The City Council of the City of Baytown, Texas met in a Regular Work Session on Thursday,

Transcription

1 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR WORK SESSION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BAYTOWN APRIL The City Council of the City of Baytown, Texas met in a Regular Work Session on Thursday, April at 531 P M. in the Hullum Conference Room of the Baytown City Hall, 2401 Market Street, Baytown Texas with the following in attendance Laura Alvarado Robert Hoskins Charles Johnson David McCartney Chris Presley Terry Sam Stephen DonCarlos Mayor Rick Davis Ignacio Ramirez Leticia Brysch Keith Dougherty City Manager City Attorney City Clerk Sergeant at Arms Mayor DonCarlos convened the April 27, 2017, City Council Regular Work Session with a quorum present at P M. all members were present with the exception of McCartney who arrived at P M DISCUSSIONS Discuss the City of Baytown Implementation Plan City Manager Davis presented the agenda item and stated that the Implementation Plan ( the ' Plan") was the product of many hours worked from the collaboration of the Council, Department Heads and Management He noted that the Plan included the resulting comments from the Much 25th Council retreat as well as those of the subsequent and was submitted to Council and Department Heads for comments He further noted that the final Plan was submitted to the Council via for their review and comments Additionally City Manager Davis stated that the Plan could and would change depending on the needs and desires of the Council The Council had no comments or changes to the Plan as submitted City Manager Davis noted that being that there were no additional comments related to the Plan, it would be submitted to the Department Heads in order for it to become the basis for their upcoming budget formation Lastly, he asked the Council to communicate with him throughout

2 April 27, 2017 Page 2 of 6 the budget process regarding changes and the Plan additions, exclusions, or adjustments related to the budget Discuss the City of Baytown Fireworks Ordinance City Manager Davis introduced the agenda item and stated that during a discussion with the Mayor it was a reality that the City's Fireworks Ordinance is, similar to other communities unenforceable therefore, they wanted to revisit the strategies related to this item in order to better enforce the code He stated that they came up with the following three ( 3) main options 1) completely abandon the regulation of fireworks and let people use fireworks as they deem appropriate, in which he noted staff was not in favor of as this option is a safety concern due to ( i) our proximity to petrochemical plants and ( ii) because of the large Influx of fireworks users that would come into our community as the surrounding communities are very restrictive of the use of fireworks, 2) restrict the use of fireworks to certain sensitive areas in order concentrate enforcement efforts which is not feasible considering that the entire City can be considered a sensitive areas due to the surrounding petrochemical companies, or 3) put more boots and observers on the ground to assist with enforcement City Manager Davis noted that the Fire Marshal' s Office has taken on different strategies in order to reduce the number of illegal fireworks in the city limits and that in the past staff would offer to confiscate fireworks in lieu of a citation which is a practice that they want to try and get away from in the future In response to a question from Sam regarding a current legislative bill that would extend the number of holidays where fireworks could be sold, Mr Mike Lester Health Director stated that the bill is ongoing however the County would have to adopt the additional holidays in order for them to be sold within its jurisdiction. During further discussion various options that would help mitigate the fireworks issue within the city were mentioned, such as increasing the minimum fine amount for each citation from $ 100 to $ 500 a public education and communication strategy to inform the public of the city' s codes regarding fireworks and the resulting penalties, the placement of signs at the firework sales stands location informing the public that they cannot use fireworks within the city limits or if they refuse, the placement of an uniformed officer to notify the public of said restrictions the use of Blackboard connect to do a reverse notification informing the public two ( 2) weeks prior to each of the named holidays of the fireworks ordinance announcements etc and the use of other public service Mayor DonCarlos stated that the use of fireworks has gotten worse over the years and it seems that in the past the public was more knowledgeable and responsible about where they could or could not use their fireworks He noted that in the past few years it seems that there is a flagrant disregard for the fireworks ordinance and the City does just enough enforcement and education

