Cursed By Knowing The Numbers

The Measure R ballot initiative this fall for diesel powered light rail service between Santa Rosa and San Rafael was, on its face, not a bad idea.  The right of way is publicly owned.  The goal is to provide a reliable alternative to the single occupancy vehicle--primarily for Sonoma County residents commuting to San Rafael.  The $467 million plan would run 70 miles, have 14 stops, 14 diesel trains, and have an estimated daily ridership of 5,000 passengers.

The problem is that the taxpayers are being asked to pay $668 million in sales taxes for a concept without a land use plan in place and no firm evidence of ridership  in what are primarily low density communities.

The major points are:

• The North Bay--Marin and Sonoma Counties--has developed in a linear fashion along Highway 101--a natural for a rail corridor.
• Traffic on 101 from San Rafael in Marin to Sonoma, and through Santa Rosa is nasty much of the day.  Golden Gate Transit bus 75, a commuter bus from Santa Rosa to San Rafael, takes 100 minutes on average to make this trip.  This would drop to 55 minutes on the train.
• The advocates are focusing on the train, but not the land use patterns necessary to support it.
• Ridership estimates are soft, and construction costs are unpredictable at present.
• League of Women Voters analysis of this special tax measure is here.
• The MTC supports the measure.

The rub was, once I did my due diligence, was that these horn blowing, diesel powered trains are not a better transit alternative, and there has been limited enabling of transit oriented development at the nodes--particularly the southern terminus, where the largest opportunity exists.   And ridership numbers are really soft.

The southern terminus should be at San Quentin.  A connection to San Francisco via ferry would be a natural at the San Quentin transit village.  Odd that Assemblyman Nation, the same one that proposed the SMART legislation, has been so absent when it comes to changing the law to allow this transit village to develop.  And the money raised from the sales tax is would be 70% of what is needed at San Quentin to recast the old prison property into a transit village with 86 acres of open space, 2100 homes, a deep water ferry terminal and other elements of a transit village.

The built environment nodes along the proposed route have not been planned in the density needed to make the train service self sufficient.  MTC estimates the density around each station should be roughly 2200DU.  Larkspur requires a ten to fifteen minute walk from the proposed rail station to the ferry terminal.   Transit Oriented Development is a policy that the MTC and BART have come to embrace now as a way of building ridership and providing adequate housing and retail options--thirty years after BART was built.

Train service is overseen by the Federal Railroad Administration.  The regulation and oversight makes for perhaps the safest mode of transport in the US. But many rail advocates argue that the FRA regulations have not only come at too high a price (by making rail prohibitively expensive) but in many cases are completely nonsensical.

Asking for $668 million for a transit plan that does not tie out with a smart land use plan is not very attractive to me as a voter.  Providing alternatives to life dependent upon the single occupancy vehicle is a good idea, but this plan does not do that, on many levels.  Tie this service to the redevelopment of San Quentin as a Cinque Terre transit village, and you might have something [and my vote]--but not the way it is presented here.

Posted by Ted at 5:12 PM | Permalink

Presenting at public hearings is like working in a sausage factory.  It is democracy at its most FUN-damental (groan).  It is the acid test of the public benefit of your (or anybody else's) proposed use.

How do you approach presentations? Is fear part of it? Fear--or speech fright--usually revolves around the perception that your personal worth or self-estimation is at risk. The natural reaction to most situations of fear is to flee--which I generally discourage in public speaking as being counter-productive.

Being prepared, having the right mental attitude, being direct, and being active are how you increase your credibility.  Your objective is to present with Clarity, Coherence, and Conciseness the following: 

easily understood exhibits showing conformance with your adopted codes,

• a scale model of your intended use,
• a point by point analysis how your use compares to existing uses in the neighborhood,
• what is allowable as-of-right, under the general and specific plans and under requested variances,
• a tax benefits analysis showing increased property taxes paid by your proposed use,
• sustainable/carbon footprint survey of your proposed use, and
• your letters of support.

Work to understand the planning staff's position on your intended use, whether they support it, and if not, why not.  You won't be privy to the staff report prior to the hearing, and their position can be a real surprise to you.  Be ready for it.

Here is a book I find valuable in preparing for public hearings. BTW, Mr. Ailes runs FOX News these days. 

Review Majora Carter's presentation.  Review it again.

Posted by Ted at 8:09 PM | Permalink

Every once in a while I am exposed to something that recalibrates my view on my profession.  A book, a conversation, a performance that knocks me back to first principles, that I am in this game to make a difference, to leave this place better than I found it.  And that there is so much more to do...

I have been doing soapbox duty recently on what passes for planning at San Quentin.  This top down approach that has left me dumbfounded. No response to date from our elected officials about why the law proscribes such a use on this irreplaceable 275 acre bayfront property and what it would take to change the law.

Here is a talk by an amazing woman, a MacArthur Fellow, about creating sustainable communities--an amazingly inspiring use of ten minutes of your day. Watch this, and think about what is about to happen here. 

 Download the video here.

