Council interviews final candidate for planning director

Yahoo

17-05-2025

May 17—Planning director candidate Clifford Cross wants to return to the South for his final years before retirement, he told the Decatur City Council on Wednesday.
Cross, director of Economic Development, Planning and Zoning in Belleville, Illinois, was the final applicant to go through a public interview with the council for the planning director opening.
The City Council has two applicants, Lee Terry, economic and planning director for TARCOG (Top of Alabama Regional Council of Governments) in Huntsville, and Steve Hohulin, former director of Land Planning for Quiddity engineering and planning, The Woodlands, Texas, still considered candidates for the opening.
The council added Cross, who like the other two is a certified planner, when it reopened the search after interviewing Terry and Hohulin and bringing them back for an informal reception.
Human Resources Director Richelle Sandlin ran the interview and asked about 20 pre-scripted questions. Council members then asked follow-up questions before opening up at the end for Cross to ask any questions he might have and to make a statement.
Cross, 52, has spent most of his 25-year career in Illinois, but did work two and a half years in Duluth, Georgia, as director of planning. He also worked in University City near St. Louis, Missouri.
"I love the South," Cross said. "Quite honestly, you can only take so much of Illinois with everything that goes on there between Chicago and down state."
Cross said he is a direct appointment of the Belleville mayor, and the mayor who appointed him lost in the recent election. He said the new mayor hasn't decided whether or not to reappoint any of the directors, so they're all working on a day-to-day basis.
Cross said he expects a decision in June, but he has already made his own decision.
"If she offered me the job, I would not accept," he said.
Cross said he is completely vested in the retirement system, so it wouldn't benefit him financially to stay in Illinois.
"This is a perfect opportunity for me to come South where I want to be to finish out my career for the next 10 to 12 years and retire," he said. "I'm done. I don't need to deal with that (getting reappointed) every four years now."
Cross said his educational background and experience make him uniquely qualified for Decatur's opening. He said he's mostly worked in communities of between 25,000 and 50,000 residents.
"Obviously, when you're in communities of that size you have to multitask," Cross said. "You just don't have all of the players that you need to do everything day to day."
He said this has allowed him to become familiar with all aspects of planning and development, community development, housing rehabilitation, grant writing and overall economic development.
Cross said he's even been a code enforcement officer, a fire marshal and a flood plain administrator.
"By doing that, it's really well-rounded me in the growth-management field," Cross said. "And it's really given me that great background that I feel makes me a great candidate for the position."
If hired as planning director he would be taking over a Planning Department with one planner and an administrator. Councilman Billy Jackson pointed out that the department hasn't had a certified planning director since one left in 2008, and previous councils did not fill the position.
"Luckily, this council has been seen that it's an important position," Jackson said.
Cross said it's important to report the department's work to the council, mayor and residents. He said he's a big believer in accountability by being structured in creating a work plan. He also believes in cross-training everyone so they know all of the jobs in the department, but he makes it clear he's the department leader.
"I basically treat everything like a five-year capital improvement plan," Cross said. "I create a plan at least for a year, and then I have my quarterly reporting that shows what's working and what's not, how do we readjust it and how do we fix the problems."
Cross said one of the first things he would do is go over the city's One Decatur comprehensive plan. He said communities create comprehensive plans, but then sometimes planning or development department will forget about them.
"They write it because they have to and then it goes up on the shelf," he said.
Cross said he doesn't believe in a static comprehensive plan. Instead, he would report annually on what's working and what's not.
"You have to give the community the opportunity to comment on it, and we have to readjust it to make sure that it is continuing to meet the demands of the community," he said.
On the issues of zoning and planning, Cross said he's amazed how many young planners don't know the difference between the two. He said a planner and a zoning administrator are different jobs.
"Long-range planning is the vision. It's the road map of how you move forward. It's how you set policy," he said.
Cross said zoning is the regulatory control, and "if you don't put those long-range plans in place, how do you get a unified cost to make sure you get where you want to be?"
For example, he said short-term rentals, such as as Airbnbs, are a hot-button topic in most cities now as they are in Belleville.
He said Airbnbs acted "as a camouflage" as some people were trying to get around Illinois' occupancy permit requirement. Short-term rentals create a problem for a community that wants to develop hotels as a destination for visitors.
There has to be a perfect balance between the number of hotels and short-term rentals, he said.
"You don't want Airbnbs ruining your opportunity to bring in a hotel," Cross said.
Cross said he's "not anti-rental, but I am a supporter of a perfect balance of rental to home ownership. Renters can choose who they live next to; your homeowners cannot always choose who lives next to them."
Cross said it's important to know the city's housing stock and the community's demands. For example, there are neighborhoods with dilapidated housing in which there may be some infill opportunities.
He said a subdivision south of Belleville had this issue, so he contacted builders and worked with them to get it annexed. Part of the agreement included incentives such as sewer, streets and other infrastructure, he said.
In Duluth, Cross said he worked on a downtown redevelopment plan in which they identified dilapidated properties within the downtown square and got them taken out even though some had environmental concerns.
Cross said he's also worked on TIF (tax-incremental funding) districts to redevelop three areas of University City. These areas had a lot of old auto sales and repair shops where a Target, Costco, Chick-Fil-A and a number of other new retail businesses and restaurants now sit.
Cross talked about an infill program he started in Belleville in which he sold empty lots for $1 to developers who then handled the red tape of getting finance and then building the homes.
"We now have 10 new homes that are being built in neighborhoods that haven't been built in for over 25 years," he said.
Council President Jacob Ladner said Thursday that he thought Cross "did a really good job with the interview," and he is impressed with Cross' planning and code enforcement experience. He said he thought they had three good candidates, and the council made the right decision in bringing in Cross.
He said he thinks the City Council will discuss the next move at Monday's 10 a.m. meeting.
"It's time to get this thing wrapped up," Ladner said.
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