Week 5: The WTF Moments

Unlike last week, the work I did this week was far more substantive and required my full mental engagement. Between myself, Jeffrey, and Aaron (the two temporary planning consultants), we plowed through stacks of applications and were able to issue approvals for several staff-level inquiries. One troublesome application was for a property which received an approval for a new construction earlier this year and the owner had requested a Minor Modification to the plan (the Minor Mod is needed any time the architect must deviate from originally approved plans). The Minor Mod stated that they were simply adding an outdoor cook center in the yard, but when I reviewed the plans, they had added a bocce court, putting green, new driveway, and recongfigured the pool. These were well beyond the scope of work and it took me quite a while to review the issues with the architect. But this was only a side concern–my two main tasks this week were more intensive.

The first main concern was for a property which had seen a lot of visits by PVE staff over the last four years. The background: in PV Estates, private construction and improvements are required to go through a review by the city to assess the development’s potential impacts on the neighborhood. However, if the proposed development is less than 1000 square feet in additions (plus other restrictions), then the project is exempted from the neighborhood compatibility process and can be approved ministerially by planning staff. Some residents will deliberately design their projects to purposely avoid triggering a neighborhood compatibility review because the process can be drawn out and expensive if neighbors object to the development. This project was one such case. Since 2014, this owner managed to double the size of his house from 2000 to 4000 square feet without EVER having gone through the review–he did his addition piecemeal, submitting smaller applications every few months for additions that were small enough to be approved by staff. We caught him again last week submitting another proposal for another 600 square foot addition, so I sat down with the City Attorney and Director of Public Works to see if there was any technicality we could use to get this guy to go through neighborhood compatibility.

I identified a section of the municipal code which would require a project to go through neighborhood compatibility if the cumulative square footage of previous additions exceeded 1000 square feet, within the past 24 months. But when we did the math, since August 2016 the cumulative additions were 995 square feet. He barely squeaked by YET AGAIN. It was definitely a “WTF” moment because it seemed so unfair to the neighbors.

My second WTF moment came when I was reviewing applications for wireless facilities on the peninsula. It was also a teaching moment about trait theories of leadership, specifically about extroversion and being straightforward with my coworkers. In planning, a WTF is a Wireless Telecommunications Facility (a cell phone tower). Last year, AT&T submitted many applications to PVE, and they were approved. However, some of them needed small repairs, which we processed using the WTF equivalent of a Minor Modification application. I wrote on a post-it note, “Aaron–this is a WTF version of a Minor Mod, missing west elevation and deviation from approved height.” I gave him the application with the note because he asked to review the ones with errors. Immediately he came back on the verge of some mix of laughter and anger. He asked me, “Why did you write WTF on this post-it? I can’t leave this in the file!” I bursted out laughing and told him that my acronym wasn’t profane, it was the technical term for the site. He looked at the note, then at the top of the file, then back at me, and we both started laughing. He told me that it struck him as especially funny because when he had been a planning intern, he had used the exact same abbreviation, and a superior had chastised him the same way he’d chastised me, accidentally forgetting the acronym. He said he felt he’d come full circle and that it was good that we were both extroverted people with a healthy sense of humor. That’s what I appreciate about Aaron, he’s an extrovert with a great sense of humor and he’s not afraid to confront me or talk to me. These skills are essential in leadership because you can’t lead if you can’t get your message across.