RANCHO SANTA FE — Rancho Santa Fe Association Interim Building Commissioner Tom Farrar discussed how the Covenant Design Review Committee (CDRC) had an uptick in reviews at the beginning of the New Year at the Jan. 5 board meeting. Farrar reported 31 reviews already in January as compared to 21 cases in December calling it an active month.
Farrar went on to say how they are focusing on the process itself and doing some modifications in an effort to create more efficiency.
“It’s not only for the Association staff, but also for the applicant members as well,” he said. “So it’s really a team effort in doing this.”
An example he shared was how in the application process there is now a request for the electronic filing of plans.
“It’s pretty nice to have that electronically so we have that in the computer system in the database, and whenever we need a copy of these, we can make a copy. It’s much more efficient,” Farrar said. “It reduces the number of plans that are submitted.”
Another item Farrar proposed was researching how “noncontroversial projects” could possibly be processed on the consent calendar. With this idea, they were looking at consent items in detail, he said.
The other mention had to do with past incomplete applications.
“So these projects in the past still went before the CDRC and there was in most cases not enough information for the CDRC to render a decision on the projects. So we’re looking at that intake process very carefully and we’re looking at how we deem the application complete before we take it in,” he explained.
Farrar said the goal was to be more efficient with CDRC staff as well as the CDRC directors’ time.
The topic of fees for CDRC applications was also touched upon.
“We’re basically looking at those because they haven’t been changed over the past two-and-a-half years and perhaps some inflationary adjustments need to be made for those,” Farrar said. “That’s a study that’s going on as well and we’re going to try to bring something before the Board in February.”
For the planning department, Farrar reported community-wide projects to the board and members.
“You might have noticed some of the road improvements and I’m talking about the restriping throughout the Covenant. You’ll realize that there are some restriping areas on certain roads out there,” he said, noting how they are working well with the county.
Farrar said it was their goal to have all the streets in the entire Covenant restriped by the end of the year. He added that this also included looking at some of the berms.
“I know we’ve talked about the berms and letting them go too long to the asphalt curbs,” he said.
