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County staff present phased plan to cluster health and land‑use services, free courthouse space
Summary
Consultants and staff showed commissioners a phased plan to relocate health programs and create a land‑use hub (GIS, plat, clerk/recorder, planning) to improve one‑stop public service; commissioners gave conditional support and asked staff to phase work tied to available CIP funds.
County staff and consultants presented a multi‑phase space plan on Feb. 4 to better cluster customer‑facing services and free space for other county needs.
The proposal would collocate land‑use services — GIS, plat records, planning and the clerk/recorder — into a single “land‑use hub” to give residents a one‑stop access point for permits, plats and related questions. Staff also proposed moving behavioral and population‑health units together on a single floor to improve client access and expand capacity for mental‑health services.
Whitney, a county facilities planner working the re‑stacking effort, described options across the Earl Bennett Building, South Campus and the historic courthouse: the 2nd Floor of the courthouse could house health‑department administrative functions while land‑use units would be grouped on another floor to create easier public access. The plan emphasized phasing (so one building is remodeled at a time) to avoid major disruptions and to align remodel work with available CIP funding.
Commissioners expressed support for the concept but asked for phased budgets and further detail: they favored keeping alterations limited where possible, asked for cost estimates tied to the county’s $11–14 million reserve for space projects, and requested that staff proceed with detailed design and cost estimates so moves can happen as funding and the jail project calendar allow.
Provenance: staff opened the space‑planning discussion with options for the Earl Bennett Building and South Campus and presented floor plans and tradeoffs between 2nd and 3rd floor allocations.
