Question 1

What is an “in-house” planning consultant?

Accepted Answer

Traditional planning consultants are often hired to complete a particular project for a municipality. The consultants’ contract usually outlines specific deliverables and a timeline.  Part of that contract may also include a limited number of meetings with stakeholders, staff and elected officials over the course of the project.  But aside from these meetings, traditional consultants do the bulk of their work in their own offices. Planners in a Pinch, LLC flips this paradigm on its head.  Our consultants do most of their work in the municipal planning department.

Question 2

Why is Planners in a Pinch’s model helpful?

Accepted Answer

Hiring traditional planning consultants is important, especially for communities with limited planning staff and resources.  Traditional planning consultants can ease the work load of municipal planners by taking large, discreet projects like a Master Plan or Economic Development Study of the Downtown off of their plates.  However, sometimes this arrangement leads to “pie-in-the sky” plans based on best planning practices that simply cannot be implemented in the community for political or other reasons.
 
By working in the municipal office, Planners in a Pinch consultants are available to answer questions from other staff members, elected officials, boards and commissions and the general public in a timely manner.  We can also work on more than one project at a time for the municipality.   
 
Most importantly, we can bridge the gap left when a full-time planner leaves the position (or takes a leave of absence).  No more frantic searching for job candidates or settling for the “best-available” candidate just to fill the vacancy. 
 
Planners in a Pinch consultants will stay with the municipality until the best candidate can found to assume the job.  In the meantime, Boards and Commissions will continue to get professional planner advice and projects can continue moving through the process.  We will also stay on when after a new planner starts to help ease the transition.

Question 3

Can I hire Planners in a Pinch consultants to work full-time in our Planning Department

Accepted Answer

No.  We work on a part-time, temporary basis, usually ten (10) hours a week for up to six months.  We do this both for our own flexibility as well as to encourage the municipality to search for the right permanent replacement

Question 4

Can I set regular hours for Planner in a Pinch consultants to work?

Accepted Answer

Not really.  You can work with our consultants to develop a preferred schedule and request that we are available for night meetings with Boards and Commissions, but we reserve the right to keep our general schedules flexible, as needed, to maintain our independent contractor status and to work for more than one municipality at a time.

Question 5

How do I know I am getting a highly-qualified professional planner when I contract with Planners in a Pinch, LLC?"

Accepted Answer

At Planners in a Pinch, LLC we prefer our consultants have at least ten (10) years of experience in municipal planning.  We require them to have at least two years of experience working for a municipality within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with an elected Planning Board of other Special Permit Granting Authority.

Question 6

What was the impetus to start Planners in a Pinch, LLC?"

Accepted Answer

Staff turnover in municipal Planning Departments can be difficult especially in communities with only one planner or land-use professional.  It can send the remaining staff scrambling to cover the work, which is often tied to deadlines established in State regulations for timely hearings and land-use decisions.  Oftentimes, these staff members “do not know what they do not know” when it comes to Land-Use Law in Massachusetts.  And, unfortunately, sometimes procurement regulations and union rules slow down the process for a municipality to find the planner’s replacement.  Planners in a Pinch’s founder and principal, Eve Tapper, encountered this problem several times during her career without a viable solution.  Eventually, the framework for Planners in a Pinch, LLC was envisioned in May, 2014 when the then-City of Newton Planning and Community Development Director asked Eve to return to that department, where she had previously worked for six years, to temporarily “help out” in the Community Development Division while they were short staffed.  Although she had never worked with the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME programs on the local level, Eve knew the politics of the City and found she was a quick study on the issues.  She stayed on "temporarily" for a year and lead the City’s effort to write the Five-Year Consolidated Plan for the Federal programs administered by HUD.  Since then Planners in a Pinch consultants have served as the interim Planning Director in several eastern-Massachusetts communities.

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