TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
ATTENTION: Ryan Smoot, City Manager
FROM: Elizabeth C. Oba, Director of Planning and Building Services
SUBJECT: Consideration and possible action to receive and file a report on the Building and Safety Division operations.
DATE: March 10, 2025
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On September 9, 2024, the City Council awarded a contract to Willdan Engineering (“Willdan”) for Building and Safety services. Willdan commenced services on September 30, 2024. Among other things, Willdan was tasked with assessing the current operations, identifying areas for improvement, and making the necessary changes to have an efficient, effective, and well-functioning Building and Safety Division. Over the last five months, the Director of Planning and Building Services (“Director”) and Building Official identified several outdated processes and practices within the Division and made various improvements to these processes and practices for consistency purposes and to better meet the service needs. The purpose of this agenda item is to provide the City Council an update on the Building and Safety services and to discuss the improvements that have been made or will be made to the Division.
RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL
1) Receive and file this report; or
2) Alternatively, discuss and take other action related to this item.
FISCAL IMPACT
None.
BACKGROUND
➢ History of Building and Safety Contract
Since the City incorporated in 1957 until 1997, the City’s Building and Safety Services were provided by the County of Los Angeles. In 1997, the City Council approved the transition from full-service Building and Safety operations provided by the County to a combination of both in-house staff (e.g., Code Technician and Building Inspectors) and contracted staff (e.g., Plan Checkers and Building Official). The purpose of this transition was to provide better customer service at reduced costs. 13-A “4 0g BELLFLOW
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Staff Report – Building & Safety Division Update
March 10, 2025
BACKGROUND – Continued
Since 1997, the City’s Building and Safety Services have been either partially or fully provided on a contract basis with various Service Providers including Transtech Engineers (1997-2000), P&D Consultants (2000-2006), BroadSpec (2006-2020) and Safebuilt (also known as Interwest, 2020-2024). Beginning in 2019, the City’s contractors also provided fire code review and inspection for development projects.
➢ Award of Contract to Willdan Engineering
The decision to seek new Building and Safety services arose after the City began to receive complaints from developers, residents, and design professionals regarding the timing and comments received through the plan check process. In early 2024, staff had several meetings with Safebuilt, the Service Provider at the time, to discuss the status of services and to address the complaints received. The City released a RFP for several reasons, one of which included that the personnel changes at the time impacted the level of service provided and the effectiveness and consistency of the Building and Safety Division. In addition, the City had ongoing efforts to streamline, improve, and modernize its services and operations, including the Building and Fire services provided. After a thorough review, rating, and interview process, on September 9, 2024, the City Council awarded an agreement to Willdan Engineering and Agreement File No. 163.15 was executed. The City terminated its agreement with Safebuilt on September 27, 2024.
Willdan began operations on September 29, 2024.
DISCUSSION
When Willdan began operations, it was tasked with assessing the current operations, identifying areas for improvement, and making the necessary changes to have an efficient, effective, and well-functioning Building and Safety Division. The following sections describe the assessments that were made, the changes that have occurred, and the changes that will be made.
➢ Front Counter Activity and Staffing
Since the transition from Safebuilt to Willdan, the front counter and building activity have remained consistent. At the commencement of operations, Willdan’s staffing was provided as follows:
• Building Official – 1 full-time
• Plan Checker – 1 full-time and 1 part-time
• Building Inspector – 1 full-time
• Permit Technician – 2 full-time
Staff Report – Building & Safety Division Update
March 10, 2025
BACKGROUND – Continued
After assessing the workload and to better meet the City’s needs, Willdan adjusted the staffing as follows:
• Building Official – 1 full-time. No change was made. • Plan Checker – 2 part-time. Instead of 1 full-time and 1 part-time plan checker, 2 part-time plan check engineers are being provided with assistance from the multi-use role described in the position below.
