Welcome aboard newbie!
Welcome to my humble "office," or rather, my cube. It's not plush or posh by any means, it's not supposed to be for the rookie planner. The biggest perk is the view out the window of the fire house across from the parking lot. Fire house = fire men. Since I'm still learning how to read and speak the wonderful language of municipal code, my day generally goes something like this:
8:00am - Pull into the small ass parking lot in the front so that nobody knows that I've arrived. Nonchcalantly acknowledge the Public Works Manager who is also hiding on the side of the building to accomodate his morning tobacco fix.
8:05am - Log on and pretend to check email. Sadly I don't have much because permit applicants are still being directed to the admin. assistant.
8:09am - Continue examining the boundary line adjustment site plan that someone slapped on my desk yesterday at 4:45pm and measure lot widths with an architect scale. The engineer scale is still on order.
8:26am - Try not to listen to my 45-year-old coworker's ongoing story about her almost-fiance's divorce. That's right, my coworker is a homewrecker.
9:30am - Oh yay! Someone is at the permit counter. That means I get to get up from my desk and wax poetic about development regulations. This time its about tree removal. Given that this is my first encounter with the tree clearing ordinance and I am therefore 0% knowledgable, I end up approving the application and I just destroyed the native tree habitat on 192nd Ave East. Good job Ellen.
10:30am - Back to that boundary line adjustment. It turns out that I can't write a staff report or even file anything until its been reviewed by the City Engineer. Write up a routing memo to the City Engineer and walk a copy of the site plan down to his office. Whew! That was delightful 12 paces down the hall past the copy room. Now it's just two more weeks until I get the rubberstamp the site plan.
11:25am - A short plat application lands in my inbox. Look up the parcel in GIS and check the zoning. R1. That calls for a density calculation. Whip out the calculator and divide the number of units by net acreage. Answer: 0.0024. WTF does that mean? Pull out the cheat sheet that the former planner was so kind enough to leave behind.
Noon- Enjoy a frappacino to the new Nelly Furtado cd while driving around big-hilly subdivisions in an effort to "get a feel" for the community. Yep, looks pretty residential alright. Damn, got caught in a cul-de-sac.
posted by Westcoaster @ 10:43 PM
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