James Black

Duties include:

1. Interprets and administers a broad range of County, State and Federal land use ordinances, laws, and rules. 2. Responds to difficult questions from the public related to land use, land development, and zoning. 3. Provides oversight and direction to all planners in their daily duties and at the front counter related to customer service and the administration of land use permits. 4. Supervises and communicates with and serves as a resource to all planning staff. Communicates with county departments, City, State, and Federal agencies concerning land use information and regulations. 5. Performs pre-application reviews and processes applications for site review, land divisions, variances, home occupations, farm, forest, lot history, flood review, quasi-judicial comprehensive plan map amendments, and the most advanced or technical applications. 6. Manages and completes advanced planning projects, such as ordinance text amendments, rural community plans, exceptions to statewide planning goals, preparation of inventories or databases and periodic review tasks. 7. Performs field investigations to gather information regarding land characteristics to determine the ability of land to support specific uses, to include an assessment of appropriate conditions of development and/or operation. 8. Prepares and presents staff reports at public hearings, and represent the planning office in other agency, civic or legal forums. 9. Researches records and other sources, analyzes data obtained, and prepares written and visual demonstrations based on this work. 10. Represents Planning Department and assist Director as assigned, to include representation at inter-agency meetings or those of the Board of Commissioners. 11. Serves as the primary advisor to lower classified planners and ordinance administrator regarding complex development decisions. 12. Acts as a Supervisor to lower-level planning staff including direction of work and task assignment, assessment, and review of Staff in conjunction with the Director. 13. Performs both development review and long-range planning tasks, including Comprehensive Plan / Zone amendments. 14. Serves as Community Development Director in the absence of the Director.