Hi everyone,
I’m relatively new to development, but working with a smaller group has given me exposure well beyond typical entry level work.
One thing I’ve always heard about, but am now starting to experience firsthand, is the level of influence that municipal regulators and public officials have on our business.
With that in mind, I’m curious to hear from others:
What are some effective ways you’ve learned to work with city staff and decision makers throughout the development process?
So far I’ve gathered these ideas:
1. Meet these people for lunch and just get to know them personally
2. I’ve made a list of all councillors for the city’s we work in, then stalked their linkedins for boards and committees they’re on and plan to donate / be involved.
Thanks in advance!
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here are some effective strategies for working with city staff and decision-makers throughout the development process:
Understand the Planning Commission and Council Dynamics
Focus on building relationships with the planning commission and council members, as they are critical to project approvals. Even if they personally support your project, they may not vote in favor unless you demonstrate efforts to gain community buy-in.
Research and Prepare Thoroughly
Engage with City Staff Early
Community Engagement
Leverage Relationships with Architects and Planners
Monitor Conditions of Approval
Carefully review and negotiate the proposed conditions of approval before the project is finalized. Cities may include clauses with significant financial implications.
Stay Proactive and Persistent
Utilize Public Records and Meetings
Many cities record commission and council meetings. Watching these can provide valuable insights into officials’ stances on development and help you tailor your approach.
By combining these strategies, you can build stronger relationships with city staff and decision-makers, mitigate risks, and improve the likelihood of project success.
Sources: Lunch & Learn -Ins and Outs of Construction, Lunch & Learn -Ins and Outs of Construction
Figure out what they want, or what their constituents want. Do they want affordable housing? Parking? Transit oriented development? And then incorporate that into your plan. Make it easier on them. The fact that you show a personal interest is great and is a means to an end, but at the end of the day these people report to others, be it voters or agency heads or elected officials. Help them help you.
Great point, thanks.
Couple things to consider:
Awesome thank you man.
If in northeast, easier to just hire a lobbyist. You'll waste your time trying to reach out to these folks.
Most are economically illiterate and think developers are the second coming of Satan after they got their masters in urban planning from the local state school.
Man ain’t that the truth. I had a public hearing last year and 75 people showed up to oppose our project. Meanwhile the land is at the gateway to the city and environmentally contaminated. The only way the site is remediated is through development but I’m the bad guy.
What were they opposed to? How did you address their concerns? Public hearings are notorious for not being particularly well attended - usually it is a handful of crackpots. The fact that 75 people showed up is a pretty good indication that there was a genuine issue in play.
This is a pretty bad take, and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how public officials think and act.
Most people are perfectly "economically literate" or at least are intelligent and competent enough to grasp basic principles. You're just so self-absorbed that you don't understand that their priorities aren't the same as yours. A elected official or bureaucrat isn't solely interested in the economics of your deal. They have other concerns. A local councilwoman is supposed to balance the interests of her constituents with good planning... but if her constituents hate your development plan, even if they're being irrational, then it's actually quite reasonable for that woman to oppose your project. Part of her job is being a megaphone for the interests of the community, whatever they may be.
Your disdain for people who don't make it as easy as possible for you to make money probably does you no favors, and it won't help OP either.
Absolutely no disdain in my post. My comments are from direct experience. How can I fault dumb people for being dumb? Who's better to set them on the right path than a lobbyist?
Even in the sunbelt we'll hire an expediter or in unique cases pay an attorney with connections way too much.
"What are some effective ways you’ve learned to work with city staff and decision makers throughout the development process?"
What you say in (1) is a good idea, although they likely won't just go to lunch with random people. You want to develop relationships with regulators. You are more likely to get a favorable outcome from regulators when you are more than just some random joe schmoe.
One thing I have found helpful is to really listen to them. They all have their wants and desires, and people like to talk. You don't have to act on their ideas, but spending the time to really engage with them and to hear what they have to say can make a big difference.
A wise developer mentor once told me if you are asking the city for anything the reason should never be about money. Coy think (and they are right to an extent) that we make tons of money with these developments, so it’s on the developer to show the benefit to the community beyond a margin.
Second is to just be nice - these people gets tons of assholes calling them all day trying to be the nicest person they talk to that day and so your best not to waste there time goes a long ways.
That’s super fair. I work in land development and a funny enough, we tend to win a lot of disputes due to the money argument. The city will request that we do something and we illustrate how this will then reflect the increase in home prices. Usually works.
It depends on the jurisdiction you're in and the entitlements you're seeking, but I generally find that the process is mostly just that: process.
A lot of people have this idea that the formal process is just a smokescreen and that there are a small handful of political power players behind the scenes who decide everything, and that the best strategy is therefore to buy them off or hire connected insider lobbyists to shmooze them. In my experience, it usually doesn't work that way. The path to full entitlements generally entails a complicated regulatory process that you need to understand thoroughly and then navigate efficiently with the help of your consultants.
If you go the politicians and lobbyists route, keep in mind that both of those groups have an incentive to BS you about how much sway they really have. They'll tell you in hushed tones about how they can call the governor or whomever, whom they supposedly have on speed dial, and make all of your problems go away overnight. Often, though, that matters less than you might think, and the path mainly goes through a grinding site plan review where your architect and engineer go back and forth with technical reviewers at hearings or career civil servants inside bureaucracies.
If I want to permit something substantial in a new municipality, I'd rather talk first with architects, civil engineers, and local attorneys who have recent experience with that type of project in that muncipality.
I think there is actually some truth to the reverse of this. There is no smoke filled room in which a handful of power players approve projects. You can't schmooze your way through the entitlement process.
However, you can absolutely have a project shut down or indefinitely stalled if a powerful player is set against your plan.
The kind of lobbyist you mention is just another leech sucking blood out of the development process. Totally unnecessary, but people hire them to feel like they've checked all the boxes and cannot possibly be faulted for exploring every possible option. Kind of like the majority of times consultants get hired.
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