Community Development Director

The City of Orange offers its next Community Development Director a professional opportunity to lead in a City with a remarkable organizational culture where employees rarely leave. The new Community Development Director will have the opportunity to lead projects and staff without the distractions found in less successful environments, all in a City ideally located and with rich historical significance. This opportunity presents itself due to the retirement of the prior Director.

The Community Development Department is committed to providing excellent service to both their internal and external customers with the highest degree of reliability and timeliness, while safeguarding the public assets entrusted to it.

Currently, the Department is budgeted with 24 full-time positions. The structure of the department consists of current and advance planning, code compliance, and CDBG/Housing. The Department also serves as staff support for three appointed boards: The Planning Commission, The Design Review Committee, and The CDBG Committee. Under the Planning Division, the Department is responsible for supporting the Old Towne Historical District, one of the largest historic districts in the United States, and three separate Eichler Historical Home Districts, the first of their kind in Southern California.

This at-will position is a key member of the City Manager’s Executive Team and provides day-to-day management of the Community Development Department. Key responsibilities of this position include providing leadership and overall direction to department staff, evaluating land use and growth management proposals to ensure compliance with applicable City, State, and Federal laws, managing complex issues, rules, and regulations impacting the Old Towne Historical District and Eichler Home Historical Districts, and providing professional planning and land use support to the City Council, Planning Commission, Design Review Committee, and civic groups.

The ideal candidate will have exceptional management, interpersonal, and communication skills, with a hands-on and proactive approach to addressing a broad range of urban planning, architectural design, Old Towne preservation issues, and development related challenges. The successful candidate for this position must be adept at fostering relationships and be an empowering leader who encourages innovation and problem solving while holding people accountable for quality work.

Ideally, the new Director will have a career history serving communities of similar size and complexity. Experience dealing with historic preservation issues as well as environmental issues, including California Environment Quality Act (CEQA) is highly desirable. The new Director must have achieved a notable level of success in the area of urban planning and design, community development, and economic development.

Education: Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university with major coursework in Community Development, Urban Planning, Civil Engineering, Public Administration, Business Administration, or a related field is required.

Experience: A minimum of seven years of management and/or administrative experience in Community Development, Urban Planning, and Project Administration, including at least four years of experience in directing and supervising of professional and technical staff is required.

An AICP certification is preferred, but not required.

The top of the annual salary range for the Community Development Director is $209,232. Placement within the range is negotiable and dependent upon qualifications. The City contributes an additional 3% of salary which can be taken as cash or placed into a 401A Money Purchase Retirement Plan. Employees with a Master’s degree or higher are eligible to receive $500 per month of Educational Incentive Pay which is reported to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) as pensionable compensation.

The City offers an outstanding benefits package which includes retirement benefits provided by CalPERS. The City of Orange is one of a few cities in Orange County in which an employee who is a Classic Member of CalPERS (or other reciprocal retirement system), will be enrolled in the CalPERS 2.7% @ 55 benefit formula with one-year final compensation. Classic Member employees contribute 8.0% of pension reportable salary on a pre-tax basis for this retirement benefit.

Employees who are new CalPERS members will be enrolled in the CalPERS 2% @ 62 benefit formula with three-year final compensation in accordance with PEPRA. New member employees contribute 6.75% of pension reportable salary on a pre-tax basis for this retirement benefit.

In addition, the City offers a comprehensive benefits package including a 9/80 alternate work schedule with City Hall closed every other Friday, cafeteria plan for medical, dental and vision insurances, life insurance, Retirement Health Savings Plan, generous vacation, holidays, sick and administrative leave, and many more. Interested candidates are encouraged to review the detailed recruitment brochure for additional benefit information.

This recruitment will be handled with strict confidentiality. References will not be contacted until mutual interest has been established. Confidential inquiries are welcomed to Greg Nelson or Bryan Noblett at (916) 550-4100.

Interested candidates are encouraged to review the detailed recruitment brochure and apply immediately below as this recruitment will close once a sufficiently strong candidate pool has been established.