AGENDA # 5h

MEMORANDUM

TO:                  Mayor and Town Council

FROM:            W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager

SUBJECT:       Response to Council Question about Expedited Processing

DATE:             November 13, 2000

On September 11, 2000, a Council member asked for a report on the impact of the Council conferring “expedited processing” status to a development proposal.  This memorandum provides the report on this question.

BACKGROUND

The process for submitting and achieving action on a development application in Chapel Hill is often a lengthy and complex one.  It is not uncommon for a Subdivision or Special Use Permit application to take 6, 9, or 12 months to complete the full circuit of required reviews leading to final action (and, potentially, commencement of construction).  Chapel Hill’s system is set up to include a high degree of citizen participation, and includes multiple reviews by a series of Advisory Boards. 

Occasionally, an applicant will approach the Town Council with an argument that there is a significant public interest at stake in a particular application being submitted. 

Expedited processing grants priority status for review at every step of the process, and grants priority status in being scheduled on agendas of Advisory Boards and the Town Council.  A Special Use Permit application would normally take six months to a year to be reviewed by all the required boards and commissions and to be heard at a Public Hearing.  The review process is long because of breadth and depth of review and analysis, and because many projects are usually being reviewed at any given time.

The Town Council established the following criteria and instructed the Town Manager to use these criteria in making recommendations on requests for expedited review:

1.      Recommend expedited processing only in cases where there is a public interest or public objective involved.

2.      Recommend expedited processing only when a project that involves public interest would be harmed by following normal rules of procedure.

3.      Avoid expedited processing in situations where other applications that do not carry this special status would be delayed.

The Council has approved expedited processing status for the following applications:

1989        Culbreth Park Subdivision

1990    Chapel Hill Public Housing

1992    Chapel Hill Public Library

1992    The Intimate Bookshop

1993    East Chapel Hill High School

1994    Erwin Village Subdivision

1994    Orange County Southern Human Services Center

1994    Transitional Housing on Clark Road

1994    Chapel Hill Day Care at Southern Village

1994    Bolin Creek Greenway Phase II

1994    Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Transportation Center

1994    WUNC Tower

1995    Hargraves Gymnasium addition

1996    Paul J. Rizzo Conference Center

1996    McDade House relocation

1996    The Pavilion

1997    Southern Village Elementary School

1997    Phi Gamma Delta fraternity

1997    Neville Tract

1997    Freedom House

1998        Estes Hills School Modification

1998    Smith Middle School

1998    UNC Co-generation Facility Boiler Replacement

1998    Chapel Hill Internal Medicine

1998    Midway Business Center

1998        Carol Woods Retirement Community (for Village Charter School use)

1999        University Mall Redevelopment

1999    Orange Community Housing Corporation Scarlette Housing

1999        Kenan Stadium Expansion

1999    Kehillah (307 W. Cameron)

1999        Hillel Foundation

1999    Fire Station (Bennett Road)

1999    Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity House

2000    Greene Tract rezoning

2000    Manley Estates Housing

2000    University Fraternity and Sorority applications

2000    Eastwood Lake Improvements

2000    Carol Woods Retirement Center (for day care addition, new units)  

2000    Church of the Holy Family Expansion

2000    Chapel Hill Pediatrics

Requests for this special application processing by East Franklin Car Care, Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority, and an application for parking and refuse facilities at 317 W. Rosemary Street were not approved by the Town Council.

DISCUSSION

The question that has been posed is, “What difference does it make to a project whether or not it has “expedited processing” status?”  The answer varies greatly depending on the nature of the project, the time it is submitted, and the presence or absence of other projects with such status. 

Expedited processing basically means “top-of-the-stack” status.  When plans for that application come in, they go right to the top of the stack of plans to be reviewed and processed.  They jump ahead of other projects already in line.  They are the first to be scheduled for a Public Hearing once they are ready. If there are a lot of projects in the system being reviewed, expedited status can be significant.  Alternatively if, for example, there are open public hearing slots on upcoming Council agendas, expedited status might mean nothing at all.  If an application has expedited status and is ready in May, to go to a June public hearing, expedited status might help.  If an application has expedited status but is not ready to go to public hearing until July, when the Council has no hearing slots (none in August either), expedited status does not shorten the process.  Generally, the more complex the project the more time is taken in staff and Advisory Board evaluation.

Another kind of Council mantle that can be placed on an application is for the Council to call a public hearing on a specific application for a specific date.  This is often quite advantageous to the processing time for an application, in that delays in reviews cannot happen - - the project is required to go forward on a specific time frame.  A key disadvantage of this approach is that is often happens that review and comment by all advisory boards typically involved in such review is truncated or happens after the public hearing has been held.

We also note that much of the control on how fast an application moves through the process is in the hands of the applicant.  Chapel Hill’s process typically results in multiple sets of submissions of drawings, in order to respond to comments made by staff, advisory boards, or the Town Council.  How fast an applicant turns around plans in response to comments, and how fast the Town staff departments can review and evaluate those plans, are often the critical determinants in processing speed.

To provide in illustration of how expedited processing might affect an application, we offer the following information.  We examined the records for all Special Use Permit applications that were submitted during the 1999 calendar year, noted whether or not special status had been granted, and recorded the date of initial acceptance of an application along with the date of Council action.  We indicate in the final column the number of months each of these applications took to make it from application acceptance to Council action:

SUMMARY

Expedited processing status can reduce the time periods for review and action on an application.   However, the circumstances of any particular application usually determine the length of time for processing.  Data from a review of the 1999 calendar year indicate that, generally, projects that have been granted expedited processing complete the Special Use Permit process in six months or fewer.  Typically, regular applications take from three and one-half months to twelve months to go through the Special Use Permit process.  We also note that a Council-called-hearing almost always represents an accelerated timeline that is much faster than normal.