. Uh, because I know, Mr. Mayor, we might lose quorum soon. Um, and before we do that, um, you know, one of the things that we a a a great takeaway from from today is that really 68% of our permits are only have one or two reviews. Uh, that's significant. 38, the biggest category is in one review. Uh, 30, the second biggest category is in two reviews. Now, not optimum. Three, three reviews. uh is 16% but then we have four plus reviews that are 16%.

And was advertised by 30

and so and and so um I think we should set a goal. I think we should walk out of this room with a goal over the next quarter, over the next six months. Can we reduce that by half the amount of of permits that are in for four [clears throat] plus review cycles? Can we say, you know, within within, you know, a quarter from now, we want to see that come down to 8%. Especially if we're going to be engaging in communicating in communicating with applicants and giving them grace periods to correct uh incomplete u incomplete and incorrect stuff. Uh would it be reasonable um Maria to set a goal of cutting this number in half um over over the next quarter once we start uh these communications?

I believe that we could cut it in half but we'll we'll need more time. I don't think we can do it in a quarter, 6 months. Um everything takes a year. Uh we could try and see Commissioner Fernandez, hold on. [laughter] Um, it was about 900 permits that were in that. Let's do something. So, let's let's do 6 months, but give us an update in a quarter. Okay.

Give us an update of where we're at in in a quarter. um you know and uh because this goes together with something significant that we really haven't set as the standard which is uh mid-review communication establishing a 24-hour grace period. That's all stuff that we've directed now the city administration to hopefully implement within 30 days. uh and by implementing that hopefully we can see an improvement in that four plus uh review category where we're where hopefully we can we can drop that um because you know if I if I had to guess Maria probably the people who are in that four plus review category those are the ones that we're hearing from the most are the ones that are uh reaching out to the city manager those are the ones that are reaching out to to to our offices uh those are the people going through through the biggest challenges is uh so let's try to see if we can set a goal for oursel uh within 6 months we want to see this number cut in half but give us an update within a quarter to see where we are uh with that uh so I would like to make a motion to that effect uh second

all right yeah acclamation

by okay and then and then the the the other thing um that I that I also want to just ask about is as it relates to inspections. Um you know it was mentioned earlier about the same inspector. Um but you know one of the things and it's a very superficial thing but we last year actually almost about a year ago we started talking about a tax notification on inspections and it's a very simple thing. It's it's not it's not going to transform the system. is not it's not groundbreaking but it's just yet another convenience because I do believe the government should be convenient uh for the people it serves. Uh uh where are we with the implementation of the tax notification so that if you're waiting all day for the inspector to get to your house and you decide, okay, I've been waiting all day. I'm going to run out and get a sandwich. Uh so you don't happen to run out and get your bank right when right when the inspector is about to show up.

Go ahead.

Okay. So we have the system built already. We've been testing it extensively uh for the past couple months internally. Um we are coordinating with the building department. Our intent is to make that live the first or second week of March. Uh we're working on some last minute details with some verbiage as far as the messaging is concerned. Uh, [clears throat] but the way that the system would work, and I don't know if you want to chime in on on this part, uh, once the inspector set the inspection list for the day, um, everyone who is on that inspection list for the day will receive a text message to the number that was entered as part of the permit. So, we keep coming back to to that important detail. And it would give the [clears throat] resident business owner, the GC, the ability to opt in. So, you'll say, "Yes, I want to be able to receive the messaging." It'll let you know you're scheduled for an inspection today. And then uh as it is currently configured, it will send you a message when you are not the next uh person but you are two away to give you time to your point commissioner to return to you know the inspection site.

Yeah. Back home from Pinerest Bakery with your bunkaming the inspector. Um, okay, great. And thank you so much. And, you know, we we started working on this on May of last year. And I know Frank, you've been you spent all of last year. You were doing updates at the public safety committee about this all all of last year. And and the great thing this is such a great convenience once we launch it. And I think it's I think the fiscal impact of this was like $700.