3 April Page 3 of 6 to get itself bad publicity He further noted that in his opinion the public needed to be better educated about the Fireworks Ordinance and the enforcement efforts could be achieved through better communication and public service announcements City Manager Davis stated that the City's strategy moving forward with the Fireworks Ordinance is that of deployment, education, enforcement and follow up The Council requested information and stats regarding the amount of manpower being used to regulate fireworks across the city Assistant Fire Chief, Bernard Olive stated that during New Year' s Eve and the July 4th holidays, his entire team which is made up of five ( 5) Fire Marshals take to the streets to try and answer the many calls that come in related to illegal fireworks He noted that the illegal use of fireworks is not concentrated in any one place but exist throughout the entire city He stated that in 2016 while they had 80 calls of illegal fireworks no citations were issued because the main goal was to be in compliance, so once the offenders agree to comply with the ordinance they moved along to handle the next call He further noted that it takes approximately minutes to complete a citation which would slow them down even more versus the five ( 5) minutes it takes to have a conversation with a citizen and just get compliance The Council and staff briefly discussed the issue of celebmtory gunshots during these holiday seasons and it was noted that the Baytown Police Department is responsible for responding to these violations in which they take these offenses very senously City Manager Davis recommended that staff put together a communications strategy that' s implemented immediately to educate the public about the City's Fireworks Ordinance and along with the upcoming enforcement efforts Assistant City Attorney, Karen Homer stated that another item that could assist with the enforcement of the Fireworks Ordinance is to include the adherence to the City's Fireworks Ordinance in the development agreements She stated that currently this provision is not included in the development agreement but could be, in order to limit the pockets of areas that allow fireworks The consensus of Council was that staff should move forward with this item Mrs Homer, in response, noted that there are some development agreements related to the existing involuntary annexation that are already out for signature and do not include the Fireworks Ordinance provision but all others will have it moving forward City Manager Davis stated that staff will move forward with enforcement and communication c Receive and discuss an update regarding the City of Baytown' s Development Process City Manager Davis presented the agenda item and stated that about a year ago, Nick Woolery assisted in completing a performance review of the development review process and permitting, which resulted in several recommendations Additionally he stated that since then staff has worked to implement the recommendations and further introduced the City's new Development Director, Steven Rhea

4 April 27, 2017 Page 4 of 6 Mr Rhea stated that it' s been about three ( 3) months since he started with the City and further presented an update on some of the changes made to get us where we are today some upcoming changes and projects that are in the mix and the current status as it relates to the development process He presented the Council with two ( 2) bar graphs that showed the number of permits with plan reviews and permits without plan reviews comparing those numbers from 2016 to the year to -date for 2017 He noted that the year -to date numbers for both types of permits are on point with those of last year which means that development has not slowed down in the past year He further noted that last year the City was at about 47 commercial permits compared to 53 for this year, and that the residential increased at a smaller margin of about four (4) or five ( 5) permits from last year Mr Rhea stated that cities tend to benchmark themselves to surrounding communities, therefore in this case, Baytown is being compared to LaPorte Pasadena, Deer Park Pearland, Texas City, and League City for the time period beginning February 2017 to the present He stated that at this time Baytown takes 10 days to review and process for residential permits other cities around us have a time frame the ranges anywhere from 3 5 days to 2 3 weeks. He stated that Pearland is at 10 days,lust like Baytown and League City and LaPorte are both at 3 5 days He further stated that currently Baytown takes up to 13 days to process a commercial permit which is contrary to the rumors that it takes 6 8 weeks for a commercial permit with a plan review to be processed and completed He noted that on avemge the City takes 13 days to complete the commercial permit process, which is on par with other cities but is not exactly what we wants He noted that LaPorte is 7 10 days, Pasadena is at 10 days League City is at 10 days Texas City is 3 4 weeks, Deer Park is 4 weeks and Pentland is days Mr Rhea stated that the City is always looking to improve and noted that three ( 3) months ago, the City was taking about 16 days for a commercial plan review and 13 days for a residential plan review, whereas, currently those averages have dropped to 13 days for a commercial plan review and 10 days for residential plan review Mr Rhea stated that these improvements to the average processing time have been accomplished through many steps taken already to include the process review completed by Mrs Tiffany Foster, Director of Planning and Development Services that set out changes needed to be made in order to streamline and improve the permitting and plan review processes He stated that the studies and implementation plan focused on the end user and how to make the processes easier on the customer, therefore things were added such as check list, online submittal fortes, online payment systems, updates to the GIS system and some over the counter permitting for simple permit to include garage sales, driveway, etc Mr Rhea stated that some upcoming changes include expanding the over the counter services and the continued implementation of the better building program to help with the large inventory customers He noted that the Assistant Chief Building Official/ Plans Examiner is no longer with the City, so while the Planning Department does have a vacancy in a key position it has rearranged staff himself included, to conduct the plan reviews He also noted that the goal is to not slow down and continue to conduct plan reviews in order to meet the interim goal of 5 7 days for a residential plan review and for a commercial plan review He stated that a position for a full time plans examiner has been posted and changes were made to the permit counter process to include anything that can be pulled out of the formal process in order to reduce the strain on staff time

