April, 2019

Inside PDD

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

New Employees ....................... 2

Building Safety Month ............ 3

Events ...................................... 4

Minimum Wage ...................... 5

ProjectDox ............................... 6

TOD South-Central ................. 7

ShapePHX ............................... 8

Inspections……………….…….9-10

Historic Preservation…...…11-12

SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST

• Win your dog’s DREAM

HOME

• Inspectors Win Excellence

Award!

A message from Director Alan Stephenson

First, thank you for a great first quarter. The second

quarter is looking to be as busy as the first and that

is great news for our city and the department. The

development activity and trends both commercial and residen-

tial are expected to continue throughout the year.

Despite being so busy, staff has risen to the occasion with great

customers service . Our Inspections team completes 97-99 per-

cent of their inspections with in the target turnaround time and

our average wait time on the 2nd floor counters is down to 10

minutes.

As you know, City Council approved more positions for PDD

and we are working steadily to get those positions filled which

will help ease the workloads and enhance customer service.

We have some fun events coming up this quarter, including

Building Safety Month, Historic Preservation Month, and in

June, the ERC will host their summer event.

My door is always open. Have a great Spring and let’s ROCK this

next quarter.

Alan Stephenson

Director, Planning and Development

NEW EMPLOYEES

KUDOS!

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Angel Guerrero

Inspections Tanya Castro

Plan Review

Wendy Turner

Planning

David Amiri

Plan Review

Benjamin

Carr

Joe Ott

Plan Review

Kim Steadman

Zoning

Not pictured:

John Earhart/Plan Review

Gabriel Perez/Inspections

Donald Gerkin/Inspections

Conner Grossarth/Inspections

Quarterly Coffee Chat- November

PDD staff were recently recognized for “Doing What Matters, Every

Day, Every Customer” with a Coffee Chat invitation, an opportunity to

visit with the manager team while enjoying coffee, juice and treats.

Each staff were nominated as a result of a customer taking the extra

time to write a letter, email or complete a customer survey that de-

scribes the excellent customer service provided to them.

For any questions regarding the Coffee Chat, you may contact Leah Swanton at Leah.Swanton@Phoenix.gov

BUILDING SAFETY MONTH

Building Safety Month 2019

The Planning and Development Department is gearing up for this year’s Building Safety Month activities! Each May, the Interna-tional Code Council (ICC) celebrates Building Safety Month and features different weekly themes. This year’s themes are:

Week 1 – Preparing for Disasters: Build strong, build smart

Week 2 – Ensuring a safer future through training and education

Week 3 – Ensuring clean, abundant water for all communities

Week 4 – Construction professionals and homeowners partnering in safety

Week 5 – Innovations in building safety

General Inspections Field Supervisor Don Councilor is chairing Building Safety Month 2019 and his goal is to make it doggone awesome! Throughout the month of May, different displays will be featured on the first floor of Phoenix City Hall. As a master car-penter, Don will be crafting a life-sized dog house to highlight how to build strong and build smart. The dog house will be the perfect structure to pamper any pup. It will be fully insulated, have a pitched roof and comfy covered front porch. The dog house will stand about four feet tall to accommodate any pup from Great Dane to Miniature Pincher! Home Depot has partnered with ICC on Building Safety Month his year and has agreed to donate all the supplies.

There will be a drawing for the dog house on May 29th at 2:00 p.m. with all proceeds going to the Planning and Development Department’s Employee Recognition Committee. Tickets are only $5 each. The committee is also planning its annual Salsa Contest to see which PDD staff member has the best salsa!

Other Building Safety Month displays will focus on different as-pects of building safety. For example, the display for week three will feature leak shut off valves. Additionally, PDD’s Public Infor-mation Officer Angie Holdsworth is producing custom videos for each week! Be sure to stop by to check them out! Historic Preser-vation Month is also celebrated in May and will be highlighted with displays and videos as well.

A big thanks to the entire Building Safety Month committee: Plan-ner III Liz Wilson, Structural Plans Engineer Ed Lyscas, General Inspections Field Supervisor John Baxter, Structural Plans Engi-neer, John-Jozef (JJ) Proczka, General Inspections Team Leader Mike Grubbs and, as previously mentioned, this year’s chairman, General Inspections Field Supervisor Don Councilor.

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The Building Safety Month dog house will be similar to the one in the photo above. Fire hy-drant not included.

Each year at this time, we receive questions regarding “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work” day, which is scheduled nationally on Thursday, April 25. Because of the impact that student absences have on our local schools, school districts often request that parents and businesses delay their partici-pation in this event to an alternate date in the summer rather than participat-ing on April 25.

