Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Equity

Female cities.

“Experiences of sexual harassment and violence intersect with other social inequalities, especially those of class, race, disability and sexual orientation. To track all of these indicators through an urban planning and design agenda can be bewildering, drawing attention away from deep-seated, long-standing ‘structures’ of inequality that become embedded in the built environment and in the mindsets of politicians and planners” writes Marion Roberts for Resilience.org.

Women and girls do not have the same freedoms as the other half of the population. Sexual harassment and violence, which are an everyday occurrence worldwide, hinder their ability to move freely in public spaces without fear and at any time of day or night. 

Urban planning is the act of planning the structures (and spaces) of our urban environment, including its policies, infrastructure, neighborhoods, building codes and regulations. Urban planning is data driven and both technical and political. It can be constrained by legislation as well as by market-driven economic policies. As a part of this discipline, urban planners use tools such as gender impact assessments and gender auditing and budgeting to try to meet gender equality objectives.

Marion Roberts argues that a socialist-feminist approach reduces all that complexity. By recognizing that the work of reproduction, caring and domestic duties are of equal value to other work in our society, this approach has the potential to radically transform and improve living conditions and create cities that uphold the rights of all to fair and equal citizenship.

There are many examples worldwide of inspired attempts, on different scales, to achieve this kind of equality. But the only city to truly embrace this idea is the City of Vienna where planning strategy is now based on considering housework, caring work and waged work as equal. To put this into practice they are planning a polycentric city of well-connected neighborhoods. One such neighborhood is the new Aspern Seestadt, an urban extension with a projected 20,000 households with employment opportunities, schools, medical services, Austria’s first managed high street, leisure facilities, refugee facilities, an urban park around a lake and a high-speed metro connection to the city center. 

There are also many initiatives to increase safety in cities. The program Safer Streets, Safer Trails in Mexico City, for example, reduced street crimes against women by 29 percent when they introduced measures such as better lighting, security cameras and alarm buttons to 125 miles of streets and paths. “A feminist approach to the city goes beyond merely treating women as victims and addresses all inequalities” writes Marion Roberts. “Social movements, committed politicians and educated professionals all have a role to play in transforming the urban landscape, which, in turn, shapes our lives.”

Read the original article here.

Image by Eve Picker

Reclaiming your Community.

Majora Carter’s career as urban revitalization strategist has spanned environment, economy, social mobility, and real estate development. Her work has won major awards in each sector, including a MacArthur ‘genius’ Grant and Peabody Award winning broadcaster.

Majora’s words — “Nobody should have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one” — are inscribed on the walls of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. And her new book, called “Reclaiming Your Neighborhood”, the subject of our podcast, takes a next step in her thesis – build where you live,  talent will stay and your neighborhood will prosper.

Born and raised in the South Bronx, Majora has long-focused much of her work there, looking always to make positive change for her community, and in doing so, gained both national and international attention. She believes that talent retention may be the key to turning around low-status neighborhoods. And she’s backed that up with her Boogie Down Ground Hip-Hop coffee spot which she owns and operates with her husband in Hunts Point, around the corner from where she grew up.

Majora is also a lecturer at Princeton University’s Keller Center, serves as editor and senior producer at GROUNDTRUTH, a platform for telling stories of people building community power, and she previously served as associate director of The POINT Community Development Corporation. She founded and ran Sustainable South Bronx and co-founded Green for All.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:07] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:01] My guest today is Majora Carter, my second interview with this powerhouse. Her career as urban revitalization strategist has spanned environment, economy, social mobility and real estate development, and her work has won major awards in each sector, including a MacArthur Genius grant. Majora’s words are inscribed on the walls of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture: “Nobody should have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one.” Her new book called “Reclaiming Your Neighborhood”, the subject of our podcast, takes a next step in her thesis. Build where you live, talent will stay, and your neighborhood will prosper. Look for the book on Amazon, in bookstores or on Majora’s website. There is no way around it. If you are really interested in impact investing, this podcast is a must listen.

Eve: [00:02:19] Hello, Majora. I’m so delighted to have you back on this show.

Majora Carter: [00:02:23] Thanks for having me.

Eve: [00:02:25] It’s been a while, but you’ve just written a book called “Reclaiming Your Community,” and in it you ask how we can address the problem of persistent poverty in low status communities differently. So, I wanted to start by asking you what is a low status community and what does it mean to you?

