LTC 174-2007 Building Department - Process Improvements - Duplicate: See LTC 172-2007m MIAMIBEACH
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
NO. LTC#l7~f~2oo7 LETTER TO
TO: Mayor David Dermer and Members of the City Commissio
FROM: Jorge M. Gonzalez, City Manage ~
DATE: July 19, 2007
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SUBJECT: BUILDING DEPARTMENT -PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS
The purpose of this LTC is to advise you of the various operational improvements
implemented by the Building Department so far. As you know, Mr. Thomas Velazquez,
Building Director, joined the City of Miami Beach team in March 2006, and was tasked with
bettering the Building Department by reducing cycle times, becoming more customer-friendly
and addressing the numerous issues raised by residents, business owners, contractors and
consultants on a regular basis.
Over the past year, the Building Department has improved internal processes, as well as, its
interface with the customer. The following is a list of improvements undertaken by the
Building Department over the last year. As our process continues to evolve over time, it is
important to recognize that we will not be able to fix everything immediately. The
circumstances in the Building Department have developed over a period of several years.
As a result, we cannot expect to restore greater confidence from our customers overnight.
Nonetheless, improvements will be made and substantial progress will be achieved. As you
review the numerous improvements implemented by the Building staff, please keep in mind
that many of these changes are significant. Inherent to the change process however is the
fact that some parties who are invested in our current process may not be fully supportive of
all changes. These parties are primarily those individuals who are in a position to take
advantage of inefficiencies, roadblocks and problems in the process. Some of these parties
have reached out to you already and may continue to do so. Please keep in mind, however,
that Staff's direction from me is to continue to improve and better the process and our
service to the customer, which we continue to do.
In addition, the Building Development Taskforce was created in January 2007, with a
mission to improve the City's service delivery in the areas of construction and development
services through a partnership and dialogue between City departments involved throughout
the process and industry representatives.
As part of this process, representatives from the Building Department, Public Works
Engineering, Fire Prevention and Planning/Zoning form part of an interdepartmental group
that has been charged with conducting a systemwide process review to identify short-term,
medium-term and long- term recommendations. The intemal group has been meeting
regularly to discuss the preliminary list of opportunities for improvement, as discussed at the
first public focus group meeting. Some of the processes presently being discussed by the
group include; concurrent review, customer requirements checklist per permit type, internal
checklists for plans review and inspections, as well as, training requirements for staff
involved in the building development process.
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LTC Building Department Update
July 11, 2007
Page 2 of 6
The following is a summary list of significant improvements already underway or under
review for your information:
Administration
Development Services Review Coordinator Position: Created and filled in the FY 2006-
07 budget cycle, this position was created to oversee the permitting process, from permit
application to issuance of certificates of occupancy, with particular attention on the front line
employees and improving the customer service experience of our customers who interact
with us personally.
Assistant Director Operations: Created and filled in the FY2006-07 budget cycle, this
position was created to oversee the daily operations and training of the Inspection Section
and Violation Sections and to assist the Building Directorwith the enforcement of the Florida
Building Code.
Manual of Policies and Procedures (MPP): One of the first deficiencies identified by Mr.
Velazquez was the absence of written policies and procedures within the Building
Department. Over the past year, Building Staff, led by Assistant Director, Graciela Escalante,
have begun the process of drafting a comprehensive MPP. The purpose of the MPP is to
define the Building Department's policies, procedures and processes to Building Department
personnel, as well as, the general public in an easy step by step manner. The MPP
delineates the plans review, permitting, and inspection processes to Building Staff and
customers. For Customers the MPP will facilitate their experience with the Building
Department. For Building Staff, the MPP is a tool for training new employees and providing
uniformity in executing the Building Department's policies, processes and training program.
Single Point of Contact: The "Single Point of Contact" is currently a "pilot program" service
that the Building Department is experimenting with developers who have large projects that
have an important impact to the City's business community, tourist industry, and/or
circulation of traffic within the City of Miami Beach. This service enables the Building
Department to become directly accessible to developers and facilitate and guide them
through the permitting, plans review and inspection process from inception through CO
issuance, by assigning a Building Department staff memberwho will be their "Single Point of
Contact" (SPC). The SPC will schedule pre-planning meetings, plans review meetings and
pre-construction meetings with the developer's team, as required, to better serve the project
by anticipating and solving problems before they negatively impact the project. This service
is provided to developers at no charge. If this program is successful, Building Staff intends
to expand the service to additional projects.
Pre-Submittal Consultation: The Building Department is providing our customers with a
pre-submittal consultation. This service entails meeting with the Architect, Owner and
Contractor to discuss the project timelines, as well as, decide the best approach on how to
permit the project given the Owner's schedule and timelines. Based on this meeting, and
depending on the scope of work for the project, the Architect is advised on how to prepare
the permit packages.
