Interview with Mike Moore, City of Petaluma Community Development Director

• Artist: Planetizen
• Title: Planetizen Podcast - 2009-04-30 - Interview with Mike Moore, Petaluma
• Album: Planetizen Podcast
• Year: 2009
• Length: 7:55 minutes (5.49 MB)
• Format: Stereo 44kHz 96Kbps (CBR)

At the APA Conference this week, a lot of people were talking about recent events in the City of Petaluma, California. Petaluma is used to attention from the planning world, because they were one of the first cities in the United States to adopt a form-based code. Now the planning department is on the cutting edge for another reason: the city has decided to entirely eliminate its planning function due to budget cuts. We called Mike Moore, community development director for the City of Petaluma, to get the full story.

You can listen to the podcast directly off the page, download the mp3, or subscribe to the Planetizen podcast on iTunes. Here's a transcript of the conversation.

TIM HALBUR: Okay, so we’ve heard a lot of rumours and a little less coverage of what’s gone on there, so maybe you can walk us through what’s happened?

MOORE: Sure. Well, last fiscal year because of anticipated budget problems, we made a decisions – we meaning the city manager and myself and the finance director – made a decision to move all community development staff, expenses, salaries, benefits, etc. except for a small portion of the department into what is called an enterprise fund, which means we would be supported by revenues other than general fund revenues. We would be supported by revenues primarily from development applications and building permits. At that time, we knew there was going to be some downturn. We were already experiencing some effects of the economic downturn and so we made some very conservative estimates as to what those revenues would be. It also had the benefit of taking some pressure off the general fund. But subsequently what happened was that the downturn was much more severe than I think anyone anticipated and as a result of our enterprise status and the fact that we weren’t bringing revenues in, community development went through a round of layoffs last September where we ended up losing about half the staff. We were a 23 person department that included planning, building, code enforcement, geographic information systems, housing, economic development and redevelopment and we ended up having to lay off 12 staff members. What happened after that is that our revenues continued to drop due to the downturn. And so in late March, the decision was made to eliminate an additional five positions in the department, which included the remainder of the planning staff, my assistant director and my position. So as a result of that, the department as it existed is really being broken up into its component parts, some of which are being absorbed by other departments. The planning function, will essentially in the interim - which we’re defining at this point as until the end of June of this year - will be staffed by the full-time people who are being laid off coming back on a part-time basis. And I’m going to be retiring at the end of May, just because I can, not because I want to. But in any event, my position is being eliminated. And at this point the manager’s long term option for the planning function is to try to contract that out, either with a private consulting firm or there’s been some discussion among Sonoma County managers about trying to share services.

TH: We talked before about the form-based code, the smart code that you have there and that essentially there were some complications fitting it in. I remember you telling me that you had two codes at the time. Do you think that level of complication had anything to do with the downturn in investment in development?

MOORE: No. I really think that the budget situation here is a combination of a number of factors. Certainly the economic downturn is a big factor. Relying solely on development to fund all planning functions is certainly not something that can really be done effectively. There are parts of the planning function that you can easily recover costs for and current development is one of those ways and is the most common way but there are a lot of other planning functions that go on that are not recoverable and would require some kind of a subsidy from the general fund or some other fund and at this point the city council and the manager made the decision that they can’t afford that subsidy because of the circumstances that the general fund is in, so that’s the reason for the decision they are making.

One of the things I have told people when talking about the situation is that it is somewhat ironic that a city like Petaluma which has had a reputation for being on the forefront of planning has decided that for budgetary circumstances it needs to eliminate the planning function, at least on an in-house basis. It’s sad to see that. And it’s been difficult to have seen this unfold more as an issue related to development review and development related revenue rather than a discussion about the real value of planning and having knowledgeable in house staff and what they can bring to the community. And it’s been very disappointing that that part of the discussion hasn’t really come up very much.

TH: Yeah, it’s an excellent point. And I assume that you still feel very strongly that even in a climate where there’s no development at the moment, the planning department fills a function, and a necessary one.

MOORE: Very definitely. I didn’t get into planning to be a land-use regulator. I got into planning to do planning. And it’s unfortunate that we’re perceived in that role more than we are perceived in the role of really doing planning. I got an email from a friend of mine in the city of San Diego saying their council has taken the opposite approach. They’re funding new planning initiatives because they know there’s an opportunity to really spend time on those, because they don’t have the pressure of having to process applications and move development along. So in this time, they’re taking advantage of the downturn in the market to get some planning done that they really need to get done and to me that’s the really progressive way to look at it.

TH: Mike Moore is for the moment, the community development director for the city of Petaluma.