Council Backs Culture Shift In Business Review Process

Leesburg Town Council members delivered a message of solid support for Town Manager John Wells and town staff last week regarding a package of land development review improvement initiatives proposed by Wells.

During last week's work session, council members unanimously endorsed the steps Wells and town staff are taking to address concerns about the town's land development process and its interaction with businesses seeking to move to town.

Council members endorsed a resolution, drafted by council member Kevin Wright, during Wednesday's meeting that supports the course of action taken to streamline the approval process and "improve the overall customer service climate by working to establish an organizational culture that promotes project ownership and balanced development." The resolution calls for "a culture that emphasizes getting projects built" in a timely and efficient manner.

Last month, Pennsylvania-based Wolf Furniture announced plans to sell the Fort Evans Road lot where it had planned to open a 70,000-square-foot furniture showroom. In a conversation last month, company president J. Douglas Wolf expressed dismay with the "indefinite timetable" of the approval process.

Some of the steps taken by town staff include creating a manager for each project to assist developers or landowners as well as providing consolidated comments to developers on a single document citing relevant sources, such as the Town Code, a town ordinance or the Design Construction Standards Manual.

Wells said that the assignment of a project manager, along with streamlined comments, will "simplify the communication between the project owner and the town."

"This will give them one point of contact," Wells said, adding that the project manager will be able to see if any town staff comments are in conflict with each other and be able to resolve them or give guidance. "That way the project owner doesn't have to guess what's the right answer."

Wright said the intention of a council resolution was merely to "capture what the town is doing."

"The hope is to get out there that we're actually doing something," Wright said. "This captures the will and intent of the overall council."

Karen Jones, vice chairman of the Economic Development Commission, said the resolution is the "culmination of five years of work" by many people, including the EDC, town staff and Leesburg Crossroads.

"For the last several years, we've been doing information gathering and trying to get a handle on what the concerns are [about the land development process]", Jones said. "It's one of those things that's hard to get your arms around. There is no one answer, no one ordinance, no one issue that is the problem."

But Jones emphasized that communication in the land development process needed to be addressed.

"The communication process has got to be opened up," Jones said. "It's going to take a lot of work on the part of a lot of people."

The land development process improvements will also call for quarterly updates to be given to council members on the development process. According to the resolution, the reports will include new initiatives and a summary of lessons learned, as well as updates on the approval status of projects in the site plan review process.

Wells said he sees council involvement in the process as a "positive aspect."

"It's important to keep council members up to date," Wells said. "[The quarterly reports] keeps them up to speed as to the town's workload and what projects are moving forward."

Council member Kelly Burk cautioned that council members needed to provide a leadership aspect, yet continue to let town staff do its job.

"I'm concerned we're getting to the point that we're trying to micro-manage," Burk said. "I don't want to get to the point where we're a part of staff."

Wright echoed those sentiments, noting that council members "direct and [town staff] drives."

The EDC's Business Process Task Force will be making a presentation to town council at its meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 27, which, according to Jones, will be a "progress report" of the town's and EDC's efforts to improve the land development process over the last four to five years.