Remarks by Bob Nelson
492 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 18 of 20
“I've been doing this for too long, and I've seen it. At some point, when are you gonna, like, you know”
“We've given this direction like this before, That's my point.”
“You can balance me out. Supervisor Hartman.”
“Thank you, Supervisor Raman. I wanted to lean into a little bit of that next piece of building permits, because it's only the planning side, which is about half of the problem, right? So are there any efforts in place to try to address the difficulty getting through the plan check and the building process?”
“And that should happen with our exempt permits then as well. Right?”
“you say that you're complying with the setbacks?”
“So But on a planning side, if you if you and your permit say I'm gonna comply with the setbacks, why would we need to verify that?”
“Yeah. I understand that. But, you know, like you're, you know, you're trusting on the building permit side on these simpler things. I think that's what the what we're looking for in the development community on these exempt permits is that say, if I comply”
“Trust me because I said I comply. If I don't comply, then you're going have a building violation or a planning violation. And so it's proving your innocence versus, you know, the other way around. So I I think that that's because what to to get for you guys to check on whether I comply is ten, twenty hours, which is 3 to $6,000. That it is.”
“I mean, I I hear from people all the time. I know supervisor Laban, you know, like, I've got a lot of unincorporated area. I've got a lot of people that are that go in and then they decide not to do anything, or they just build it without a permit. Right. Because it's just so expensive to even comply, even So, for zoning”
“So, again, I I think that's an area that we could do some additional work, especially on the building side, to be looking for more exemptions there or letting people get their own plan check, having a profession a state license plan checkers, what the county does. It makes sense that we let people do that as well or even building inspectors. Know, there's there are state licensed people that have stamps that are licensed by the state that have bonding insurance, things that we don't even have for ourselves when we when we go out there and check other people's work. So those are some some…”
“And then I think the other piece, I think, in simplification is looking at using more exemptions on CEQA. Think often we're doing projects, you know, we're going through a Sequa processes that, you know, are more robust than are necessary because we're off, you know, we're trying to protect against some of these potential appeals. But I do think that there's lot, there's, you know, most jurisdictions use exemptions a little bit more aggressively than we do. And I think that that's something that we should lean into more.”
“Okay. Thank you. Other questions? No other questions? Okay.”
“I guess we need go through the spreadsheet and give you some direction, or some of these questions.”
“I read that a few times. I had to try to figure out what the difference was between the two. Yeah. So when I finally got it Yeah. You know, it's ministerial and appealable.”
“Then under ministerial, if you choose ministerial, do you want to break that up into a simple and complex review of your staff?”
“And so but what about if somebody wanted to build that FAR 50? Like, it's all against every single setback. Is that going be a ministerial permit, is that appealable? Is there something that eventually triggers?”
“And just, you know, kind of basic law on land use is that, you know, if you have a parcel, should be able to build a house on it, right? Isn't that kind of a basic concept of right? So we're just saying this is kind of a property rights question here, right? In some ways, I mean, you have a right to build a house. We're starting from that point.”
“Build your house. But the processing's going to be either simple or complex, depending on what kind of house you want build.”
“All right. Thank you for the explanation. But I do think we need to kind of move through some of these, because I know one of my colleagues asked to leave a little early here, I want to make sure their opinion is made in here. So I'm okay with two. I don't know what anybody else is at.”
“Could we make two, but in certain, like, special areas, you know, some that are carved out that, you know, that are over 5,000 square foot houses or in scenic zones that that might trigger the appeal? I mean, make an appeal is really the exception, but in really high focus areas.”
“And I'm going trying give you some carve outs. Because there are some of our areas that we've gone through extensive community planning areas, like Old Town Orchid, Bell I know you guys have you have some as well that kind of still need design review there. You know, those are areas that, you know, you've kind of built a concept around that, and to kind of abandon that at this point would be really disruptive to those communities. So I think there are I'm going be looking for carve outs.”
“Well, maybe what might help too is if you guys are going through this process, because you're taking direction here.”
“again. And it comes again. As we you know, are there some, you know, 95% to 98% of this should be ministerial. You know, I think what I'm hearing from Supervisor Hartman is that there are some of those areas that are a little bit special that could screw up the, you know, bad apple, could mess up the whole bunch here, right?”
“So I've got a couple twos from Steve and I. I didn't hear from Roy or or Laura, as you're trying to figure out some consensus here where we're at.”