TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Bruce Moe, City Manager
FROM:
Carrie Tai, AICP, Community Development Director
Ryan Heise, Building Official
David Shenbaum, Fire Marshal
SUBJECT:Title
Consideration of Resolutions Approving Four Three-Year Professional Service Agreements with Melad and Associates Inc., VCA Code, JAS Pacific and Transtech Engineers Inc. for Building and Fire Services (Amount Expended Determined by Services Provided) (Community Development Director Tai).
(Estimated Time: 10 Mins.)
ADOPT RESOLUTION NOS. 22-0129, 22-0130, 22-0131, AND 22-0132
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1) Adopt Resolution Nos. 22-0129, 22-0130, 22-0131, and 22-0132; and
2) Authorize the City Manager to execute two one-year extensions should it be determined to be in the City’s best interest.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, the City has selected four vendors for building and fire services. If approved, each vendor will execute a Professional Services Agreement (PSA) with a corresponding fee schedule. The City anticipates using the vendors for three main types of services: plan check review, in-house staffing to temporarily fill vacant positions, and on-call inspection services. For plan check review, the City pays the vendor a certain percentage of the plan check fee based on the City’s Resolution of Fees. The revenue received from the plan check fees cover the direct and indirect costs associated with these plan check services. For in-house staffing vacancies, the cost for any contract staff is covered within the Department’s salary savings. For on-call inspection services, the cost of the service is based on an hourly rate, as defined in each PSA’s fee schedule. On-call inspection services are utilized to ensure construction inspections are performed the next business day. The established rates in the PSA will ensure that invoicing is consistent throughout the life of each three-year agreement.
Sufficient funding has been budgeted in the Community Development and Fire Departments’ contract services budgets for Fiscal Year 2022-2023. Staff will monitor each agreement to ensure expenditures are within the budgeted amount in each Department’s respective budgets. It is important to note that because building and fire services are provided on an as-needed basis, expenditures are incurred only when services are required and provided. Therefore, each agreement amount fluctuates based on construction activity and the Building Division’s staffing levels and vacancies.
BACKGROUND:
The City provides plan check and inspections services and oversees the administration and enforcement of various building and fire codes regulating construction, use, and occupancy of all building and structures within the City. To ensure conformance with City and State specifications and safety standards, the City reviews construction plans and calculations for conformance with code requirements. Historically, the City has contracted for professional services to perform the majority of the plan check review for the Building Division and all of the plan check review for the Fire Department. This arrangement helps the City provide consistent development services to the building community in a timely manner.
The ongoing construction activity necessitates the requirement for outside professional plan check review and inspection expertise. This allows the City to maintain a plan check review turnaround time of two to eight weeks depending on the type of project, continue to offer accelerated plan check review (four weeks or less), and maintain next business day building inspection services. Additionally, contracting out for services allows the flexibility to quickly respond to the fluctuating demand of plan checks services without compromising turnaround times. Conversely, if there is a lull in submittals, a reduction in plan check services can be accommodated by the contractor without the need for reduction in City staff. All of these customer service requirements are necessary to ensure that building activities continue at a steady rate for the City’s clients. Not having the ability to provide this level of service may cause undue financial strain on applicants, delays and circumvention of building and safety codes for contractors, residents and businesses. The fees for outside services are entirely funded by plan check, inspection and permit fees.
Throughout the previous contract period, several key Building Division positions were vacant including a Plan Check Engineer, a Building Inspector and a Permit Technician. While vacant, the Building Inspector and Permit Technician positions were temporarily staffed by the current vendors to provided service continuity. The Plan Check Engineer position remains vacant due to difficulty in hiring in this labor category industry wide. The current vendors also have been unable to fill this position in-house resulting in additional building plan check reviews being sent off-site to the City’s current plan check vendors.