Yeah. It's like less than $1,000. It's mostly just a a cost per text, but it's fractions of a of a penny. And that's based off our expected uh permit load on an annual basis. So, thank you. Thank you. I mean, I I think it took a year to get it to this point, but I think this is going to be such such a great convenience. And then, you know, the most important thing is, okay, well, let's say you have an inspection. Uh, and let's say [clears throat] you got to do other other work and and call for a reinspection that it be the same person who comes out for the inspection. Uh, and I and and that's one of the biggest complaints that I got once we got into the inspection part. And Maria, I love to speak with you about inspections and, you know, see some similar data um for for for on the on the inspection side, but making sure that it's, you know, the same person that goes out and that they're not reinspecting the entire project, but that the scope of that reinspection now be limited to specifically the issue that was brought up, you know. So, if I had to fix screws that you're not now reinspecting, I don't know, the doors, you know, that you go back and then you just reinspect the the screws.

Mhm. [clears throat] That's more than than than manageable. The only thing is in context, you do have several inspectors that visit the site for each discipline. So, there's the building, the electrical, the mechanical, and the plumbing. And sometimes there's a little bit of confusion. And if you're a commercial uh job or or location, you also have a fire inspector.

Imagine imagine imagine if every time you came before this commission, you had a different a different city commission here. Every month you have a different mayor and different and different commissioners and the different mayor and different commissioners every month then start telling you, well, no, this is your focus now. instead instead of you wouldn't be able to get to advance the vision of the building direct of the building department, right? No, absolutely. Absolutely.

So, so it's the same thing on on on on the reverse. It's it's the same thing with a consumer that we're serving that, you know, they need to get clarity. If if one inspector is telling them to do something and that this is what they're missing in order to pass their inspection, then they cannot deal a week later with a separate inspector showing up and telling you, "Hey, no, but you got to fix these 10 other things because you may have told your door guy, your floor guy, your whatever, maybe, hey, well, I'm done with you. I already passed my, you know, everything was fine. I'm my only problem is with is with the screws. So, we only need the guy who is focused on the screws, you know. I believe he was agreeing with you.

Oh, good. Yeah, I I I was. It's just we do have a lot of different inspectors. That's all I was trying to communicate, sir. That's it. I will say though, Commissioner Fernandez, they do have that. It's not every commission meeting. It's every two years when we get just to recognize the reality.

Yes. [laughter] Right. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you, colleagues. Uh, thank you, Eric, and and and and team and everybody. This was very productive. We're making strides. We're going to keep pushing as you see. I don't think I'm revealing any secrets. And I I think what's what we are recognizing, and I I know you're receptive to it, is we can change the narrative, right? We're people all the time call us now a law and order city. That wasn't the case several years ago. People complain about our our our permitting process, and I see it slowly changing. Uh we're just trying to expedite that. So, thank you for uh for all your help. Of course,

it'll be great actually and since since we're talking about narrative and not to extend a meeting uh but communication and I think and I brought this up at a prior commission meeting, crisis management, reputational damage control, uh because over the decades we have heard ourselves. It's not the fault of anyone in this in this room right now actually is it's it's happened over the past 30 years that the reputation has been damaged and I do think it does require an expert communication firm to work with our amazing communications department who does great work. I mean that short that was shown there like talk about an amazing testimonial that tells a great story about our city but but our reputation has been damaged and I do think we should be seeing you know would it be worth hiring a public relations company that specifically works in fixing damaged reputations because all the initiatives are there and all the resources are there for us to be able to show hey listen we're we're fixing things. We're open for business.

We're open for business. We just need to communicate it the right way in in a way that fixes a damaged reputation of 30 years. The beach is back. Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry, Mr. Money wanted to briefly touch on R9B if that way we can conclude the meeting. Sir, yeah, R9B, the substance of R9B, which is a discussion item. It's a recommendation from the public safety and neighborhood and quality of life committee from last October. The substance of that discussion was actually rolled into R9C which was presented by Maria. So if you could conclude R9B as part of your action. I'll do that. We have a motion. Do we need a second?

No. In other words, we'll we'll include R9B with the after action of R9C. Got it. Okay. Perfect. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for this next commission meeting next Wednesday, February 25th. We'll see you then. Thank you.