Development Services reports fewer single‑family permits, highlights UDO, GIS and code‑enforcement strain

Julie, Development Services director, presented the department’s fiscal year update to the City Council on Tuesday, outlining work across GIS, planning, development review, permitting and code enforcement.

Julie said Development Services employs 26 full‑time staff (23 funded from the general fund, three funded by grants) and described a heavy year of work on the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), post-adoption training and updating application materials. “We strive to apply codes fairly and consistently,” Julie said, describing the department’s stated mission.

GIS work included creation of an impervious-coverage layer for future drainage policy and quality-control work assembling accurate parcel, park and licensed daycare data for the city’s child-safety zoning map. Julie noted significant back‑end server and software costs for GIS tools and said parcel data changes from VCAT (tax authority) will increase future workload.

Planning highlights included ongoing consolidated planning work for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) five‑year consolidated plan and the annual action plan; Julie summarized the CDBG timeline (call for subrecipients in March, council funding recommendation in June, HUD submission and program-year funding October 1). She said the city’s allocation has been roughly $500,000 per year over recent years and that staff would like to shift future spending more toward public facility projects.

On permitting and inspections, Julie reported strong permit values but low single‑family new construction — 41 homes in FY2024, the lowest in her tenure. Inspection activity and fail-rate trends were noted: an approximately 8% fail rate on inspections in FY2024 (higher in the busy year of 2022). Julie attributed higher fail rates in some years to inspectors being at capacity and unable to provide full customer assistance when volumes spike.

Code enforcement staffing has seen turnover: a long-time supervisor moved on and staff were promoted into supervisory roles; the office is prioritizing cases because the workload exceeds available resources. Julie said code enforcement has focused more on complex substandard-structure cases in recent years, which increases time-per-case and exacerbates capacity constraints.

Julie said the department is working through a multi-year implementation of new permit software (MyGovernmentOnline) and will propose adoption of the 2024 International Code Council (ICC) codes in an upcoming update. She also flagged facility issues: multiple Development Services divisions operate from separate offices and the building used by the department shows structural settlement in places.

Council members asked about UDO follow-ups (food trucks, parkland dedication and minor cleanup items) and Julie said pending tweaks and code-adoption items would be scheduled for spring amendments. The director asked for ongoing patience as staffing and software transitions continue.

Julie closed by thanking MPO staff for assistance in shaping the annual report and noted the department’s plan to continue outreach and training for permit customers and trade professionals.