Yes Vote: The Public Hearing Plan for Developers

By Katie Coates

Building community support, overcoming opposition, and getting approval for real estate developments are challenging, time-consuming and costly endeavors. Developers can overcome these challenges with the hands-on strategies and tactics covered in Yes Vote: The Public Hearing Plan for Developers.

Real estate developers must get approval for their real estate developments at a public hearing so that they don’t lose money, lose face, and alienate their investors – or worse. They already know that the public hearing has its own pitfalls. They may even lie awake at night worrying about them. For 25 years, Consultant Katie Coates has been helping her clients get approval at their public hearings, even on projects that have been deemed lost causes or hopeless. In Yes Vote, Katie shares her special blend of analysis, strategy and real-world experience with readers so they can get their approval, too.

In Yes Vote, readers learn how to:

• Overcome opposition.
• Find supporters, even in a hostile environment.
• Formulate a plan so they have a greater sense of control over their project's destiny.
• Get elected officials to listen to them instead of only listening to their opponents.
• Prevail at the public hearing and get approval for their project.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642790405

Book preview

Introduction –

Build the Dream

We used to call them our town founders and we honored them by erecting their statues in our town squares. Today we just call them ‘developers.’

– Andrés Duany, Miami architect and planner

Josh Hunter (not his real name) has planned a beautiful development. The only problem is that it has run into opposition. He has never before experienced the level of negativity – even hatred – that is being directed at this project. Sure, his other buildings may have had a disgruntled neighbor or two. Some had even shown up at his public hearings. But they had been few. Their comments had not harmed his chances with the decision makers, and his projects had been approved by the Planning Commission and City Council without incident.

But this one is different. He has done so much outreach already, sitting down with the closest neighbors to outline the plans, gather their input, and consider modifications he can make. He has made extensive changes: He has lowered the height of the tallest structure, reducing it to match the second-story level of the closest neighbor. He has moved the main building away from the property line in order to provide a buffer and give the nearby homes more privacy.

To top it all off, one of the guys he’s met with – and whose input has changed his project so much – seems to be the opponents’ ringleader.

He can’t understand why this guy and the other loud-mouths are making up lies about his project – and even about him! They accuse him of being a carpetbagger, even though he and his family live in town. They call him a bloodsucker and an opportunist. They stop just short of calling him the Devil incarnate. They say he’s all about profit and doesn’t care about the community. He has made many concessions, even lowering the profit margin of the project substantially by reducing its density in order to make the development palatable to his neighbors.

The opponents are posting their lies about the project on social media platforms, making videos, and showing up at all the city council meetings to state their false accusations during the public comment period. They seem to attract new members to their group every week. This thing is getting completely out of control. They seem totally committed to defeating him at the upcoming hearing, and he feels like they have a real chance at destroying his dreams of building this great project.

For as long as Josh can remember, he has always liked building things. He loved his Legos when he was a kid. He was always creating. The buildings he constructed with the play bricks were real in his mind. As he set one block on top of another, he could see the exterior of the building as though it were real, with specific door and window styles. He could imagine the interior, the people who worked, lived, shopped, or sat at restaurant tables inside. He saw the landscaping as it was planned and as it grew, and the cars as they pulled into the parking lots.

He grew up and became a developer. He had big dreams ….

If he’s honest with himself, he still has them. He wants to make places people are attracted to, that look good from the outside and the inside, and that fill the needs they have for homes, shopping centers, and business spaces. He wants to create developments that make his town beautiful and help people build connections and create a community. He wants to leave a legacy.

He has successfully seen a few developments through to completion. That point where ground is broken and the construction begins is a total rush! There are so many steps before that, though. For Josh, his favorite step is the beginning of the dream … finding a great piece of property and thinking of what he wants to put there. He loves messing around with preliminary plans, thinking about the overall ambience of the project, and visualizing its completion.

This latest project, with the loud, obnoxious opponents, is causing him worry and stress. In fact, worrying about getting the development approved is keeping him up at night.

The lot he found for this project is perfect. The owner heard his ideas and was willing to work with him instead of the other two developers who had proposed ideas to her. She seems to understand what he is trying to do. She sees his vision.

The development will be a shopping and dining destination. It will have a beautiful central green space in the middle with picnic tables and Adirondack chairs. Shade trees will provide cool spots to hang out in during the summer months. Border foliage makes the space feel like a warm embrace. The emphasis is on native plantings and the general impression of the entire center is a rural marketplace. There will be small eateries, a butcher, some boutiques with handcrafted wares. He has already talked to a company that sells artisanal produce. He hopes they will lease space so there’ll be an upscale country store in his project.

Josh has decided that this is going to be much more than a shopping center. Each building will have its own character. He loves the history of his town. In order to evoke the feelings of the Old West and the equestrian community that still flourish, he and his designers have integrated water features that look like artistic horse troughs, and the hardscapes are gravel rather than asphalt. His deepest desire is that the development will flow seamlessly with the surrounding environment, which includes a historic downtown, a petting zoo, and a passive-use city park.

He has even decided to provide enough parking so that people who want to make a trip to his center can leave their cars there after their visit and stroll to the nearby downtown area.

Ultimately, Josh wants to turn the opponents into supporters. He wants to convince these guys that they are wrong. He wants to make them admit that what they are saying is untrue. And, he knows he needs approval at his upcoming public hearing.

And that’s why Josh needs me. He needs my help because he needs to know what it will take to get approval at his hearing. Josh’s project will be a gift to the community, providing many benefits, and he isn’t going to give up because it is hard.

Like other developers, he needs to be able to build projects that will become our homes, businesses, and the cornerstones of our community. Developers are dreamers, but they are also men of action who make things happen. Developers are the shapers of our cities, towns, and villages.

Does this sound like you? If so, you probably have a project you’re working to get through the entitlement process. You probably need approval at a hearing or will in the future.

The public review process can be contentious, controversial, and stressful. And you can still get approval. Or it can go the other way.

After we begin working together, I show Josh what it will take to communicate effectively with the decision makers who hold his project’s fate in their hands. I show him what it will take to reduce the noise being created by his project’s opponents. I show him the steps to take to build community support. With a good enough project, he will be able to find support, or the project does not deserve to be built! I ultimately show him how to get approval for his project at his public hearing.

I show him how I help developers with beautiful dreams get permission to build their projects.

And I’ll show you that, too, in the following pages.

It is necessary to build a system or structure which will allow you to form your dream into reality.

– Sunday Adelaja

When I was a young public relations consultant, I worked as a subcontractor to PR firms that had agreements with cities and public agencies. I loved my work: creating and implementing communication plans, developing strategic messages, and writing. I helped them provide information to many different sectors of the public and media. It was fun and interesting.

As my reputation grows, something remarkable begins happening. I begin getting calls from developers who have the money, vision, and expertise to build developments on land they already own or have options on. They need to get approval for their