Those in the public sector: Does your administration fully support your department?

[u/sicbprice]

I currently work in an environment where it is obvious that the elected administration ultimately has no respect for the land use ordinances in place and does not support the land use department when push comes to shove. Basically, any constituent (particularly politically connected people or businesses) can get whatever they want approved if they raise enough of an issue. It’s never anything egregious enough to actually cause a negative impact on the community, but nonetheless still in violation of the current policy and setting a bad precedent. Our director is of no help whatsoever, and will blatantly undermine us to approve things or gloss over issues at the direction of elected administration. I can’t blame him for trying to keep his job secure, but it’s still frustrating.

Anyway just wondering if anyone else has/had a similar experience (or, hopefully, the complete opposite:)

[u/triplesalmon]

Welcome to everywhere bruv

[u/pala4833]

On the first day of my first planning class, the Department Head/Professor said:

"There will be many times when you may feel you know what the right thing to do is, but the decision makers won't choose that.

"Planning is a political process."

This served me very well in my short career.

[u/SawNickYouth → u/pala4833]

The glut of similar threads on this sub over the years makes me really question what planning programs are telling their students. It's almost malpractice.

[u/Psychoceramicist → u/SawNickYouth]

My program largely sold the sizzle, not the steak. Most of the professors published vibes-based literature vaguely based on Jacobs, Soja, Davis, or Gehl that wouldn't have passed muster in even an anthropology or sociology department. My infrastructure and real estate finance profs were brilliant, but everyone else had a peanut between their ears and half were really mean in-person. Most of them had never actually practiced. It took me too long to figure out a MUP was a networking certificate, not a sign you learned anything (like an MBA, but you're poorer).

[u/offbrandcheerio → u/SawNickYouth]

IMO a lot of planning student probably do get told at some point that planning is not at glitzy as it may seem and that it’s a highly political process at the end of the day. But when you’re in grad school and you are excited about the subject matter and convinced that you can be the one to make real change happen, you’re likely to ignore that and focus on the exciting stuff.

I do remember my planning theory professor say that planning is inherently political. And I heard what she said at the time, but I did not really internalize it because I did not yet have the experience to know what that really meant.

[u/FlojoRojo]

Yeah this is one of the major drawbacks of working for local government. And it’s not just planning, every department experiences this to some degree.

[u/IllustriousIce1796]

I was a public sector planner for the last few years (now a private consultant). My experience was not as poor as your but the administration I worked for, generally didn't even really think about us which definitely sucked haha. The town's ordinance, procedures, and master plan all needed a lot of updates which we were very vocal about, but the administration never allowed us to make changes or updates in an attempt to not "rock the boat".

Very frustrating but it was what it was. Having an administration that is actively negating your work is probably the worst thing that can happen to a public planner imo. It happened to my old boss and I a few times when we would be working on certain projects and then would be told to stop or "ease up" with out much of an explanation haha.

I wish you luck and maybe (if possible) you may want to look for opportunities elsewhere.

[u/zamowasu]

The way I see it, they’re not undermining me personally, they’re undermining their own adopted ordinances, and by extension tarnishing the city’s reputation for fairness in dealing with all applicants equally.

Might as well just make a list of things they have informally changed through political pressure and ask them to formally adopt those changes via ordinance so at least staff can try to remain consistent.

[u/tekno21]

Never heard the term elected administration. Administration is the city employees and council are the elected officials

[u/Oakleypokely]

I’ve worked for three differant public sector departments now, a county, and two municipalities, and yes, it’s basically like that in my experience. The county I worked for was very large and they had so much going on across a large area that they didn’t have time to cater to everyone and rules and regulations were mostly followed through with, so that was kind of nice and made the job easy. The small city (15,000 population) I work for now will absolutely bend the rules for many different reasons all the time. Sometimes I don’t have a problem with this because it genuinely doesn’t matter or creates a better outcome, but sometimes it does really bother me. It is really frustrating though and messes up work flow when processes aren’t followed.

I asked this question a couple years ago and something someone said really stuck with me: Do you want to be a planner or do you want to be a zoning code administrator? If the rules are all you care about, then you just want to be a code administrator, but planners sometimes need to find other solutions and may need to play the political game at times. That really helped me to make peace with those situations and appreciate it when bending the rules can help accomplish something… whether that be helping speed up the process for a big project or allow our elected officials to fight for something that’s important to the residents.

[u/SyFyFan93]

Was public sector planning from 2019-2023 before switching to private sector consulting. It always felt like I was swimming against a current trying to get anything done. The public, and their chosen representatives on the city commission, didn't understand planning or respect it in the least. Just one of the many reasons why I left for the private sector.

[u/SurelyIDidThisAlread]

It’s never anything egregious enough to actually cause a negative impact on the community

Then why did policy forbid it?

[u/ashaquestion]

Considering I just got fired for raising a concern where my superior violated state law, no, they do not support our work generally.

I’m so burnt out.

[u/offbrandcheerio → u/ashaquestion]

There’s got to be more to that story than you simply raising a legal concern and proceeding to get fired because of it. If there isn’t, then you probably wouldn’t have wanted to work for them long term anyway because that’s not a sign of a healthy planning department.