I warn you, it is a powerful presentation.  If public presenting is part of your life, you might also appreciate Guy Kawasaki's take on Majora Carter's performance,

"I would love it if my daughter would grow up to be a warrior like Majora."

As Majora said, "We have nothing to lose...and everything to gain."

Posted by Ted at 2:46 PM | Permalink

In part II, you learned that you need to read and understand the adopted codes relevant to your property and then look contextually at improvements around you, to discern if there is a discretionary element modifying the adopted codes.  This provides you a baseline on what can be done.

The next step is to understand who the stakeholders are.  These are typically abutting neighbors, long-standing community groups, anyone who holds an easement or deed restriction on your property, and the authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ) over any entitlements.

Real estate is reputed to be all about Location, Location, Location.  During the approvals process it is more like Neighbors, Neighbors, Neighbors (NNN).  And their first reaction to any change is likely to be No, No, No.  And you need to get to yes, yes, yes.

Your key task is to go and talk with your neighbors, propose the changes to the neighborhood, why they should support you, and why you are doing it now. 

The objective  is to get a letter of support from each of your abutting neighbors for your intended use. 

You will need conceptual level plans, elevations, and what the improvements will look like from their vantage point.  You are not selling a project, you are proposing this in the neighborhood and you want to understand their concerns.

Rinse and repeat with any community groups, other non-abutting but influential neighbors, non-governmental committees (historical, etc), and easement holders.  The objective here is to respond to concerns on your intended use before it shows up in the public arena. 

Caution:  too much community wrangling can make the intended use look like it was designed by a committee (which it was) rather than the voice of your architect. The goal is incorporation by your architect of contextually derived  ideas,  not design by committee.

Only after you gain neighborhood support for your intended use do you move forward.  Moving forward without this support is pissing into the wind.  Not to mention expensive.

Posted by Ted at 2:06 PM | Permalink

Gaining the right to build is the second most critical skill a developer needs, after the ability to do the math and handicap a potential project.

What is the first step?  Read your adopted codes.  Understand, or have your architect explain to you, what your as-of-right envelope is.  Unless your project is open space or a wetland, there is a bulk, massing and use envelope that will provide you with an initial square footage, use, height, and percent of site utilization.    In my opinion, if what I need to produce fits within the adopted codes, I have an 80% chance of getting my project approved.

You ask:  Why only 80%, grasshopper?  Because if you read the codes carefully, there are often conflicts that give the power of discretion to the commissions, boards, and staff that have the ability to grant you your entitlements.

To understand the discretionary element, study the envelope on other properties in your neighborhood.  Find out where your proposed use compares with others in your neighborhood in terms of density, height, parking, shadow bulk. How do you compare? If you recently purchased your property, go down to the planning office and look at the public file on the project.  Look at the history of it.  Read staff reports on similar uses and sites.  After you have done your survey of comparable sites, find out where you stack up.  Are you in the top 50%, 25% 10%?  Your likelihood of success drops the closer you get to the top of the stack.

You will now understand what is as of right, and what is discretionary.  Envision this as an envelope of use, height, footprint, and bulk on your property.   The further you go outside your envelope, the process gets increasingly expensive, the processing time increases, and your likelihood of success decreases.

 Once you understand the numbers, then you can proceed with the how.

Here is a recent example of how you do it.  Very impressive technique  by someone who has made a tremendous contribution to the City of Cupertino, whose company is their largest taxpayer, and needs to do a fifty acre campus.

Posted by Ted at 3:58 PM | Permalink

  Adding architecture, capital, knowledge, and labor to dirt successfully has four risks to it:

Approvals Risk--what you want or believe should be on a site is not what the authorities grant you the right to do.
Capitalization Risk--you have undercapitalized or over-leveraged your project financing, putting undue stress on the construction or operation of it.
Construction Risk--the quality, cost, and delivery time of improvements is outside the window of acceptability.
Leaseup & Operating Risk--you cannot produce the amount and quality of income you need to pay back investors, lenders, and yourself.

How do you deal with these risks?

Four ways:

1. You understand the risks--quantitatively and qualititatively.  You price it.  You put a probability on it happening to you.
2. You recruit talent that can help you to reduce these risks.
3. You maintain a dialogue with everyone involved in eliminating or mitigating this risk.  Focus, focus, focus. Faster/better/smarter.  Price it again.
4. You track mitigation/elimination until the exposure is behind you.
   

Approvals risk is the biggie in the markets I work in.  Projects can take ten years to gain entitlements.  There is limited ability to lay off risk on others.  There are limited exit strategies.  You are walking point through a very dangerous process--but one that is absolutely required to make the difference you want to make in our built environment.

I have always gotten my projects approved--part luck, part working with great people, part knowing what to take on (and what not).  Part knowing the numbers.  Paranoia helps, too.

And you really only have one shot at getting it right. Ed Logan, a planning professor of mine back at the 'Tute likened project approvals to his time as a WWII bombardier in a B-24 over Germany..."Your success is inversely proportional to your time over the target."

In the next few weeks, I am going to be looking at how my industry and I deal with each of these risks.

Posted by Ted at 7:27 AM | Permalink