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Planning director requests an inspector as inspections surge amid housing approvals
Summary
Planning director Donna Benton told the council the city handled nearly 10,000 inspections in 2025 and requested one additional full-time building inspector (about $100,000) to improve turnaround times and reduce staff strain.
Donna Benton, director of planning and community development, told the council the department processed more than 3,328 permits and performed nearly 9,949 inspections in calendar year 2025, and noted the trend includes 375 new residential units approved, 60 of them attainable units.
Benton said the inspection workload is concentrated among a small number of staff and asked the council to consider adding a second full-time building inspector at an estimated cost of about $100,000 to reduce average turnaround times (worst-case cited as roughly four weeks), improve customer service and limit staff burnout.
"I would hope that with an additional building inspector, it would be 2 weeks or less," Benton said when asked about expected improvements to scheduling and response times.
Benton also outlined planning priorities for FY27: continuing master-plan implementation (land-use, transportation and stewardship chapters), advancing housing efforts and expanding GIS and online tools to deliver better public information and permit tracking.
What happens next: Benton said the department will continue to refine workload metrics and present the staffing request in the budget book; councilors asked for additional data on inspection timing and seasonal demand to help evaluate the personnel request.