I strongly urge you to notify employees that the City supports scheduling “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work” day on the following alternate date: Thursday, June 13.

Even if you do not have coordinated events planned in your department, please get this message out to your employees as soon as possible. We under-stand that many employees have participated in this program in the past with the approval of their immediate supervisor.

If you have any questions, please contact Sue Schoenfeld in the Human Re-sources Department at 534-3943.

TAKE YOUR KIDS TO WORK DAY:

JUNE 13

EVENTS

The Phoenix City Council unanimously approved a starting full-time wage of $15.00/hour for all current and new full-time City of Phoenix employees. Effec-tive May 6, 2019, the City will adjust the hourly rates of affected employees to the step in their pay grade closest to, but not lower than, the City’s new minimum rate. This change will be reflected in the May 24 paycheck.

Contact your supervisor or HR repre-sentative with questions.

MINIMUM WAGE

EVENTS CONT.

Over the past year, HR and PDD staff have been working together to update several department pol-icies (DPs). This exercise is meant to both streamline DPs that may be unnecessary due to City Ad-ministrative Regulations (ARs) and to ensure the DPs provide the most effective and relevant guid-ance.

The attached Managed Alternative Work Schedules (MAWS) Policy has been revised and is now available for your use. Please read and review the policy and contact Karen Truesdale with question on City rules and regulations.

http://insidephx/depts/pdd/Docs/Managed_Alt_Work_Schd%20March%202019.pdf

Karen N. Truesdale, PHR, SHRM-CP

Human Resources Officer

Shared Services

Direct 602.262.4651

Fax 602.256.3451

Karen.truesdale@phoenix.gov

We have had a high level of inquires regarding the EPR

team’s new search engine ProjectDox. The diagram to the

right shows basic steps. Do not use the

“search” icon or the magnifying glass icon. There is no

long an overall search engine.

The Electronic Plan Review (EPR) program ProjectDox

will updated in the near future. Check back soon for up-

dates on when that will take place.

New ProjectDox features will include:

• New Home Page

• New Navigation Buttons

• New Grid View Configuration

• New Uploader

• New Viewer Updates

•

View the following document to see what's new in Pro-

jectDox 9.1:

Click here for the ProjectDox 9.1 new features. Contact the EPR Triage Team at 602-534-5933 or epr.support@phoenix.gov with questions.

HR UPDATE

C O M M U N I T Y G A T H E R S T O E N V I S I O N F U T U R E F O R S O U T H C E N T R A L C O M M U N I T Y

Workshops on March 4th and March 9th kicked off the first of what will be sever-al outreach events for planning the South Central Corridor. They were hosted by the Transit-Oriented (TOD) Business Assistance and Land Use Planning Grant Team and Planning and Development’s Long Range Planning Team. Two more are scheduled for May.

The purpose of the workshops is to gather community feedback, goals and aspirations for the South Central Corridor and build upon existing community values and previous planning efforts while providing an environ-ment where community voices could come together and shape a vibrant inclusive future for their neighbor-hoods.

Both workshops were conducted in English and Spanish, capturing a variety of multi-generational, cross-

cultural, varied economic community member stories, current concerns and hopes for the future.

The TOD project continues with an educational campaign as well as a second round of workshops to be held

on May 6th and May 11th, confirming the community’s input and celebrating history and heritage with a family-

friendly event at South Mountain Community Center at 212 E. Alta Vista Road. Visit phoenix.gov/pdd/tod/

south-central or tod.phx.org for more information.

About the South Central Transit-Oriented Development Business Assistance and Land-Use Grant Plan-ning Process: The City of Phoenix was awarded a federal grant to engage the community, provide early action busi-ness assistance along the light rail extension and long-range planning for the community. The scope of work covered by the grant covers the South Central Corridor (with planning boundaries from Jefferson Street to South Mountain Avenue and 7th Avenue to 7th street and business assistance boundaries from Van Buren to South Mountain Avenue and 3rd Street to 3rd Avenue).

Community Outreach: Promise Arizona is actively engaging residents and organizations within the project bound-ary to listen, ask and answer questions, connect and inspire a strong network of community members. Friendly House is supporting Promise Arizona in this outreach.

Business Assistance: Local First AZ and Hustle PHX, has inventoried the businesses in the corridor and is working with owners to assess needs prior to light rail construction and provide a business assistance plan prior to construction of light rail.

TOD Planning: Gould Evans is leading the planning efforts and is documenting community needs, input and aspira-tion for the future. Center for Neighborhood Technology is assisting in research on affordability strategies that will factor into an equitable transit-oriented plan. Wilson and Company and J2 Landscape are also providing consulting on engineering aspects.