• Plan Checker/Building Inspector/Administrative Assistant – 1 full-time. The previous full-time plan checker is now providing multiple services, including reviewing minor plan checks, assisting on and conducting inspections, and providing assistance on administrative needs.
• Building Inspector – 1 full-time with additional help being provided with the position above.
• Permit Technician – 3 full-time. One of the most crucial roles within the Division is the Permit Technician position. They provide technical support and administrative duties related to the issuance of permits and are responsible for routing, tracking, and coordinating interdepartmental plan check reviews. They are also responsible for various administrative duties, such as providing building records for Public Records Act requests, providing permit data for various reports, etc. and are often the first point of customer service for residents and applicants. Previously, 2 full- time Permit Technicians were provided. To maintain and keep up with service needs to improve our ability to assist applicants at the counter, a third Permit Technician was recently brought on.
➢ Updates to Various Procedures
After reviewing the plan check and permitting process, the Building Official will be making various changes as follows:
• Self-Certification Program. The City’s Self-Certification Program was established in 2016. The purpose of the program is to streamline the permitting processing by expediting construction approvals, improve customer service delivery, and encourage economic development. The program allows a licensed Design Professional to accept the risk associated with proceeding to construction while the City conducts any reviews that may be necessary. Any noted deficiencies are identified during required inspections, and if necessary, the project is stopped until corrections are made.
When the program was adopted, Bellflower was one of the first cities in California to make a self-certification process available as an option. Recently, Bellflower has received attention for our long-standing efforts to expedite construction, including the City’s Self-Certification Program, as other jurisdictions and the State have begun to explore similar programs. As part of his review of our Building and Safety services, the Building Official has assessed the City’s adopted Self Certification Program and its implementation over the last few years. Based on this assessment he has identified several clarifications to our processes to ensure our program operates as intended and accomplishes the goals for which it was originally considered, as well as some improvements we can make to encourage more licensed professionals to use the program safely and smoothly.
Staff Report – Building & Safety Division Update
March 10, 2025
BACKGROUND – Continued
Throughout its implementation, the Self Certification program has been rarely used over all, and in particular has never been used for certain types of projects – mixed use or large scale multi-family residential for example. Most commonly, the program has been used by applicants building small residential projects and Accessory Dwelling Units, as well as for some smaller scale commercial development. In many of these instances, the program has successfully allowed the construction project to proceed as expeditiously as possible without creating any undue delays upon inspections.
To facilitate and encourage more use of the program for these common types of projects and avoid costly and untimely delays related to more complicated inspections, the Building Official will focus our efforts to grow the program to target these more common project types. Specifically, the focus will be on the following:
✓ Residential: Single-story and two-story residential, residential additions, and ADUs
✓ Commercial: Single-story commercial building
As is currently the case, although it is uncommon, should an applicant desire to submit a project through self-certification for multi-story commercial and mixed use buildings or for larger scale and higher occupancy residential (R2 and R3, for example) projects, the Building Official will continue to consider these projects on a case-by-case basis.
To identify any code deficiencies and for inspection purposes, the Building Official will maintain the authority to require that any necessary plan checks be conducted.
As a courtesy to the licensed design professional, corrections or noted issues of concern will be provided to the licensed design professional who may choose whether or not to proceed with the plans as -is or proceed with revising the plans to address the plan checker’s comments. Should the license design professional decide not to address the plan checker’s comments, the courtesy correction list will be provided to the inspector to ensure compliance with the Building Code during the inspection process. This list of comments from the plan checker assists the Building Inspectors and Building Official in ensuring the ultimate project is built to the necessary standards. To memorialize this process, a resolution will be brought back to the Council for consideration at a future date.
• Soils Report Submittals. The Building Official also identified inconsistency in the City’s requirements for the submission of soils reports for various projects.