Majora: [00:02:46] A low status community to me – the way that our company defines it is a place where inequality is assumed by both the people that are in that community and those outside looking in. And so, what that what it looks like and I think that’s easier to describe that way; It’s the kind of places where there are more environmental burdens, where there’s higher rates of poverty, lower educational attainment, the kind of places where you won’t find diverse options for food. Not many great places to invest your money or you’re charged for it, like through check cashing stores or places like that. And it’s just literally the places where inequality is just understood. And so and they look different. They can be inner cities, they could be Native American reservations, they could be the kind of former booming Rust Belt towns that only white people lived in. But the jobs are long gone.

Eve: [00:03:44] This is a really big and hard question. So why is it difficult to improve the status of a low status neighborhood?

Majora: [00:03:52] Well, like a lot of things, it comes down to who benefits from it. And because if you look at those communities, literally billions of dollars are pumped into them through the philanthropic industrial sector and as well as our government. And it looks different, but it comes in the form of whether there are subsidies to build very low-income housing and homeless shelters, whether it’s the multibillion dollar economic engine that’s our pharmaceutical industry that absolutely does profit off of lifestyle related health conditions from diabetes and obesity and heart conditions. And it’s the, you know, the fact that there’s such low educational attainment but really, we’re not investing in public education within those areas either. And so, again, so it’s always like a problem to be solved. Again, folks, there are definitely industries set up to perpetuate that and actually benefit from them, but the people in those communities are not getting any better.

Eve: [00:04:53] So how does the redevelopment industry impact this cycle?

Majora: [00:04:58] Yeah, so like I think there’s an old saying, “all relationships are about real estate” and I believe it’s true in this regard because real estate development can be used as a transformational tool if we use it that way. I mean, think about it. What we’re doing is literally redefining what constitutes what is happening in those areas. So, when you do it by creating really interesting commercial, industrial, residential development. And so, you can tweak the formula and create benefits for the people that are there or not. Right?

Eve: [00:05:32] Right.

Majora: [00:05:32] And so if we’re thinking about development as a transformational tool and if we know that sort of status quo development, which either content to concentrate poverty and everything and all the ills associated with it from low health outcomes, low educational attainment, you know, higher rates of people being incarcerated. If we know that, then what if we designed those places and developed them in ways that actually promoted the opposite?

Eve: [00:06:01] Right.

Majora: [00:06:01] And that’s when we decided to look at a tool. We literally borrowed a page from the business community that looks at if you are an employer, if you own a business and you train, you hire your staff, that’s your talent and you pour resources into them, whether it’s training or benefits or reasons for them to want to stay. You know, you’re not doing it so that your competitor will hire them away. You’re doing it so that your talent sees you as the place to be. But we don’t do that in American low status communities. We don’t treat our communities that way. And so, what we’re trying to do is apply a talent retention approach to real estate development. Like what do folks that are born and raised in those communities, the talented ones, the ones that are either academically or artistically or any kind of talent, the ones that are literally taught to measure success by how far they get away from those communities, what can we do to keep them there? And so, we ask, what are you looking for in the community that you desire? We ask community members in my hometown in the South Bronx, what’s that? In that classic kind of low status community and people of all income levels, they were looking for kind of things that made them feel good about being in their own community, whether it was good places like cafes, restaurants, great parks, places to play and work. Those are the kind of things that they wanted. And so why aren’t we building those things here in our own community? And that is when we realize that that’s the kind of real estate development we wanted to do. And we labeled it a talent retention, real estate development strategy.

Eve: [00:07:47] You talk about real estate development impacting low status neighborhoods in one of two ways, and the first is displacement gentrification, which we touched on, and the second is poverty maintenance. So, tell me about poverty maintenance.

Majora: [00:08:03] Yeah. So, poverty level economic maintenance as we’ve called it, or PLM, which really sounds gross, but because it kind of is, where again, billions pumped into these communities from government and philanthropic sources, but the economic level of the people in that community does not change. So, subsidies that go to low income, quote unquote, affordable housing developers, which is only for very low income housing and even homeless shelters, lots of money in terms of the health clinics and the multinational pharmaceutical industry that are government subsidized and actually do support lifestyle illnesses according to, whether they are diabetes, obesity. But things related to the quality of life that that happen in communities, low status communities and seeing those type of things, even community centers that are that I think are often just there’s like resources that are poured in specifically to support the bright ones in the community. And so those are the ones that measure success by how far they get away. And those type of things literally pull people outside of our own community to seek greener pastures. But again, the people that remain are usually the ones that remain in poverty. And that is the way that those communities are treated.

Eve: [00:09:31] Right.

