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On-Call Building Safety Division Services <br />April 7, 2026 <br />Page 2 <br />5 <br />6 <br />2 <br />1 <br />DISCUSSION <br />Background <br />On May 17, 2022, the City Council approved fourteen (14) consulting firms to provide the <br />City with as-needed Building Safety Division services with an aggregated not to exceed <br />amount of $4,900,000, for a period of three years ending May 16, 2025, with the option <br />to renew for up to one additional year. <br />Development activity in the City has been trending upward since the COVID-19 pandemic <br />to present with many large transformative projects such as the Rafferty and The Row for <br />residential mixed-use projects, as well as commercial/industrial projects such as the <br />South Coast Technology Center. Continuing into the future, the City anticipates many <br />large developments such as the Related Bristol and The Village Santa Ana Specific Plan <br />projects to continue the development trends. Just these two proposed projects would <br />include over 5,600 residential units, 250 hotel room keys, 200 units of senior continuum <br />of care units, and 430,000 square feet of retail and restaurant uses. <br />Overview of Scope of Services <br />Building activity in the City remains at a high level and the approval of this consultant on- <br />call list would allow for expedited customer services through plan check services that the <br />building industry demands as services from the City. Maintaining a list of on-call <br />consultants for building plan checks, contract inspection staff, and similar services <br />provides a means to expeditiously service projects and reduce response time for plan <br />reviews and inspection of general construction workload by permanent in-house staff. For <br />example, projects for which the applicant has requested accelerated plan reviews <br />complete the reviews within 10 business days, which is often a reduction of review time <br />of up to two-thirds. <br />Moreover, the on-call list would allow for the City to retain other specialized services, <br />including meeting with applicants to resolve complex, specialty plan-check issues, peer- <br />reviewing structural calculations, digitizing of plans and permits to allow for easier public <br />access to property records, specialty inspection services, and temporary in-house staffing <br />for plan reviews, inspections, and permit services as needed. Together, these services <br />maintain service levels for the community during times of heavy project loads and when <br />large-scale projects are submitted, minimizing review disruptions to other projects. <br />The Planning and Building Agency has continued to improve customer service by <br />streamlining review processes, including the introduction of a electronic plan review <br />system, migration to a digital environment through scanning of all building permit and plan <br />records, working to implement an online portal permitting system through a new <br />comprehensive land management system, launching over-the-counter permit services <br />known as PBx, and introducing a new concurrent plan check for same-day reviews known