Bellflower is located within a high liquefaction area. Soils reports have been required for most projects to determine how the foundation of a building is to be constructed. A soils report is prepared by and are the professional work product of a licensed geotechnical engineer, and describes what specific standards need to be included in a foundation plan. Soil conditions are site specific and may change throughout the block; what may be present on one site may not be applicable on another regardless of the proximity.
Staff Report – Building & Safety Division Update
March 10, 2025
BACKGROUND – Continued
To provide more clarity and flexibility for applicants, and to reduce building costs and expedite lower risk projects where possible, the Building Official will develop prescriptive design standards and make them available to applicants and design professionals. Certain projects that are designed to those prescriptive design standards will be allowed to proceed without necessitating the need for a soils report. The Building Official recommends the following:
✓ Prescriptive Design Method: For projects consisting of one-story structures 750 sq. ft. or less for which the foundation plans conform to the prescriptive design standards no soils report will be required.
✓ Projects consisting of one-story structures exceeding 750 sq. ft., two-story structures, etc. must provide a site specific soils report and the foundation must be designed in accordance with the recommendations outlined in the soils report.
• Documents Required for Plan Check Submittal. Staff has received complaints related to the inconsistent submittal requirements for plan check. Many of those complaints relate to requirements for particular documents (grading plans and fire flow certifications, for example) that may not have been required for a similar project in the past. In addition, the number of plan sets required for submittal have also changed over time, and applicants who have submitted previously may see different requirements for one project than another. To provide clarity to applicants and standardize our processes, the Building Official has prepared a handout listing all required submittal items and will make this handout readily available at the counter and on the City’s website. In addition to internal requirements, the handout also provides a list of outside agency approvals that may be required, such as Health Department approval, AQMD approval, etc. These handouts will be made available to applicants following this meeting.
➢ Electronic Plan Checking and Online Permitting
Several projects have been reviewed through Willdan’s electronic plan checking portal notably including the recent submittals for Chick-Fil-A. Willdan’s plan checking portal has proved to be an asset to the City, and has highlighted the need to modernize our Planning and Public Works departmental review procedures as well. For example, to be able to conduct electronic plan checking or online permitting, the applicant still needs to come in person or mail a check to submit payment for associated fees. To improve and modernize the plan checking and permitting process, staff is currently in negotiations with companies that provide online permitting and electronic plan checking for those additional internal reviews. Improvements to the payment process with the Finance Department will also be integrated into these new procedures. Once the electronic plan checking and online permitting is implemented, applicants will have the ability to submit plans and pay fees online without having to come to City Hall.
Staff Report – Building & Safety Division Update
March 10, 2025
BACKGROUND – Continued
➢ Building Plan Check and Permit Fees / Development Impact Fees
Building and Planning staff consistently receive complaints related to the City’s permit and fee structure. Currently, the plan check and permit fees are collected together as a single fee at the time of plan check submittal. This was implemented to reduce the need for applicants to pay twice, but has presented challenges from an accounting standpoint because fees are collected upfront while the associated inspections may not occur until well over a year later. It also presents challenges when a refund is necessary if a project is stopped or an applicant decides not to proceed. To correct this City staff will be working to bring revisions to the City’s fees structures and rates that separate the plan check and permit fees and ensure appropriate cost recovery for Building Division operations and fire plan check and inspection services.
It should also be noted that Building and Planning staff consistently receive complaints related to the Development Impact Fees. Generally, the complaints claim that the City’s Development Impact Fees are too high compared to our surrounding cities and deter development. The City’s Development Impact Fees are designed to defray the costs and impacts of development on the surrounding community, and ensure the City’s ability to provide the associated services and infrastructure necessary to support that development.
CONCLUSION
With the transition of Building Division services, the City charged the Building Official with identifying beneficial improvements to our processes and practices to improve the applicant experience. Based on that review, the Building Official has b egun to make necessary changes and has worked with City staff to bring amendments requiring City Council approval, including fee adjustments, resolution clarifying our Self Certification program, and others will be brought back to the Council in the near future for consideration.