The Better Staff Report

5 Strategies for Creating Well-Balanced, Understandable, and Empowering Staff Reports

1. Make the Cover Page Count

In their 2004 article in Zoning Practice on writing staff reports, Stuart Meck, FAICP, and Marya Morris, FAICP, recommend including a cover page with standard information. I will emphasize that the cover page should be a quick overview of the case with the most essential information. Because, let's be honest, it may be all some commissioners have time to read.

Our study found that only 22 percent of staff reports have a cover page. Those that do usually listed only the basics: applicant name, the application request, the current zoning and land use of the site, and the surrounding properties' zoning districts and land uses. Others contain information that does not need to be on the cover: tax ID numbers, legal descriptions of the site, and surrounding property owners. Some cover pages are just that, a title and white space.

Use the cover page wisely. What is the most important information your audience needs to make an informed decision? For example, you might include an executive summary, a small map of the site, quick evaluations using standard criteria, the reason for the request, a staff recommendation checklist, and possibly the proposed motion.

2. Use Visuals and Design Strategically

Desktop publishing is easier than ever. Staff reports should integrate various text layouts, tables, graphics, and photos with captions to enrich and enhance the information. These elements also make reports more engaging and easier to read.

Unfortunately, according to our study, few planning departments make use of visuals and design elements in their staff reports: Only five percent of reports used photographs, nine percent included a reference map of the city, 24 percent used bullet points, and just 45 percent included a site map.

Marie Darling, AICP, senior planner for the city of Plymouth, Minnesota, likes to use graphics because "of course, sometimes a picture saves you a lot of words."

Just like textbooks or magazine articles, staff reports can use sidebars to provide definitions or highlight examples from other communities. Consider adding a table of contents for long staff reports, integrate photos into the text, and use tables as checklists. Columns are helpful so that readers' eyes do not have to travel all the way across the page.

Use boxes to make the important information stand out or help people find information quickly. A proposed motion or the key goal from the comprehensive plan could go in that area.

3. Know Your Audience

Staff reports are challenging to write because they are aimed at several different groups. Lisa Pool, AICP, senior planner in Bellingham, Washington, lists her and her colleagues' audiences as, "the decision makers, the applicants, the public, other agencies (local, state, federal), and future staff looking for background on a project." Darling points out that the courts can also be an audience if the city faces a legal challenge.

"A good staff report will be conscious of these various audiences, and be written so that all interested parties can understand the subject, and the basis for the board's action, even if they do not agree with it," says Bob Oast, an attorney with McGuire, Wood & Bissette in Asheville, North Carolina, and an adjunct professor of planning at Ohio State University.

It's also important to realize that people are not reading staff reports from beginning to end; still others don't read them at all. Brian Pedrotti, AICP, senior planner for San Luis Obispo County, California, says he thinks about writing for his best friend who knows nothing about planning.

Pedrotti advises planners to think of the staff report as a webpage. "People are going to click around," he says, to the information that is relevant to them.

Marie Darling agrees, noting that the historic review commission may be interested in design, the planning commission will focus on traffic and parks, the city commission will want to weigh the public testimony, and city council members will want to know if the site is in their district and the track record of the applicant.

So make it easy for them. Write the reports in "layers" according to your community's priorities, advises Terese Thonus, director of the University of Kansas Writing Center. Start with the report's primary audience first, and then work through the information for secondary audiences.

She also suggests using that layer structure as part of a set template (see above for an example). That way, regular readers will always know where to find what they're looking for (like the traffic study or reasons for the recommendation).

Here is how that hierarchy might look:

• Start with the cover page and what the planning commission should know if they do not read anything else.
• Provide a table of contents if it is a long report.
• Give background information and things the city council would be interested in, such as case histories, impact on services, and public input.
• Get into the more technical aspects like planning analyses, policies, and ordinances.
• Conclude with recommendations and the reasons why — which people wanting a deeper understanding will look for.
• Supplementary materials, things that not all audiences will be interested in (or perhaps understand), come last.

Overloading people with too much information can be almost as bad as not providing any at all.

Pool explains: "I've read so many staff reports that include too much information, primarily due to repetition. We ask a lot of our decision makers when we ask them to wade through pages of extraneous information to find the salient points."