TRANSIT ORIENTED DISTRICT PLANNING

SHAPE PHX Project Update

The RFP evaluation panel is currently reviewing vendor proposals. The next step is for vendor demonstrations with the Best and Final Offer (BAFO) step remaining. The current project schedule still anticipates a vendor to be in place by this fall.

The SHAPE PHX team and experts from the PDD divisions are continuing to work on the Business Process Maps (BPM). It is an exercise to analyze and document our current PDD business processes and applications for the entire workflow of the process-from application to final inspection. Through a team effort involving all levels of staff, we have been able to consolidate the number of BPMs from 103 pro-cesses down to approximately 60.

Consolidation of business process maps is done to combine the workflow process-es that are similar reduce redundancy and create a more user-friendly experience moving forward. An example of this would be that under the Civil Engineering sec-tion, both in Plan Review and Inspections. There are many disciplines that may be applicable on a project. Rather than having many separate review processes, cur-rently up to 10 or more, we are examining combining them into one workflow pro-cess that results in the desired outputs. It could potentially be managed by a new system with capabilities for permitting, project tracking, and reporting that far ex-ceeds our current system. It may ultimately make the entire process flow easier and more smoothly. With the assistance of our consultants at Gartner, we initially identified 23 of the more complicated processes and mapped them at a Level 1 stage. Level 1 stage should examine the process from a very high level with mini-mal description of the workflow steps while the Level 2 stage goes into greater de-tail with more specific information for each step in the workflow.

ShapePHX team members present updates to the supervisors’ quarterly meet-

The three-day Pot of Gold Music Festival was held Friday, March 15 to Sunday, March 17 at Steele Indian School Park. This was the event’s fifth year and the musical line-up fea-tured Lil Wayne, Post Malone, Snoop Dog, Ice Cube, Ozuna – and many others!

Planning meetings started taking place in November 2018 to ensure a safe event. The coordination definitely went down to the wire with permitting and inspections. Permits were issued on Wednesday, March 13th with inspections up until the gates opened at 3:00 p.m. on Friday the 15th.

Structures for the event included a raised VIP viewing deck and a site-built performance stage. There were more than 20 electric generators on site to inspect. The event included an amusement ride section, an artist compound, three per-formance stage areas and many vendor tents.

The coordination for the music festival was managed by the City’s Major Special Events Committee made up of representatives from all involved departments. Considering street closures, police and fire support, light rail travel, refuge resource collection and coor-dination between Zoning, Neighborhood Services, Planning and Development, Parks and oversight from the Phoenix Convention Center, it was easy to see that it takes all hands on-deck to accomplish such an event.

Including tax and fees, single day general admission tickets were priced at $170.00 each. Advance ticket sales indicated that attendance may have been be lower than the original estimate of 15,000 per day, but the event received very pos-itive reviews!

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POT OF GOLD MUSIC FESTIVAL

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NEW PDD WEBSITE TO LAUNCH

Over the past several months, Planning and Development staff have been working on

redesigning our website to help customers more easily navigate and find what they

are looking for quicker. We looked at extensive data to identify the most heavily used

pages and create the paths to minimize time spent searching online. It will feature

drop down menus and tools to help you fast track your project.

The new site will launch between April 15th and May 1.

City of Phoenix Employee Excellence Award – El Prado Pool Arson Restoration

Congratulations to Electrical Inspector II*Ind/PR Jim Kruse, Plumbing/Mechanical Inspector II*Ind/PR Bill Bradley, Structural Inspector II*Ind/PR Dale McKendrick and Structural Inspector II*Ind/PR Adam Sessions for being awarded the City’s Employee Excellence Award! The team won for their assistance with the El Prado Pool Arson Res-toration project. Just before summer 2018, transi-ents broke into the facility and set it on fire. The facility was almost completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt in time for the summer swimming sea-son. Jim, Bill, Dale and Adam made sure that the plan review and inspection process was timely and seamless. Their work ensured that the facility was open in time for residents to enjoy the full swim-ming season! The Excellence Awards Ceremony is scheduled for April 18th at the Phoenix Conven-tion Center. Each inspector will receive a plaque and eight hours of performance recognition time. Great job Jim, Bill, Dale and Adam!

CITY OF PHOENIX EMPLOYEE EXCELLENCE AWARD

Adam Sessions, Jim Kruse and Bill Bradley –

not pictured Dale McKendrick

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

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In 2018 Park Lee Alice Apartments was listed on the Phoenix Historic Property Register. It is the city’s first multifamily historic district. Park Lee Al-ice exemplifies the garden apartment property type. It is also significant for its association with two different Federal Housing Administration (FHA) programs, with associated standards and guide-lines that are reflected in the site layout and build-ing design.

