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City planning warns cuts would slow development reviews, asks council for modest community-engagement budget
Summary
The Department of City Planning and Engagement told Cincinnati's Budget & Finance Committee that a proposed 5% reduction would largely be an unfilled position and would lengthen development-review times; the director proposed a $12,000 startup budget for community engagement and flagged major-subdivision review as the unit missing its performance target.
The Department of City Planning and Engagement told the Cincinnati Budget & Finance Committee that staffing limits and a narrower set of tracked performance measures risk slowing development-review timelines and neighborhood planning work if reductions are applied.
Director Catherine Keoughjos opened her presentation by listing the department's responsibilities—community engagement, zoning and subdivision regulation, historic conservation and long-range planning, including stewardship of the city's comprehensive plan, Plan Cincinnati—and said the office currently operates with 19 full-time employees. Keoughjos said that a 5% reduction in the department's budget as presented would equate to one unfilled position and would primarily affect development-review capacity and neighborhood-plan starts.
Why it matters: Council members pressed Keoughjos on measurable impacts. She said the department meets many of its service-level goals (residential permit review at roughly 90% within the target window and near-100% performance in several permit categories) but is missing its target for major subdivisions, where review rates ranged from roughly 60% to 86% depending on the quarter; major subdivisions require review by the City Planning Commission and often need added zoning relief or more community engagement, which lengthens timelines.
Keoughjos described two distinct paths for changes to the zoning code: map amendments (site-specific zone changes by applicants) and zoning studies (broader, policy-level work such as the current study on data centers). She said the department treats each application individually and that timeframes reflect complexity and required notice and engagement with residents and the commission.
A modest engagement budget: Keoughjos told the committee that much of the department's community engagement work has been conducted without a dedicated line item and that staff have been covering supplies, postage and small expenses out of other budgets. After asking planners what an initial, practical engagement budget would look like, staff proposed a roughly $12,000 starter budget to buy equipment, materials, basic technology and refreshments to support meaningful outreach.
Neighborhood plans and Plan Cincinnati: Keoughjos said Plan Cincinnati (adopted 2012) needs an update and that the department is drafting a response to a council motion on a neighborhood-planning cycle. She listed recently completed and in-progress neighborhood plans (Westwood and Hyde Park completed; Mount Washington and Roselawn started; Clifton, Madisonville, North Avondale and Winton Hills anticipated next) and said an updated comprehensive plan would provide consistent guidance to make future neighborhood-plan work more efficient.
Operational notes and technology: Keoughjos said the department has launched a zoning application portal in 2025 and will migrate additional permit-review work later this year; the portal is expected to reduce friction for applicants and staff but still requires troubleshooting. She also highlighted that much of the historic review is handled by one specialized staff member (the urban conservator) and that overall the zoning division is stretched.
Next steps: The council and director agreed to follow up. Keoughjos said the department would return with a formal response to the neighborhood-planning-cycle motion in the coming months. The committee filed the department's report for the record and moved on to the next presentations.
