A growing number of zoning and development plan applications has led to growth in the staff at the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County.

The commission has advertised for a zoning compliance officer who will conduct on-site inspections and ensure that properties being developed comply with the county’s joint zoning ordinance and with approved plans and binding elements.

This won’t be a new role for the commission staff, but having a full-time person devoted to zoning compliance will be new, planning commission Executive Director Ben Peterson said.

“We already do code enforcement and permitting, so this will just be to help in those areas,” Peterson said. “We have had some staff doing double duty.”

The new compliance officer will focus on code enforcement, code compliance and permit reviews, Peterson said.

“We need to do more in code compliance,” Peterson said. “It’s important to make sure that what’s supposed to be built is what’s actually being built.

“The idea is to be more attentive on the front end so we have fewer complaints. It’s just a little shift in how we do business.”

The additional position, bringing the planning commission to 14 staff members, should help the commission keep pace with the increased workload created by Warren County’s growth in both residential and commercial developments.

The number of applications submitted to the planning commission has grown from 121 in 2012 to a record 195 last year. Peterson said the commission is on pace to break that record this year.

The growth is also evident in the number of building permit reviews, which has jumped from 1,099 in 2014 to 1,472 in 2016.

The new position should help the commission deal with the explosive growth in residential developments. The number of single-family lots approved jumped from 377 in 2015 to 426 last year while the number of multi-family units approved climbed from 1,194 in 2015 to 1,997 last year.

“It’s getting harder to keep up with so much growth,” Peterson said.

According to the advertisement, the compliance officer will be expected to have experience in construction, civil engineering, planning or law enforcement. The pay range for the position is from $19.49 to $21.54 per hour.

The planning commission, funded by Warren County Fiscal Court and the Bowling Green City Commission and through fees collected for zone changes, variances and other activities, operates on an annual budget of slightly more than $1.4 million. The commission ended the 2016-17 fiscal year with a fund balance of $273,754.81.