Nobody who has sat through a four-hour zoning appeal believes the council is moving too slowly. The people who want speed are usually the people with something to build — and something to hide.
Deliberation is not inefficiency. It is the mechanism by which a community discovers what it actually thinks. The public hearing is where the person who will live across from the proposal gets to say so, and that takes time by design.
Every "streamlining" reform of the last decade has shortened the window between proposal and permit. None of them shortened the line of neighbors holding photocopied objections.
Keep the meetings long. The gavel costs nothing to hold.