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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda Statement 1984/12/18 Item 14 COUNCIL AGENDA STATEMENT. Item 14 Meeting Date 12/18/84 TEM TITLE: Resolution pIr - Substituting Jr./Assistant Civil Engineer Position for Contract Engineer in the Engineering Division UBMITTED BY: City Manager; ? (4/5ths Vote: Yes No X ) BACKGROUND n the 1984-85 budget, funds were included for a Contract Engineer ($35,000) since it 'as expected that large projects, such as Eastlake and El Rancho del Rey, would reach he tentative subdivision map stage and that additional professional engineering ssistance would be needed. For the reasons outlined below, it is proposed that a .egular Jr./Assistant Civil Engineer position be authorized to replace the contract mployee service as provided in the current budget. ECOMMENDATION: Adopt resolution substituting Jr./Assistant Civil Engineer for ontract Engineer in Engineering Division. OARDS/COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION: N.A. • ISCUSSION • he purpose for the contract engineer in the Engineering Division was to assist the Land evelopment Section in meeting the peaks and valleys of workload, especially the expected ajor peak of workload increase from El Rancho del Rey and Eastlake. The contract position as filled to assist in the plan checking process. A vacancy in a permanent full-time osition occurred, however, and the contract employee through the Civil Service process pplied for this vacancy and was successful in being appointed to that job. Currently, hen, the contract engineer position is vacant. s the City has. progressed through the fiscal year, it appears that a high level of plan hecking and inspection activity will occur for the major developments facing hula Vista , during the next 18-24 months regardless of any changes in interest rates. ther projects, such as Bonita Long Canyon, the Bayfront Redevelopment, Otay Valley Road evelopments, and several other projects that are being looked at throughout the City, ill mean that the expected peak in workload will continue longer than was expected when he contract position was initially proposed. It is recommended, therefore, that a regular r./Assistant Civil Engineer position be established instead of the contract job as a esult of this projected peak in workload. This. is done with the understanding that each ear the workload of the department will be evaluated to determine if this position should e deleted, or if in fact additional positions, including even a contract slot, may be eeded depending upon the assessment at that time of the Land Development Section's workload. FISCAL IMPACT: The cost of this position over the remainder of the year is estimated at $16,500. Approximately $20,700 remains from the funds established for the contract engineer. Therefore, there are sufficient funds budgeted for this- -p€sit4o- =. -r •-- _, i JDG:mab / /, November 30, 1984 Mr. John Goss City Manager City of Chula Vista 276 Fourth Avenue Chula Vista, California 92010 Dear John: Per your request, we have attempted to estimate the number of EastLake-related lots that will need to be plan checked by the City of Chula Vista during 1985 and on an annual basis thereafter. I have also taken this opportunity to again appeal for immediate expansion of City Staff manpower resources as necessary to faci- litate the plan check and approval process. .. A_r_,' AB As you are aware, we are currently processing with the EastLake I SPA Plan a set of Master Tentative Tract Maps providing for /� up to 1,945 dwelling units in our first two residential neighbor- EISTL'10E hoods, EastLake Hills and EastLake Shores, and an additional DEVELOPMENT 311 acres of commercial/industrial land relating to the EastLake COMPANY Village Center and first phase of the. EastLake Business Center. The Master Tentative Map for EastLake Hills and EastLake Shores is roughly divided equally between individual lots for single family detached housing and large unified parcels for condominium developments. For estimation purposes, we project that final record maps (with related improvement plans) covering about 300 single family detached lots will need to be plan checked in 1985, and condominium parcels for an equal number of single family attached dwelling units will also be processed relatively concurrently. Also, about 110 individual industrial lots will be processed for recordation during 1985. All this is, of course, in addition to improvement plans and record maps associated with "backbone" infrastructure and grading associated with our first phase of development. Our current market study projections indicate that approximately 300 total dwelling units could be sold to home buyers in EastLake during the 1985 year, depending on the start sales date, with the rate of sales increasing to between 500 and 600 dwelling units per year in 1986 and thereafter. Builders are notorious for being bullish in terms of their market projections, but the above project- ions are based on a "sub-normal to normal" economic year in the marketplace such as that associated with 1984. While I know there is a general tendency to discount builder absorption projections, I would like to emphasize that a market research study done for EastLake Development Company by the Sanford R. Goodkin Research Corporation in 1979, during an up-cycle business year, O 701B Street p Suite 730 Sag Diego,CA 92101 (619)231-2858 Mr. John Goss November 30, 1984 Page Two projected potential EastLake absorption in the 700-1200 dwelling unit per year range, assuming that a high quality living environment could be produced at affordable prices. We feel we will be bringing such a project into the marketplace in 1985. The EastLake project has recently been and will continue to be a significant workload pressure on the City's current manpower resources. A large part of this pressure is due to our joint efforts to streamline the overall process through concurrent processing of various govern- mental approvals and part of the reason for the pressure is due to an apparent erosion of City manpower resources through attrition. The concurrent and accelerated processing schemes associated with the EastLake project are certainly different than those previously experienced by City Staff but, nevertheless, are generally