More empty bullshit. I miss McGinn.

So the idea here is to make it so the planning department has no regular contact with citizens at all? Instead you have to relay through this permitting agency?

That seems like a terrible idea for everyone other than smug planners who are tired of arguing with people who want to build things on their land.

Barn door, meet horse. I think he passed you about five years ago.

So, is the an admission that current system never really worked that well? Have the Nimbys been right about Seattle government the whole time?

This one sure likes to shuffle the deck chairs. He's doing the same thing with city IT.

My prediction? Give it seven years and we'll be back where we started.

He's directly addressing the issues that we all complain about on Slog. How is that a bad thing?

If you get/have the infrastructure then you get the density, If you don't get/have the infrastructure then you get the density.

Do I get the job?

This change is not adding a new layer of City government. Concerning land use and development matters, it's just separating planning from implementation (permitting, code enforcement, etc.), and that's a good thing. Review of old City org charts will show something similar back in the 1970's.

It's possible this may streamline things. I have audited government agencies (local and state) for close to a decade and sometimes this type of thing will work by specializing the departments.

The idea that change is bad and any changes to the government structure is just adding layers is the similar to the dumb idea that a government should operate on the same budget it did 10-20 years ago.

The sad truth is this will be influenced more by whoever the replacement is, the tone at the top makes a huge difference in performance.

And each NEW department will require the same budget as DPD and be half as responsive. Fuck off, Murray, you ignorant twat.

What a joke. What Murry needs to do it is appoint a whole lot of people who make $100,000 a year to do the job that was already being done ineffectively by half the amount of people and raise taxes to pay for it. After all I have been in that permitting office multiple times and NO ONE IS EVERY WORKING. They make the DMV look energetic.

Oh wait, that is exactly what he is currently doing. Touche Mayor Murry you win this round.

The practical result of rearranging the deck chairs is that the city will know where to sit, and citizens will have to scramble to reorient. This was also a means to get rid of the head of DPD without being accused of discrimination or some other political motivation to do so. Creating and restructuring new agencies is a way to get more yes-people in charge faster. We will get better and faster implementation of poor decisions.

The idea is that while planning for new buildings, the city also plans for new parks, bus stops, sidewalks, schools, etc. is called CONCURRENCY as described in the Growth Management Act of 1990. The GMA alows local jurisdictions to actually CHARGE DEVELOPERS MONEY for the impacts of growth on public infrastructure, but in all these long years since the GMA passed Seattle has failed to do that. Only recently has Seattle begin talking about "linkage fees" as a way to require developers to replace some of the affordable housing they destroy when they knock buildings down and replace them with shiny, high end apartments. Heaven forbid developers should pay for ALL of the impacts of growth. Instead, existing residents are hit up while developers walk off with huge bags of money. Yesler "Village" being one of the more egregious examples of this thievery in which the low income apartments that were in Yesler Terrace are being merely replaced (in some cases, years after their destruction), and thousands of new, mostly high end apartments, condos and hotel units are being built in their place without any impact fees whatsoever. To add insult to injury, this new SLU style neighborhood will be owned by private corporations instead of the pubic, under the auspicies of the developer-cowed and inept Seattle Housing Authority.

I predict Murray's new uber planning office will do little more than cause Yesler Villages to bloom all over the city, and average working people will foot the bill for theft from their own pockets.

I miss DCLU.

He's not rearranging the deck chairs, he's adding more chairs. That's even worse.