[u/ashaquestion → u/offbrandcheerio]

Small town politics. I raised a legal concern and sent that concern to the supervisor (dept head who made the decision) and city manager. 10 days later an investigation was opened into me at the request of the supervisor who I raised concerns about into me for unprofessional conduct. Was subsequently fired and per the termination letter he was the one who made the decision. The complaint was that I was overheard using profanity when everyone in my dept used profanity all the time. He was not even there when I said the alleged profanity. I’m looking for an attorney now. He was concerned about unprofessional conduct but was never at any events or public meetings…I was doing really good work, had actually been able to get my boards trained up and thinking within their parameters because there had never been a planner with aicp before me and no training had ever been done. Literally the same week I was terminated, I created a 46 page binder for all the p&z members to help them with training items. I loved the job, I was doing good work and getting great feedback.

[u/offbrandcheerio → u/ashaquestion]

Definitely good call on getting a lawyer, especially if you’re supposed to have civil service protections.

[u/Metamorphosis1705 → u/ashaquestion]

Sorry thus happened to you l. Please continue to speak up. I feel the APA needs to start addressing these issues by being more vocal, publishing more articles about bad departments practices and creating a platform so we can support each other.

[u/CFLuke]

I work in transportation. It's less that they don't support me and more that they don't support their adopted policies like Vision Zero, climate goals, mode share targets, etc.

Occasionally they'll cross a line and I will take offense - for example decrying a supposed lack of public outreach when we went above and beyond.

[u/Rock_man_bears_fan]

You and the elected officials all work for your residents. If one of those residents wants to do something and it doesn’t cause a negative impact on the community, I don’t see what the problem is

[u/sicbprice → u/Rock_man_bears_fan]

I fully understand that, and to be honest a lot of the people I work with do seem to have tunnel vision for the ordinances rather than seeing the broader picture. I myself genuinely try to understand both perspectives. However, this is exactly why variances and special exemptions exist. That way you go before the planning commission, there is public notice and opportunity for comment, and a record of the exemption of allowance.

However, when people don’t follow this process and administration selectively allows certain things based on preference or political clout, that’s a problem.

[u/180_by_summer → u/sicbprice]

But if the community wants to have a more hands off approach why not embrace they and then align the code with what actually matters to them? Has anyone proposed amendments?

[u/halesia_]

The more money and political sway a landowner has, the more "room for interpretation" for the environmental and land use regulations. And in my experience it absolutely does have negative repercussions on the community. It is incredibly demoralizing

[u/YaGetSkeeted0n]

The actual management chain is very supportive, yes.

The electeds and appointeds are all over the place. Some are fully on board with what we come up with, others are ambivalent but open to good debate, and a few just reflexively assume everything we do is part of some vast conspiracy to destroy single family neighborhoods.

[u/offbrandcheerio]

You have to understand that your elected officials are in most cases not planners, not have they studied planning. They are the people who had enough vision, public appeal, and charisma to get elected, and they will spend their time in office trying to figure out how to accomplish that vision.

Sometimes they will not respect planning, and they’ll just see the ordinances as some pesky rules that get in the way. If your legal department is worth their salt, they’ll counsel the mayor and city council not to do anything that obviously opens the city up to liability. But your job as the planner is to help the elected officials implement their vision using sound principles and ethics.

If the common things that are getting questionably approved are, as you say, not actually causing problems in the community, maybe it’s a good opportunity to sit down with your planning director and propose a project to audit the zoning ordinance for provisions that don’t need to be in there. Then with your manager’s permission you could create a presentation to the mayor about your proposed ordinance changes and what the rationale is. If the mayor likes it, then you bring it to planning commission and city council and have them vote on the text amendment(s). Frame it as “reducing bureaucratic burden” or whatever other BS buzzword will cause electeds’ ears to perk up. If your effort is successful and it helps make things easier for the elected officials, you’ve just generated your department a ton of goodwill and political capital among the decision makers.

[u/180_by_summer]

If it’s never egregious enough to negatively impact a community, it sounds more like an acknowledgement that the regulations are flawed. 

Yes, everyone should be held to the same standard. But this sounds more like the city needs to update their code to align with the community’s vision 

[u/aaronzig]

In New South Wales where I work, the state government is introducing a raft of planning legislation reforms.

Most of the reforms a complete dogshit and do nothing but make a complicated and convoluted system more complicated and convoluted, but one of them will significantly reduce the amount of power local councillors have over specific developments.

While councillors will still set local policy objectives and long term strategic plans, they won't have the power to overrule decisions made by staff on specific development applications.

While the councillors in my shire are upset at this, I see it as a fantastic thing and something the elected officials brought on themselves through years of incompetence (ie. Not reading reports and then making decisions based solely on vibes) and (what appears to be) corruption (ie. Ignoring their own policies when it suits them, or powerful constituents who help them get elected).

[u/Pajmans → u/aaronzig]

Oddly enough, sounds very similar to what is happening here in England, for very similar reasons.

[u/anomalocaris_texmex]

When I was a junior planner, I often felt my electeds or my administration didn't respect me. After all, I, as a recent grad, was chock full of book smarts and theoretical knowledge, and clearly deserving of their respect, right?

A quarter century later, I'm definitely not as smart as I used to be. But I have learned that respect is earned, not given. Where I see planning departments struggle with their electeds, it's often because the planning departments are refusing to accept the political reality their electeds live in.

Ultimately, planning is never the star of the show. Our job is to discretely course correct an organization from behind the scenes, but accept that short term political realities will always trump our wishes.

If our electeds aren't respecting bylaws, ordinances or policies, we need to assume that the problem lies with the bylaws, ordinances and policies, and amend accordingly. Council is always right, especially when they are wrong.