consistent with the needs of large-scale community projects. The same economies-of-scale that allow us to create a superior living and working environment while addressing the City's public facility and fiscal needs also applies adversely to the project when the financing of land holding and front- end costs associated with large-scale land development projects are considered. The success of our project, and certainly the extent to which the high expectations associated with the project are met, is directly related to our ability to create a revenue stream as early as possible. Obviously the City is sympathetic to this need in that the very same set of circumstances apply to the City's ability to balance fiscal expenditures associated with the project with the revenue stream to the City. This pressure on both the City and the developer will continue over the life of the project, i.e. 15 years or more. We are currently endeavoring to bring the biggest and best San Diego County builders to the City of Chula Vista in the context of our EastLake program. The type of builder we are dealing with is noted for high value, popular priced housing as generally exemplified by their consistent status within the top 10 County-wide every year. Such a builder consistently sells in the range of two houses per week in both the good times and the bad times and generally will not consider a project unless such an absorption rate is highly probable. While the work pressure on City Staff, especially Engineering Staff, is already intense, the pressure is likely to be exaggerated as individual merchant builders associated with the project attempt to bring their individual projects on line as rapidly as possible for the same reasons addressed above. To illustrate this point, the merchant builder who needs to sell two houses per week in the EastLake project will be faced with an approximate $1,000 per day land carry cost until an escrow can be closed with the homebuyer. Multiply this by the 5-10 builders expected to be part of the EastLake project, and a substantial amount of increased pressure on City Staff can be projected. Similarly, an industrial user purchasing five acres for a high-tech operation in EastLake would be faced with a potential incremental increase in land carry costs of about $20, 000 for each month of delay experienced. The real significance, however, relates to the fact that any delay could lead to loss of such an industrial 'firm to another city r \C Mr. John Goss _ November 30, 1984 Page Three where the time needed to bring product on line could be reduced or is more certain and, therefore, the risk of being beat into the market- place or losing a market opportunity is minimized. The purpose of the above commentary is simply to put into perspective the fact that City Staff, especially Engineering Staff, has been and will continue to be put into an unfortunate and untenable position. At the same time that the City Council and top management are promoting streamlining techniques such as concurrent processing as a means to stimulate economic growth and allow the production of quality affordable housing, City Staff more directly "on the firing line" are finding themselves increasingly unable to cope with the workload consequences of concurrent processing and the related growth pressures in general. This situation will only be exaggerated in the future unless the City takes positive and immediate actions to bolster staff manpower resources on both a short-term and long-term basis. The City's newly adopted "full cost recovery" system for processing costs is already in place to protect the City from any potential inefficiencies that may be associated with the City's efforts to streamline the development approvals process. Put into perspective with the costs of delay and the costs of lost oppor- tunity associated with such delay, you will find the development community more than receptive to any increased plan check and permit fees associated with more expeditious processing. John, I know you are more than aware and sympathetic to our needs and those of the business community in general. The above comments are made to a large extent out of a sense of frustration -- probably some of the same sense of frustration being felt at various levels of City Staff. If nothing else, perhaps my comments can be passed along to those that can give you the support you need to take immediate action to alleviate current frustrations and to diffuse those on the horizon. I will be more than happy to discuss the above with you further at your earliest convenience. Thank you again for your cooperation and concern. Sincerely,p E STLAKE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY Robert L. Santos Vice President R LS:kaa cc: John Lippitt OSIS • McMillin Development • Realt ` - Y Construction November 26, 1984 Mr. John Lippitt, City Engineer City of Chula Vista 276 Fourth Avenue Chula Vista, CA 92010 Dear Mr. Lippitt: Thank you again for meeting with Allen Barbour and me last Tuesday, November 20. Per your request I have attached a table to this letter showing the level of activity we expect for Bonita Long Canyon Estates in 1985. We appreciate your concern for the status of our project. As you can see, several hundred lots will be submitted for engineering department review. In addition to Bonita Long Canyon, other larger developments such as Eastlake and El Rancho Del Rey could contribute up to 2000 units to next year's workload. We look forward to helping the City determine its staffing requirements. If McMillin Development , Inc. may be of service, please contact myself or Glenn Rick at our offices. Respectfully, KJ-7Z Lloyd V. Hill Senior Vice President-General Manager Acquisition-Planning-Engineering cc: John Goss, City Manager LVH/sg 27 Hoover Avenue • National City, California 92050 • (619) 477.4117 7—mb. BONITA LONG CANYON 1985 ENGINEERING ACTIVITY November 26, 1984 Glenn M. Rick 1985 Number Month Unit Number of Lots Activity/Remarks January Unit 1 199 Resubmit grading, improvement plans for 2nd plan check, record final map. April Units II , III , 470-; Submit for 2nd tentative map. IV, VI August Units II , VI 125 Submit grading, improvement plans , final map. December Units III , IV 345 Submit grading, improvement plans , final TOTAL 669 map. Not included in total . o��