4. Have Someone Else Take a Look

Time is the enemy when trying to produce quality staff reports.

Planners run into time constraints for a lot of reasons, including limited staff, heavy workloads, lots of development activity, local or state deadline requirements or pressures to be accommodating, incomplete applications that result in the need to track down necessary information, and a lack of resources for in-depth analyses.

And that tight schedule doesn't just mean that mistakes can be made, it also makes it difficult to prioritize a thorough review, preferably by another person.

"In preparing staff reports, I often have no one with whom to discuss options and alternatives, and have to rely totally on my experience and knowledge of the community," says Thomas A. Harowski, AICP, president of TMH Consulting, Inc. "I am totally responsible for things such as proofreading, formatting, and verifying the clarity of the report."

Other departments with larger staffs can have a supervisor review drafts.

But even if you do not have time or other planners on staff to proofread individual staff reports, the KU Writing Center's Thonus recommends finding the time for what she calls "usability testing," by running it by someone outside the planning staff.

She advises, "Have someone [down in the utilities department, for example] read one of your reports and ask them, 'What did you get out of that? Was the report easy to understand and navigate?'"

In Topeka, Kansas, planners divide the work: Current planners do the majority of the staff report and then a long-range planner writes the portion on compliance with the comprehensive plan. This results in multiple eyes on the document and contributions by planners with different perspectives.

Another good practice is to get outside input on content. Ask your boards and commissions what they want to see in staff reports. Use the Staff Report Evaluation Tool (see link below) to assess your reports and whether they meet your community's needs.

Most cities are doing multiple staff reports every month, so it would not be hard to experiment with format or writing style and see what commissioners prefer or what they respond to.

5. Don't Just State the Facts. Educate

Easily approachable staff reports go a long way toward helping the public understand what planning is and why it is important. Writing them day in and day out, it's easy to forget that staff reports are the main method of communication between planners and the public. Don't waste an opportunity to foster valuable conversation and educate not only your commissioners but also the public.

One of the findings in the 2016 JAPA article was that only 40 percent of the staff reports reviewed included a justification for the staff recommendation. In my experience, planning commissioners find that information valuable. Jack Maxwell, a planning commissioner in Ottawa, Kansas, once said to me: "I want staff to present their argument because that gives me something to respond to and argue for or against."

There are several ways planning departments can help their audiences better understand the issues at hand and the reasoning behind their recommendations:

• Boise, Idaho, lists the staff's recommendation and then an explanation of how they came to that decision.
• Reports in San Luis Obispo County, California, often provide explanations of what happens if something is approved and what happens if it is not.
• Staff reports in Plymouth, Minnesota, explain how much discretion the board has depending on the type of application.
• A Valley Center, Kansas, staff report included multiple motions, giving the planning commission choices.
• Staff in Virginia Beach, Virginia, encourage applicants to work with the police and use Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design principles.

These examples show the great potential in staff reports to educate commissioners and the public about planning issues. John Haase, a long-serving, now former member of the Lawrence-Douglas County (Kansas) Metropolitan Planning Commission, says: "Communication among planning commissioners, staff , developers, and the public is of vital importance. Convincing folks to isolate and debate facts is the cornerstone of good decision making. Staff reports can play a central role in all of this."

Staff reports help planners synthesize information and think through applications. They help readers understand planning and give them the tools to engage in decision making. A good staff report can be understandable and empowering; poor staff reports will only continue to isolate planning and hide what good planning is all about.

Notes from the Field

• In Corpus Christi, Texas, the cover page includes a table with the land uses and zoning of the site and surrounding properties, as well as future land-use designations of those properties.
• A box around certain text calls attention to it and increases the likelihood it will catch a reader's eye. Planners in Lincoln–Lancaster County, Nebraska, put a box around the staff's recommendation in the report so it is easy to find.
• Bill Fiander, AICP, the planning director in Topeka, Kansas, says that about a year ago staff reviewed their reports and found they repeated information throughout. The old staff reports also had data, applicant information, and the lay of the land all intertwined with analysis. Today, all staff reports have two sections. One has the facts on the site and the standards, and the other section has the criteria and analysis.
• The standard header of Scottsdale, Arizona, staff reports states the department's overarching goal: Coordinate Planning to Balance Infrastructure. That brings readers back to the big picture no matter what application is under consideration.