Pre-Construction Meetings: Once the project is approved and a permit is issued, the
Building Department will contact the Project Team (Architect, Owner and Contractor) and
schedule apre-construction meeting with Building Department staff. At this meeting, the
Project Team will meet with the Chief Inspectors and Assistant Directors of the Building
LTC Building Department Update
July 11, 2007
Page 3 of 6
Department. The project scope of work will be discussed, as well as, the inspection
procedures required during the construction phase of the project. The Building Department
will answer any questions and concerns raised by the Project Team.
BuildFax: The City of Miami Beach has implemented BuildFax available online through the
City's website. BuildFax provides building permit and property information from a single
source. This allows the general public to access simplified property information in a matter of
seconds rather than days. BuildFax can be accessed through the City's website at
www.miamibeachfl.gov in Online Services, under the E-Government tab.
ProjectDox: The City is currently in the process of implementing ProjectDox, a paperiess
plan check and review system. This fully automated software offers auwer-friendly,
convenient interface for customers to submit plans, while assisting our staff to manage the
review and approval process faster and more efficiently. ProjectDox allows for the creation
of aproject-specific, online information center for all project information, communication and
workflow process that greatly improves collaboration among project team members.
Permit Fees: An audit trail for the proper collection and assessment of permit fees has been
created through the implementation of new procedures to establish accountability. Since this
new procedure was implemented on April 27, 2007, over $1,924,165 in back permit fees
owed to the City has been collected.
Concurrent Review: In order to facilitate the permit process for the customer, the Building
Department and the other regulatory departments of Planning, Public Works and Fire
Prevention are in the process of initiating a concurrent review process. Currently,
construction documents submitted for permit review have followed a sequential review
process between disciplines that left little accountability, regarding efficiency, to the
reviewing departments. This new procedure requires the submittal of three (3) sets of record
documents instead of two (2); these are the Job Copy, the Office Copy-1 and Office Copy-2.
The Building Department, who has the larger number of separate disciplines, will keep the
Job Copy and Office Copy 1 and will utilize these two sets internally. The extra set will
enable Public Works, Planning and Fire to review projects simultaneously with the Building
Department and will save the Customer time, as well as, the extra step of delivering the
record sets to the other intemal City Departments for review. An intemal process is set up to
notify all disciplines across departments when documents are ready to be reviewed, as well
as, who is currently reviewing them.
Reduced Overtime in Plans Review and Inspections: Administration reviews and
approves all overtime requests. Through the creation of Plans Review and Inspection
Workload Reports, Administration has been able to reduce unnecessary overtime and
ascertain that plans reviews and inspections are performed during normal working hours as
much as possible. The primary outcome of this process is that employees are required to be
productive on straight-time in order to qualify for overtime.
Weekly Administrative Staff Meetings: The Building Director, Assistant Directors and
Chiefs meet weekly to communicate and discuss the implementation of changes that will
streamline the department's policies and procedures.
Elimination of Institutionalized Temporary CertiFcates of Occupancy ("TCO") Prior to
March 2006, procedures for the issuance of Temporary Certificates of Occupancy had been
institutionalized in the City of Miami Beach to require a TCO to be issued. This practice has
caused numerous code and legal problems, which have resulted in unnecessary, ongoing
LTC Building Department Update
July 11, 2007
Page 4 of 6
hardship for the occupants of effected buildings and staff. As a result, the Administration has
practically eliminated the issuance of TCO's, as a "forced" practice and encourages owners
and contractors to proceed directly to a regular Certificate of Occupancy. The Building
Department is currently approving the issuance of Partial Certificates of Occupancy and
Certificates of Occupancy.
Permit Section
1. Streamlined Forms:
• Permit application has been consolidated into one form, inclusive of Owner,
Tenant (if applicable) and Contractor.
• Created A/E Affidavit for proper collection of permit fees.
• Eliminated Owners Affidavit/Hold Harmless on the Permit Application,
thereby authorizing the contractor to pull a permit without the Owner's
signature.
• In process of streamlining Certificate of Occupancy procedures.
• Combined Permit Extension & Renewal Form.
• One Permit Card per project, instead of one per discipline.
• Created form for Violations Section to address expired permits, extensions
and violations.
2. Streamlined Process- Front Counter:
• Simplified Q-Matic Process:
a. Created an individual queue to specifically expedite payments.
b. Eliminated the Contractor Licensing Window to allow all Clerks to
process GC licensing issues.
• Improving Customer Service:
a. Stationed a Greeter with a laptop in the Lobby.
b. All Clerks receive Customer Service Training.
c. All Clerks attend weekly Staff meetings.
d. Customer Feedback Form -currently working with the Office of the
City Manager and the Office of Budget and Performance
Improvement to deploy a customer feedback form, which can be
utilized to identify opportunities for improvement and commend
employees for excellent customer service.
