Planning commission recommends removing administrative plot plan process to streamline reviews

The Beaumont Planning Commission held a public hearing and voted unanimously to forward a recommendation to City Council to amend Beaumont Municipal Code sections and tables that reference administrative plot plans, a change staff said will streamline permitting and reduce costs for many applicants.

Planner Carol Kendrick told the commission the change responds to a consultant recommendation during the city's zoning code update work. Under the proposal, the city would delete references to the administrative plot plan process (used for some residential additions, ADUs and commercial occupancy reviews) and instead rely on existing building plan check and certificate-of-occupancy review processes for many of those cases. Kendrick said minor plot plans would remain administrative, while other administrative reviews would move to plan check, which would permit charging time-based cost recovery rather than a flat administrative plot plan fee.

Kendrick said the administrative plot plan flat fee had increased with the city's recent fee update and could be roughly $1,500 for some projects; moving reviews into plan check would let staff charge for actual time spent, which she estimated could reduce typical review payments to an average in the range of $75 where only a brief staff review is required. Kendrick added that the city had advertised the hearing and received no written comments on the proposal.

Commissioners asked several technical questions about how the change would interact with building plan check, certificate-of-occupancy reviews, accessory dwelling unit submittals and how plan check re-submissions would be billed. Kendrick said planning staff would still review plans during the building permit process but that some upfront review steps would be removed, and any additional rounds of plan check would be charged as appropriate. She also said one pending project would still require minor plot plan review by the City Council. The staff report said the amendment is exempt from CEQA and cited consistency with the general plan's Land Use and Community Development policy to find efficiencies in permitting.

After the hearing the commission made a motion to recommend approval and to forward the ordinance amendment to City Council for consideration; the motion passed on a unanimous roll-call vote.