5 April 27, 2017 Mr Rhea presented an update on the current development projects to include the following Page 5 of 6 the Hilton Garden Inn is about 6 8 weeks from opening the Kroger on Alexander and H E B me currently working Project Raven a petrochemical operation- is forthcoming, and the Fitzgerald Property on Highway 146 and 110 is undertaking a mixed use development of 145 acres to include retail big box residential and multi family, continued interest of two master planned communities north of I 10 Houston Methodist San Jacinto will be in next week to conduct their submission review for their hospital expansion project, and Mambo's Seafood is looking to build on 110 next to Salt Grass Steakhouse City Manager Davis stated in response to a question from Saim that the Marriott does not have a conference component to their hotel, but also noted that the Hilton Garden Inn would have about 5, 000 square feet of conference space Presley stated that he was more concerned with the little guys in Districts I and 2 i.e. the smaller developments and contractors and other misc residential work and wants to make sure that the process is also made easier for them Mayor DonCarlos stated that the staff should look at creating a formal program to train and grow the City' s own Plans Examiner from existing staff to help slow down the current revolving door Additionally he noted that Planning needed more support and resources to deal with their work load Presley stated that the plans review process in the Fire Department could also be improved to ensure consistency and efficiency, i. e if the exit sign has to be in green lettering to know where it is in the Code and enforce it across the board City Manager Davis stated that staff would look into flus issue McCartney stated that he wants to be sure that staff is providing quality work and review within the proposed timelines even if it takes a little more time in the review process to be certain that things are done right the first time rather pushing something through that is not quite tight in order to meet a set timeline Mr Rheas stated that staff is looking to be expedite, but also provide a quality review, which is why it' s important to have a quality plans examiner that can move things along as well as, have that attention to the details Mr Rhea further stated that he welcomed Council or anyone for that matter to contact him directly if there' s an issue with their development or need some additional support although he s already reached out to every developer that has a current or existing project in the City City Manager Davis stated that the City of Baytown is a regulatory entity that works to ensure that what is built in the city is safe appropriate and in the best interest of the citizens He noted that the City does not work for the development community, but instead regulates them so there will always be some tension between the regulated and the regulator Additionally, he noted that it was his hope that Council understood that staff has every motivation, intention and desire to

6 April Page 6 of 6 make this the best process in the state because the continued economic development depends on the City of Baytown being the best d Discuss any or all of the agenda items on the City Council Regular Meeting Agenda for April 27, 2017, which is attached below This item was not discussed ADJOURN With there being no further business to discuss, Mayor DonCarlos adjourned the April , Work Session at 6 18 P M City Council Regi Le cia Bry1ch City Cler City of Baytown