P&Z looks at tweaking development plan process

Suggested changes to the city of Brandon’s subdivision development plan process was well received by the city Planning & Zoning Commission last week. 

Chuck Parsons, secretary-treasurer of the Brandon Development Foundation, initiated the conversation, saying the current process is potentially hindering new business development due to heavy upfront engineering costs. Parsons said he’s received support for the change from local developers Tom Howey, Justin Oakland and Steve VanBuskirk, as well as the Brandon Valley Area Chamber of Commerce and the Brandon Development Foundation Board of Directors. They have proposed the planning/design phase process be more in line with Sioux Falls’ regulations.

“What they’ve asked in general is that we take a look at what we have in our preliminary plans stage, what comes before P&Z approval. Basically, we’re not going to adopt what the city of Sioux Falls has, but I’ve gone through what we require and what the city of Sioux Falls requires and we could move some of what we require into the preliminary plan stage to the DEP (Development Engineering Plans) stage, which in my opinion it speeds up the process a little bit and decreases engineering or costs that’s necessary to get to the planning and zoning point for your approval, and it is mostly drainage information,” city engineer Paul Sanow said.

Sanow said that it’s important that Brandon’s design standards and sub-division regulations line up. “What I’m getting at is that I don’t want to go away from what we have. One of the things that we discussed with the developers was that we just adopt the city of Sioux Falls’ preliminary plan or their submittal process. I don’t want to do that. That would completely revamp our submittal process and refers to certain chapters that we don’t even have in our design standards anymore, because the city of Brandon has adopted the City of Sioux Falls’ design standards with a few supplemental changes that we have upfront.”

Monty Miller, engineer for the Brandon Development Foundation, pointed out that it’s more expensive and takes longer to get to the whole development from the concept plan through construction plan in Brandon than it does in Sioux Falls.

“As far as the level of engineering required in Brandon versus Sioux Falls, it’s probably pretty much the same,” Miller said. “But if you can just massage that and move some of the more stringent standards for drainage in Brandon, move that to the development engineering plans in the next phase, I think that would make all the difference. I don’t think it would take a lot of work, and I think if it was moved back, it would be just fine.”

Miller estimated development of the 80-acre Rovang Industrial Park property, which was acquired by the Brandon Development Foundation earlier this year, is two to three months behind schedule.  

Sanow said Brandon’s concept plans phase largely mimics Sioux Falls’ requirements.

“It’s when you get to the preliminary plan stage that they are suggesting that we require 50 percent of the engineering be completed at that point, where the city of Sioux Falls is roughly 15 percent,” he said.

Parsons equates the level of design effort to dollars. 

“I look back at my checkbook, and if you look at these percentages as dollars, they’re pretty close. I’ve got in excess of 70 grand in the concept of the preliminary plan before I got any approval from the P&Z or city council. So that’s a big concern to me as a non-profit,” he said. “If we were a for-profit, and I had to compare the two and I was in competition with Sioux Falls, I’d probably lean toward Sioux Falls. Please keep that in mind. We’re in competition with Sioux Falls.”

P&Z Commissioner Tim Jorgenson favors making changes to the level of design effort.

“I would vote for doing anything that’s less bulky up front,” he said.

Commissioner Brian Heidbrink also sympathizes with the request.

“To get 50, 60 percent through the design process before you get to your second review, if something has to change, there’s a lot of redesign required, so it’s nice to catch that earlier rather than having to do a lot of redesign effort,” he said.

“Especially, if you’re putting in 60 percent of the costs upfront, who’s going to develop a plan (not knowing if we’ll say yes or no),” Jorgenson adds. “Or if we have a room full of people complaining because they don’t want it done in their neighborhood, that’s happened. It seems like a tremendous waste of money.”

Sanow added that making changes to the process would take some time.

“I certainly just don’t want to take what we want out of the preliminary plan and just move it over to the DEP,” he said. 

Parsons acknowledged the time-consuming endeavor. 

“We’re all in favor of that,” he said. “Under the current system, by the time we bought the property, got our plans in order and are going through the current process, it delayed us by at least two months. We were hoping to have the ground broke to sell, now it will be after the first of the year.”