Building Industry Association
of San Diego

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to evaluate and enact regulatory reform recommendations presented by the Red Tape Reduction Task Force.  This was the second time the board voted on the Task Force recommendations in response to a litigation threat from community activists who claimed the County failed to follow appropriate public noticing procedures. The Supervisors decided it was more prudent to simply rehear the proposal rather than defend against a law suit in court.

The BIA, along with several property owners and small builders, spoke in favor of the recommendations citing the length and difficulty of navigating the county’s land use approval process. The County has long been criticized as the most difficult jurisdiction to do business compared to other local cities due to  voluminous regulatory requirements that take years to complete. “We put a man on the moon in nine years, surely we can approve development projects faster than that,” said BIA Vice President, Matt Adams.

Others, were not so supportive of the reform process.  Several planning group members took exception to proposals intended to improve the planning group review process which included term limits and modest experience requirements. Other suggestions included a plan to remove planning groups from the county’s umbrella outright and allow them to function independently.

The Supervisor voted to enact some reforms immediately such as empowering project managers to make decisions, create performance measures to address project timelines and the creation of an external Audit Committee to review the performance of the planning department.  County staff will use the month of March to review remaining proposals and return the the board on March 29th with their implementation strategy.

Responding to a suit arguing that the San Diego County Board of Supervisors failed to properly notice a hearing on ways to cut government red tape, the Board of Supervisors will re-hear the recommendations on February 29th.  A host of recommendations were unanimously approved by the board on December 7th.

The Red Tape Reduction Task Force was appointed to focus on the land use permitting process and produced 17 recommendations to improve regulatory efficiency.  The  recommendations include ongoing staff  training, an end to redundant plan checks, reforming planning group procedures and the creation of an Audit Committee to monitor the regulatory process.

Some planning group members are up in arms over proposed changes to planning groups such as adding term limits and qualification requirements.  The Board decided it was better to re-vote on the items in order to avoid of litigation.