• Re-allocated Trade Clerks and stationed them to the Front Counter to
process all permit applications.
• Cross-training Permit Clerks and Router Clerks.
• Allowing Customers to process unlimited number of permit applications by
removing the limitation of three permits, per Customer, per day.
Plans Review Section- Many of these reforms are also being implemented by Planning,
Public Works and Fire Prevention.
1. Created a Centralized Plans File Room:
• Organized plans by master permit number.
• Color-coded plans based on project types.
• Consolidated files to include all permit applications and required documents
for plans review.
2. Assigned a Chief of Engineering to oversee Plans Examiners and monitor
workload output.
LTC Building Department Update
July 11, 2007
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3. Created Reports to monifor and manage the Plans Review Section:
• Pending Plans Review Report -which identifies and tracks the status of all
plans.
• Plans Review Inventory and Review Status for Walk-thru's.
o Created Workflow for Walk-thru's.
• Plans Review Inventory and Review Status for Drop-Offs.
o Created Workflow for Drop-Offs.
• Daily Permitting Activity Report.
• In the process of creating Plans Review Checklists, to assist Customers in
identifying specific items that Plan Reviewers will look for. This also improves
consistency between reviewers.
4. In the process ofstreamlining a Plans Review Guide forrouting of Customers.
Inspections
1. Inspections Checklist available for distribution: Inspections checklists for
Building, Planning, Public Works and Fire Prevention have been produced, which
reflect a list of the Code required inspections performed by CMB Inspectors. One of
the goals of the checklists is to assist the General Contractors in preparing their
projects for City inspections. It also serves as a training tool for training Inspectors
with a focus on achieving uniformity and consistency during the inspection process.
2. Implemented wireless laptops: Wireless laptops have been deployed to all
Building Department Inspectors and are currently being tested in the field. The
Inspection checklists are being configured into the wireless laptops for the use of
Inspectors in the feld. Fire Prevention is also experimenting with these laptops.
3. Report has been created for Inspections performed per day: A report has been
generated through Permits Plus which records an Inspectors route throughout the
day, establishes accountability and accurately depicts the Department's inspection
workload. We are also exploring how each Inspector's route and stations may be
uploaded to the City website for tracking by the Customer.
Violation Section
1. Unresolved Complaints: The Violation Section is closing out and coordinating
unresolved complaints submitted through the City's electronic system, Better Place.
Complaints are being answered within 48 hours of receipt. In the past year
unresolved complaints have decreased from 500 to fewer than 15.
2. Notification of Expired Permits to Miami Beach residents, prior to expiring and
after expiration: Notices are sent to Owners and Contractors 30 days prior to permit
expiration. In addition, 15 days after permits have expired, a letter advising Owner /
Contractor, that if not resolved within 15 days of receipt, a violation will be issued.
Within the past year, expired permits have gone down from 41,000 to approximately
26,000.
LTC Building Department Update
July 11, 2007
Page 6 of 6
3. Notification of Common Area Condo Violations: Courtesy Condo Letters are
being coordinated through the Special Masters Office to notify Condo owners of
violations issued to Condo Associations for common area violations.
Communications/Phone Systems
Additional Staff have been added to increase the percentage of phone calls assured by a
"live person." All phone calls that go to voicemail are required to be returned within one
business day.
7. Live Person answering and returning phone calls.
2. Cell phone numbers for Inspectors and Supervisors provided on the City's
website.
3. Real-time Inspection updates online: Pending the deployment of handhe/ds,
inspection schedules will be available in real- time on the City's website.
Future Develoaments:
It is our collective vision that all of the regulatory departments involved in the development
and construction process, will provide excellent customer service by providing state of the
art, cutting edge technology that will enable this City to provide E-Government services to its
citizens, and as a result, improve access and services without the need for a personal visit.
Electronic permits, electronic payments, concurrent electronic plans review, real time
inspection results and inspection routes are made possible by the technological advances of
our time. These are just a few of the goals that the Building, Planning, Public Works and Fire
Prevention Departments want to see realized in the very near future.
The Building Development Taskforce will continue efforts to improve the overall process.
The group will continue to conduct internal meetings on a regular basis to focus on both,
process and customer service improvements. A public meeting will be scheduled in the near
future. The intent of our next public meeting is to provide a status update to the industry
representatives and in turn, allow them to provide feedback to our Staff.
Future Actions
A discussion item will be placed on an upcoming Finance and Citywide Projects Committee
agenda to provide a comprehensive update on the work of the Building Department and the
Building Development Taskforce.
If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me.
JMG/TH/TV/cg
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