At the time it was completed in 1955, Park Lee Al-ice was the largest apartment complex in the state with 523 apartments in 34 1- and 2-story buildings spread over nearly 40 acres. Unique to Park Lee Alice – in 1955 and still today – is its own 3+ acre park. The park has a clubhouse, on-site child care and laundry facilities, and numerous recreational amenities. An adjacent shopping center was also built by the original developers as an additional convenience for complex residents.

Park Lee Alice is located south of Camelback Road, bounded by 15th and 17th Avenues on the east and west, and Pierson and Hazelwood Streets to the north and south. Developers Sam and Jerry Bialac, from Los Angeles, leveraged most of the $5 million development costs with FHA Section 207 mortgage insurance. The Section 207 program was specifically created to promote construction of affordable rental apartments.

Sam named the project after his wife Lee and his daughter Alice. The Bialacs hired local architect Ralph Haver to design a garden apartment com-plex, a property type encouraged by the FHA.

Popular in the mid-20th century, garden apartments are perfectly suited to Arizona’s climate and life-style. Their design is characterized by a park-like setting with low-slung walk-up buildings arranged to form shared courtyards and large open spaces. The emphasis on site planning, landscaping, and recreational features afforded apartment dwellers the same casual, indoor-outdoor living available to single-family homeowners.

Promotional materials for the Park Lee Alice Apart-ments in the 1950s convey an image of a clean, modern apartment community. The apartments featured brick exterior walls, picture windows, and patios and balconies that all fronted grassy land-scaped areas. The buildings were staggered,

which created corner units with more windows and fewer shared walls.

Residents of Park Lee Alice were a mix of adult singles, couples, and families with children. City directories show early residents worked in a variety of trades and professions. In 1958

Sandra Day O’Connor, who would later become the first woman appointed to the United States Su-preme Court, lived at Park Lee Alice with her hus-band John while their new adobe block home was being built in Paradise Valley.

In 1966, the Bialacs sold Park Lee Alice to Harsh Building Company of Portland, Oregon. Harsh planned to convert the apartments to condomini-ums to be sold under a new FHA program. They completed an extensive remodel, and a dressed-up Park Lee Alice announced its second grand opening 11 years to the day after its first.

Perhaps the most dramatic physical change made by Harsh involved giving the entire development a new look in anticipation of its conversion and sale as condominiums. “Old French New Orleans” em-bellishments were added to the buildings, including Mansard roof parapets, scrolled metal porch posts and railings, along with applied Neoclassical detail-ing in the porch canopies, columns, pediments, and entryway pilasters. Other improvements made by Harsh included adding a second swimming pool, tennis courts, and community club house to the park. Architect for the remodel was William Hirsch AIA of Allen Shaw Associates of Los Ange-les, CA.

The condo conversion plan was unsuccessful and the development continued as a rental. Along with the sale to Harsh came a series of name changes. Early ads of this period used Park Lee Alice Con-dominiums or Park Lee Alice Condominium Es-tates or Park Lee Alice Estates. By the late 1960s, “Alice” was dropped and by the 1980s, the name was fixed as Park Lee Apartments.

PARK LEE APARTMENTS

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

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By 2009, the once-thriving Park Lee Alice had fallen on hard times. Only 10 per-cent of the apartments were occupied. Squatters had moved into vacant units. Buildings were extensively damaged by prior tenants and vandalism. Many ma-ture trees and shrubs were stressed or dead. Drugs, crime and graffiti had turned Park Lee Alice into one of the city’s largest blighted communities.

It was foreclosed by HUD and in 2009 purchased by the City of Phoenix Hous-ing Department. Using federal funds and loans, the city invested over $18 million to acquire and rehabilitate the property and reopened it in 2011. Park Lee Alice continues to provide affordable rental housing.

Opening day ad, Arizona Re-

public July 24, 1955

Ralph Haver’s site plan

PARK LEE APARTMENTS CONT.

Arizona Republic June 19, 1955

HISTORIC PRESERVATION MONTH!!!

SAVE THE DATE!!

Along with Building Safety Month, the month of May is also Historic Preservation Month!

We will be celebrating Phoenix’s historic buildings that have been adapted for reuse!

Stay tuned for videos and social media posts showing off some of these amazing projects.

Also, May 9th a celebration will be held at Arizona Puppet Theater. There will be food an

prizes and a lot of fun!