Feb. 24—The city’s Planning Department, with only one employee remaining, is struggling to keep up during a growth period in Decatur and at a time when the city waits on key new ordinances that need Planning input.

Mayor Tab Bowling said this week that he plans to propose promoting the Planning manager position to a higher-paid director position, and he believes the City Council would support the upgrade.

Bowling said they need to take some managerial responsibility off Director of Development Dane Shaw, who currently oversees Planning, Building, Engineering and Community Development. He also leads the city’s economic development efforts.

“It’s needed,” Bowling said. “Dane has a big load on him.”

Bowling said the new director needs to be an AICP-certified planner. The American Institute of Certified Planners is the American Planning Association’s professional institute. It is the only nationwide, independent verification of planners’ qualifications.

Human Resources Director Richelle Sandlin said Thursday that she hadn’t talked with Bowling about the promotion.

She told the Personnel Board that they’re considering some changes in the Planning Department, “depending on how this recruitment effort goes” for planning manager. These proposed structural changes could come in April, she added.

The city is advertising the starting annual salary at $91,955 for a planning manager. Sandlin said they would have to discuss the pay for a planning director, if that’s how they choose to go.

Sandlin said directors start at pay grade 28, which pays $100,000 or more. She said the highest-paid director is City Attorney Herman Marks, who makes $180,000 annually after working 44 years with the city.

She said the Planning Department typically operates with a manager, two Planner 2 positions and an administrative assistant. The positions are all vacant except one of the Planner 2 positions. The department also works closely with a GIS planner in the Information Systems Department.

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Personnel Board member Suzie Wiley said she doesn’t see how the city operates effectively with only one person.

“We’re trying to expand our city and we only have one planner?” Wiley said. “The city, the council and the mayor want all of this growth in housing, so we need planners to plan correctly for the future. It can’t be helter-skelter under one man.”

Councilman Kyle Pike said he is also concerned about the lack of staffing in the Planning Department. He suggested the first step is finding someone, possibly as a director, to lead a rebuild of the department.

“If we look at what’s around, we have to be competitive for the caliber candidate we’re looking for in planning and we obviously need,” Pike said. “I think it’s time we do what’s right pay-wise to get somebody in there with the right credentials and somebody who will stay a while.”

The department lost Planning Manager Lee Terry last summer when he left for a job with Top of Alabama Regional Council of Governments (TARCOG). His replacement only stayed briefly, and the administrative assistant resigned this fall. — And then there was one

This left Tommy Williams, a Planner 2 who has a master’s degree in urban planning and four years of experience. He joined the city eight months ago, is the only full-time employee in the department, and is not AICP-certified. Former Director of Development Wally Terry returned in January as a part-time employee to help Planning.

The vacancies come at a time when Decatur is seeing significant residential growth. It’s also trying to put in place major new ordinances that require Planning involvement. Among the anticipated ordinances are a dramatic rewrite of the aging zoning ordinance and ordinances regulating build-to-rent homes and short-term rentals.

The Planning Commission also talked in January about possibly changing the city’s alcohol laws and zoning to allow lounges/bars in the downtown area, another change that would require Planning Department input.

The One Decatur comprehensive plan approved in February 2018 prioritized a full rewrite of the zoning ordinance. Later that year, the council hired consultant Clarion Associates for $195,000 for the ordinance update.

Clarion held public meetings to review the first half of the rewrite in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed further reviews in 2020.

Multiple leadership changes, including three Planning managers and the current vacancy, further delayed the rewrite. Each time the Planning manager changed, that person insisted on doing a personal review

“There’s just a lot of tedious reading and work when you’re reviewing the zoning rewrite that a new person has to go through,” Shaw said.

Councilman Billy Jackson has been critical of the city for years for not having a certified planner on staff. He pointed out Athens has two certified planners on staff and Hartselle has one.

“When you look at our growth, expansions and development in general, those thinks are impacted because we don’t have a planner on staff,” Jackson said.

Jackson said Williams doesn’t have any time for planning because he’s the lone remaining person in the department.

“For all practical purposes, we don’t have a planning department,” Jackson said. “We have a young man who is working his tail off to make sure things meet certain codes, and that’s all he has time to do.”

Jackson said this impacts the development of the city.

“I’m not just talking about growth,” Jackson said. “I’m talking about infrastructure. Should an apartment complex go here? Should a retail development go there? All of those types of things are impacted by a planner.”

Jackson said the city doesn’t have “legitimate planning, and we haven’t had it in quite some time.” He pointed out that no one in the city or on the City Council has a planning background, and the city is depending on the Planning Commission to lead it.

“Where are we getting our information from on the directions we need to be moving in as far as our development?” Jackson said. “It’s a toss of the coin.”

Councilman Carlton McMasters said he “100% agrees” the city needs a certified planner.

“We may need to look at the salary we’re offering so we can get a certified planner,” McMasters said. “Lee (Terry) was great, but as soon as he got his AICP certification, he got a pay raise, and he was out. That should have been a pretty good indicator we need to get more competitive with pay to get somebody qualified to lead that department.”

Sandlin said she met with Williams this week to assure him that he has the city’s support.

“I told him it’s going to be a little bit of a rough ride,” Sandlin said. “He’s a trooper. He’s doing a wonderful job, and we’re going to be OK. It’s not the first time we’ve been down to one person in a department.”

Sandlin said planning is a young discipline that’s not widely offered in area colleges and universities. She said most city planners start in the department and work their way up to a senior level.

Alabama A&M is the only local university to offer a master’s degree in urban and regional planning, she said.

“Universities are beginning to offer urban planning programs, but that’s been in the last 10 years,” she said.

Sandlin also admitted that “our pay is challenging.” The city also doesn’t have a dedicated recruiter.

Bowling said currently a manager is at the top level in pay in Planning, so it would help in recruiting if a lower-level employee could aspire to one day getting promoted to director.

Jackson said they need to do whatever is necessary to get a certified planner on staff, even if it means increasing their pay. He said the problem is he thinks the mayor and other city leaders aren’t taking the need for city planning seriously enough.

“There is no emphasis on planning,” Jackson said. “I’ve said term after term we don’t have a planner. Regardless of how we look at it, Planning is one of the most critical (departments) in the city.”

— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432. Twitter @DD_BayneHughes.