Meet the Planners

So I didn't actually find out much about my upcoming work yesterday but I did meet several planners at Maricopa County's Planning and Development office. First off, the fact that the county has a planning department seems pretty unusual to me since I've only heard about cities having them.  Second- their office is huge. Over 100 employees. This seems insanely large compared to what I'm used to in Iowa City, which has about 4 or 5 planners. Obviously Phoenix is a bigger place though.

The person I met with first was the previous intern at Flood Control who had gotten snapped up by the planning department after she spent some time there. She showed me the new PlanNet system they use, which is sort of a pared down version of Arc Map. She also showed me what she does most often, which is research and process permit applications. She has a case load of around 40 or 50 permits, many of which were passed on from other planners. So, realistically, she has not had time to open them all yet.

Next, I talked to the head planner, who explained that, in contrast to the city planning department which has "home-rule", meaning they can make regulations and undertake projects limited only to those they are legally barred from, the county is limited to do only what they are legally allowed to do. The county doesn't do many pro-active redevelopment projects, they mainly process land use permits. However, they do have a Comprehensive Plan which I need to look through.

When I talked to some of the other planners, including a new guy from the Bay Area who got his degree here, some of the issues they mentioned the most were cell phone tower application from telecoms and applications for group homes. The telecom companies are finding it harder to find places for their antennas, though it is lucrative for the property owner. Rural areas apparently don't like them much and urban sites constrain their antenna size. As far as the group homes, the use allows mental health issues and elderly but they don't classify facilities that house developmentally disables persons the same way and that use requires a more expensive permit. Consequently, applicants try to fool the planners into giving them permits for group homes when they really plan to have developmentally disabled people. Kinda disturbing!

I wish there was a planning department of this size near me- good for jobs after graduation!