DISCUSSION:
The City contracts with outside vendors to provide building and fire services. The City’s existing agreements for these services expires on October 17, 2022. In June 2022, the City released a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit bids from qualified vendors, which resulted in the City receiving 14 responsive proposals. Vendor selection is based upon several factors including cost, experience, staffing, turnaround time, ability to meet locally with design professionals, contractors and homeowners, ability to provide next-day inspection staff, familiarity with the City’s permitting software (Energov), providing accelerated plan check services and the vendor’s references. The vendor’s experience on construction types that exist in Manhattan Beach was an additional criteria used for rating. These construction types include complicated residential projects containing double basements on small lots located close together as well as complex low-rise commercial projects fully utilizing all available area on the site. Staff reviewed and ranked all written RFP responses based on the above criteria. Attachment 1 provides a summary of each vendor’s score. Melad and Associates and VCA Code, the City’s current vendors for these services, ranked amongst the top three vendors based on the evaluation criteria. In addition, after speaking to Building Officials in several other jurisdictions and the vendors themselves, staff determined that it was very common for cities to have a pool of vendors to provide building and fire services. Due to the high demand for these services, lack of qualified employees in the workforce, the demand for prompt turnaround timeframe of plan check reviews, and overall customer service oriented nature of this type of service, staff recommends multiple vendors to provide these services.
Following this thorough review and evaluation process, staff short-listed the top six vendors for in-person interviews to select the best fit for the City and to determine each vendor’s ability to provide the required services. Staff determined that a combination of the qualifications and services of the four of the six vendors from the in-person interviews would best provide consistent development services to the building community in a timely manner. The following four vendors were selected as follows:
• Melad and Associates understands the City’s local municipal code and has worked with Energov previously. This vendor’s fire services provided were rated at the top of the interviewed firms.
• VCA has experience with local construction types and has worked with Energov previously. Additionally, VCA has a recruiter on staff to augment services upon the City’s request.
• JAS Pacific employs multiple specialists with technical expertise that will be able to review upcoming large and complex projects that exceed the capability or capacity of the City’s current staff.
• Transtech Engineers Inc. has the largest amount of qualified staff of the interviewed vendors and will be better suited to provide staffing for vacancies.
Staff recommends to contract with the above listed four vendors for building and fire services. The City can select from the vendor pool at any given time to meet the fluctuating demand and services required. In addition to plan check review and inspection services, all recommended vendors provide in-house staff (when available) to augment City staff during times of vacancies. Increasing the City’s building and fire service resources from two to four vendors provides more in-depth technical expertise for anticipated and upcoming complex projects, as well as additional staffing options to fill various disciplines.
CONCLUSION:
Staff recommends that the City Council enter into three-year Professional Service Agreements with Melad and Associates, VCA Code, JAS Pacific, and Transtech Engineers. As specified in the Professional Service Agreements, the City Manager would have the authority to exercise the two one-year extensions should it be determined to be in the City’s best interest. The City may cancel the agreements at any time without cause upon a 30-day notice.
PUBLIC OUTREACH:
This Request for Proposal (RFP) was advertised on the City’s website as well as OpenGov, a public bid notification board.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW:
The City has reviewed the proposed activity for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and has determined that the activity is not a “Project” as defined under Section 15378 of the State CEQA Guidelines; therefore, pursuant to Section 15060(c)(3) of the State CEQA Guidelines the activity is not subject to CEQA. Thus, no environmental review is necessary.
LEGAL REVIEW:
Each Professional Services Agreement has been reviewed by the City Attorney and each is approved as to form.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Resolution No. 22-0129
2. Agreement - Melad and Associates, Inc.
3. Resolution No. 22-0130
4. Agreement - The Code Group, Inc., DBA VCA Code
5. Resolution No. 22-0131
6. Agreement - Jason Addison Smith Consulting Services, Inc., DBA JAS Pacific7
7. Resolution No. 22-0132
8. Agreement - Transtech Engineers, Inc.
9. Request for Proposal Vendor Bid Comparison