Development IS a factory operation at times, which is a necessity because so many entities are involved with development and need to get paid (all of these entities need a paycheck to live, anyway). One of the reasons why costs for development can be high is because planners and government pointlessly delay development and jack up costs with pointless regulations and bureaucratic bullshit. Planners have to ensure that developers can develop projects smoothly and as quickly as possible, while at the same time allowing developers to develop good projects (yeah, it's hard).
Also, planners can be super fucking lazy and delay development projects by just not giving a shit and leaning on the fact that it's incredibly difficult to get fired if you work in the public sector. Don't be that planner.
I meant factory in sense that they will send over batch paperwork clearly copied and pasted over and over that is missing information or mislabeled. It strikes me as lazy. My planning work involves a very small municipality, so in many cases the developers themselves are the ones holding up the process by submitting incomplete paperwork, unstamped plans, wrong code editions, etc.
I do agree that planners need to recognize that they have a responsibility to ensure a smooth development process. I'm more paraprofessional planning in that I do mostly permit review, BLAPs, and ZCONs, but I hope to be a planner one day that doesn't fall into being a jaded, lazy bum lol.
Do you work for a big or small municipality if you don't mind me asking?