Planning & Building Department
This report will serve as a brief summary of the 2023 calendar year for the Plan Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Building Commission, and all other activities related to the City's Planning and Building Department. This report will review the current status of the staff's 2023 goals, summarize all the different petitions heard by the Plan Commission and BZA, provide a review of the code enforcement activities for the year, give a brief synopsis of the development trends, and establish the staff's goals for the upcoming year.
Executive Summary
The City of Shelbyville’s Planning and Building Department (PABD) serves as the main professional, technical, and administrative staff for the City’s Plan Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Technical Review Committee, Architectural Control Committees, and Building Commission, and serves alongside other city departments to facilitate the responsibilities and needs of the city’s Board of Public Works and Safety, Common Council, and Mayor’s Office. The PABD staff works to advise these boards and commissions on the decisions they are tasked with making, and performs the day-to-day operations of these boards and commissions to ensure responsive and responsible development throughout the community. The day-to-day tasks include, but are not limited to; plan review for compliance with the UDO, code enforcement, permit review and processing, inspections, floodplain administration, and grant writing/administration.
Some of the major projects and milestones accomplished by the PABD staff include:
Working with other departments and community organizations to facilitate organizing and permitting the second full event season of the new Public Square. The inaugural event season included Wine Walk, Brew Fest, Taste of Shelby County, Cornstalk, Mistletoe Market, and the weekly Farmers Markets.
Reviewing and approving (3) Extra-territorial Jurisdiction areas.
Permitting and inspecting the construction of new single family homes, duplexes, and multi-family residential.
Facilitating the review and approval of construction documents for XX sections of new residential developments.
Overseeing all permits pulled for new residential construction, including apartments, duplexes and mobile homes; in total there were 65 new housing units permitted in 2023.
Working with non-profit partners on residential infill development projects throughout Shelbyville, including both rental and owner-occupied.
Throughout the year, the PABD staff interacts thousands of times with citizens, business owners, developers, and more to assist each individual or project team with the solution to their specific project or question. This annual report works to highlight some of those interactions, and the impact of these projects on our community.
Brief Review of 2023
In the 2023 calendar year, the Shelbyville Plan Commission heard (18) petitions and the Shelbyville Board of Zoning Appeals heard (16) petitions on a wide variety of projects; several of the petitions involving both groups. The petitions heard in 2023 were handled in a thorough and efficient manner. The Annual Report serves as a review of these petitions heard by the Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals along with a review of the goals established by the PABD staff in 2023 and a summary of the work completed in 2023.
2023 Department Goals
In last year’s report, the PADB staff developed goals for 2023. These goals included both procedural improvements to the day-to-day operations of the department and long-range planning goals that help guide the department, the commissions and boards and the community’s elected officials and other decision makers. Here is a review of the 2023 goals:
1.
Continue working on modernizing the department and bringing department's services into an online format that is readily accessible.
This year, finished migrating all of our data, from numerous different sources, to the new Citizenserve platform. This process including working with numerous datasets, from multiple different platforms, ranging over the last 20+ years, and consolidating it into a single dataset that can be easily accessed and reviewed in a simple online format. This was also the final step to begin using this system full-time internally, so our staff had begun processing and issuing permits through this new platform. As we work to iron out the last of the bugs in the system, we plan to slowly activate many of the public-facing features. This process will conclude with a fully digitized office where members of the public can access most of our services 24 hours a day, from any device with an internet connection, providing increased access and transparency.
Citizenserve logo
2.
Continue to participate in educational trainings to stay on top of current trends in the industry, gain enhanced understanding of job responsibilities, and continue to build the PABD team competencies.
This year our staff attended and participated in more educational opportunities than in years past thanks to an increased budget for these activities from the Common Council. Staff have been able to attend local, regional, state, and even national level conferences, and this year we were able to place a larger focus on trainings relating to the building trades and building codes. Some members of the staff also had the opportunity to present at some of these conferences, showcasing the work being completed here in Shelbyville to a much larger audience.
PABD Staff participating in a "hand-on" training at the APA National Planning Conference in San Diego, CA
3.
Amend, formalize and implement Building Department policies and procedures to ensure consistency with state regulations.
This year, the department began working with the Building Commission and an outside consultant to begin the process of formalizing the policies and procedures we already follow, as well as develop new policies to prepare the department for the future. This will result in a series of proposed amendments to the Ordinances to reflect industry best-practices, and a Standard Operating Procedures Manual for the department that primarily focuses on the enforcement of the building code.
4.
Continue to provide learning opportunities for residents, tradesmen, and developers on new and existing services at the City of Shelbyville.
Many aspects of this goal did not come to fruition, but will be carried over into 2024. The desire was to develop new educational materials based on the new Citizenserve system and the newly updated policies and procedures for the Building Department, but those two tasks weren't fully completed in 2023.
We have continued to periodically update our department's website to provide more updated information and documents for citizens and developers alike.
5.
Continue implementing the best practices of the planning and development industries by amending relevant sections of the UDO to remain competitive with peer communities.
In 2023, the department implemented and began enforcing the new subdivision standards that allowed for more streamlined reviews and approvals. These amendments also provided the Plan Commission with the opportunity to establish a Plat Committee that would hear smaller plat requests, allowing these petitions to move through the approval process faster. Finally, these amendments established a new process for administrative plats, where very minimal impacts were to occur and they could be approved in a matter of days instead of months.
6.
Streamline applications and internal processes to make the Department more competitive and align with neighboring communities.
As mentioned above, the department began the final stage of implementing the Citizenserve platform, which has provided a more streamlined approach to reviewing and processing applications. In addition to this work, the department also began the process of reviewing and updating all of the Building related processes and procedures to modernize this portion of the department while also formalizing some of the procedures that have been informally adopted over the years.
7.
Continue to partner with Shelby County Development Corporation, Main Street Shelbyville, The Blue River Community Foundation, and the Shelby County Chamber of Commerce to make Shelbyville the first choice for investing, living, and working, with an emphasis on quality of life.
Our department worked regularly throughout the year to maintain a constant connection with these organizations, so we could determine how best to partner with them on different projects and initiatives. The most notable of these partnerships is our office's work to manage the formal approvals and coordination for the events organized by Mainstreet and Shelby County Tourism. In addition, our department has also worked with the Shelby County Development Corporation to submit the necessary information to potential economic development prospects that are considering an investment in Shelbyville.
8.
Continue to work with Shelby County to finalize the Extra-territorial Jurisdiction agreement to ensure seamless planning and growth across the community.
In 2023, we complete public hearings and the zoning classifications for ETJ Area 3 and conducted the public hearings for Area 4. After completing ETJ Area 3, we took some time to review the way that we were conducting these hearings and moving forward with this project after hearing a large amount of concern during this case. From that review and based on the concern and feedback we heard from the public, we instituted a much slower, more information-forward process that provides the public with more opportunities for input.
In total there are 7 ETJ Areas, and in early 2024, we will begin the process for Area 5, with the goal being to complete the remaining Areas in 2024.
9.
Collect data and do inventory studies of the City's assets to allow for better data driven decision making.
In 2023, we spent some time in the summer updating older GIS data regarding EMCs, while also collecting new data to make enforcement of our ordinances easier and more accurate. We also developed new mapping tools to improve the speed and accuracy involved in reviewing residential building permits in different development which all have different standards and requirements.
