As we filed
into the room, the City Engineer took control of the seating arrangements,
directing that “the black hats should sit on that side of the table and the
white hats on this side.” The City
Engineer may well have spoken in a moment of ill-considered haste, for which he
was known. My memory is that the City
Development Director immediately rebuked him for his words. But years later, his words still rankle.
They rankle
for several reasons. The immediate
reason is that the city, like many cities, was dependent on continued growth to
keep the municipal books balanced. This
is the state of municipal finance that StrongTowns argues is fatally flawed,
with the day of reckoning now upon us.
But even setting the StrongTowns argument aside, if the city thought
they needed new development to keep the city afloat, why should the people who
were working to bring new development be denigrated as “black hats”?
But more
fundamentally, the City Engineer’s words rankle because, even if one accepts
that there are white hats and black hats in the room, it would be wrong to
automatically assign the hats based on job titles.
I suggest that
there are three constituencies are represented in any development meeting. The first two are the ones highlighted by the
City Engineer’s words, the team responsible for ensuring that the developer
makes a good profit on the new land use and the team responsible for assuring
that the new development conforms to appropriate city standards and pays all
required city fees.
It’s the
third constituency that is often forgotten during such meetings. That third constituency is the people who
will live in the city fifty years hence.
If land sales are the goal, the developer’s window is often only five
years. Even if the improvement is to be
held long-term, the developer probably doesn’t care about more than fifteen
years. And the city’s windows can be
even less, perhaps only looking to improve city finances over the next three or
four years during which much of the current council will be running for
re-election.
It’s often
the case that nobody is looking fifty years into the crystal ball. And if perchance someone is, they are the
ones who deserve the white hats. And, not surprisingly, increased urbanism is often
the perspective taken by those taking the long view.
This subject
comes to mind because of a meeting I attended in early October. The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has a program
through which land-use professionals from other regions will visit a city with
a pending project. The visiting
professionals will engage in extended meetings over a couple of days to learn
about the issues. Next, they’ll meet far
into the night to pool their training and experience to offer true outsider
advice on how to configure the improvements to optimize the long-term public benefits. Finally, they’ll offer their thoughts to the
project members and the public.
The visiting
ULI members have their expenses paid and receive their regular pay from their
employers, but receive no additional compensation for their long hours of work
and travel. Nor is there any hope of
securing a new contract. They offer
their services solely for the betterment of a community that is often several
time zones away.
The project under
discussed in October was the Railyards in Sacramento, a vastly interesting
urbanist development near the recently reconstructed Sacramento Train Station,
pictured above. The ULI team presented
some cogent and interesting suggestions that I may review in the future.
But for
today, with the Christmas spirit hopefully still lingering in the air, my only
goal is to let you know that there are sometimes white hats in the land
development process and that those hats don’t belong to the developer’s team or
the city staff, but to the professionals who go over and above their regular
duties to serve the long-term interests of a community. And their advice usually advocates for the
urbanist aspect of the future.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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