It still bothers Scott Stowell, several years after the fact, that his company, Standard Pacific Homes, spent $30 million to build three bridges at its Talega master planned community near San Clemente, Calif., over what the Army Corps of Engineers insisted were navigable waters, but what Stowell—the builder's regional president for Southern California—claims were merely runoff streams.
Builders around the country complain that it's taking them up to two years to satisfy the Corps' regulatory arm-twisting for permit approval. Ed Smith, vice president of land acquisition and development for Capital Pacific Homes' Phoenix division, calls the Corps “our biggest frustration” because it requires that waterways be determined. “In Phoenix, the two main ‘rivers' are dry beds, so you can see the irony.”
Corps officials insist they do what they can with the tools at their disposal. For example, its command in Sacramento, Calif., has a staff of 35 that regulates the Clean Water Act for 350,000 square miles in four Western states, one of which—California—has more endangered species (55) than any state in the nation. Less than 1 percent of the Sacramento command's $450 million annual budget goes to regulation, says spokesman Jason Fanselau. (Congress establishes the Corps' manpower and budget.)
ADVISE AND CONSENT: Through early July, 23 owners had moved into the 26-home Woodhaven community in Arvada, Colo., which Brittany Cos., a local builder with $7.5 million in annual sales, designed after soliciting comments about its plan from surrounding neighbors during 10 “town hall”–like meetings.
Fanselau and Dave Hewitt, the Corps' national spokesman in Washington, note that a new ruling, under review this spring, could, if approved, speed up permit approvals by expanding the allowable use of mitigation banks. But Fanselau attributes some delays to the reluctance of builders and developers to provide complete and “honest” information about the environmental impact of their projects. He notes that one developer recently gave the Corps a wetlands map showing no wetlands. “In fact, it had 6.6 acres of wet-lands. Maybe this was a honest mistake,” Fanselau says, “but it's not uncommon.”
DIGGING DEEPERA new survey on land use tells builders they need better reconnaissance about homeowners' psyches and a market's politics.
One in five Americans has actively opposed a development project. That unnerving finding emerged from a nationwide survey of 1,000 people about their attitudes toward land use, which the University of Massachusetts at Lowell conducted last fall for The Saint Consulting Group, a Hingham, Mass.–based firm that has worked on over 800 “contested neighborhood” projects. The survey found large majorities—between 73 percent and 93 percent—who are generally against new development, think planners and developers collude, oppose the seizure of private property through eminent domain, and vote based on a candidate's position on growth.
Michael Saint, Saint Consulting Group's CEO, doesn't think builders and developers spend enough time studying the political dimensions of land and project approval. He also doesn't think their antennae are tuned into what existing homeowners want. “A lot of people won't accept New Urbanism, no matter what planners OK,” he says.
At the very least, he notes, builders and developers need to survey a market's political landscape before presenting their plans to a community and bring homeowners into the design process before a project is announced, so they can feel that their input is valued. Saint says builders and developers would benefit as well from canvassing surrounding neighborhoods to identify who their real opponents are and what issues they're against, “so they can meet them head on” when a project reaches the approval stage.