Majora: [00:09:32] Whether it’s by the philanthropic and our government interest, it’s like we play to that in terms of like creating more low-income housing, more health clinics and opportunities to support people that are chronically suffering from lifestyle health conditions. And through that, we are not seeing the kind of transition from people who are actually creating more healthy opportunities for them, for themselves in those communities. And we’re seeing more and more money pumped into those things. And thus, we’re seeing the concentration of more and more poverty and all the things associated with it, whether it’s low educational attainment, higher rates of folks involved in the justice system, poor health outcomes, and more reasons for more people to want to leave those communities. So again, poverty level, economic maintenance, somebody is doing well, but not the people that are in those communities.

Eve: [00:10:27] So, you know, I think actually in the built environment, what you’re talking about is perpetuated by the affordable building types that we see, because you can really drive through a neighborhood and you can see you can point out affordable housing very clearly. And that, I think, is a very visible manifestation of that Poverty Maintenance or PLM, as you called it.

Majora: [00:10:49] Yeah. The architecture of poverty is, you know, you know it when you see it.

Eve: [00:10:55] Yes.

Majora: [00:10:55] It’s kind of like pornography. It’s like you know it when you see it.

Eve: [00:10:59] Yes, it’s true.

Majora: [00:11:01] Yeah, it may look different in a rural or urban or a suburban context, but everybody knows.

Eve: [00:11:07] That’s right. So, you know, you’ve already touched on this, but you write about how third spaces are key to talent retention in low status community economics. And so what is a third space?

Majora: [00:11:21] So, third spaces are these urban planning parlance for places that are neither work nor home. Right? And it’s just this third space where community can happen. And to us, community is not just a place, it’s an activity. Right? It is literally an action verb, but you do need places to do it. And so, if you don’t and so if you’re in general, if you’re in a low status community, the kind of places, the kind of third spaces that are in those communities are generally not the kind of places where people feel like they’re vibrant and they’re working to support the kind of goals and aspirations for their lives. It’s like, I think about some of the places in my neighborhood in the South Bronx where the largest places were communal real estate was either the waiting rooms at health clinics or pharmacies and also community centers where most people do not go and hang out or don’t want to be seen in. Right. Or for long anyway. And it’s just like, you know, in terms of cafes or cool places to hang out, very few. And so that’s when we realize we’re creating this this architecture or the architecture that’s here is literally creating this sort of like talent repulsion experience for people who are feeling like, I know I’ve got something good to offer because I don’t – Low status communities have never had a shortage of amazing people coming from them. Right. But I do have a problem with them staying. I mean, even America loves the Cinderella story of like somebody being born into some kind of hardscrabble community and they have to pull themselves up and then they go out and make something great of themselves. They’re coming from these communities. Why can’t we make something of ourselves here?

Eve: [00:13:13] Yeah.

Majora: [00:13:14] And that’s both the challenge, but also the joy of realizing that it’s not just this thing that this this miracle that needs to happen, it’s something that we can do because we already have the tools and the keys to our own recovery within our own communities.

Eve: [00:13:33] So, you know, I visited you in the Bronx and there’s not a lot of third places there. But you created a coffee shop, and didn’t you tell me that it was voted, what was it voted, number one?

Majora: [00:13:44] We were voted the best cafe in New York in 2021.

Eve: [00:13:49] Can you believe that? That’s awesome.

Majora: [00:13:51] Yes, I can. Yes, I absolutely can. And it’s because we but it was by time out in New York and it was because we were, and yes, we do have great specialty coffee. I’m sorry. Do you hear that.

Eve: [00:14:09] The dog? Yes.

Majora: [00:14:09] Yes, I’m sorry.

Eve: [00:14:10] Everyone will have to deal with the dog on this podcast.

Majora: [00:14:13] I know.

Eve: [00:14:14] Is my life, right?

Majora: [00:14:15] He’s like really upset because my husband just walked out and he’s like, “don’t go” anyway. I’ll Start over. But yes, we were voted best cafe in New York City in 2021 by “Time Out New York magazine.” And I like to think it wasn’t just because we’ve got great coffee and tea and an awesome local craft beer and wine and sangria, but and really awesome community vibes. But it really was the vibes part because what we did was really instil within our community that our cafe was simply a vessel in which to hold all the great hopes and dreams and aspirations of our community and then gave it a platform to show it. We absolutely took advantage of having to do much of our work outdoors because of COVID, and suddenly we became this, this wasn’t just encased within the four walls of our cafe, but we took it outside and people were doing things like open mics and even credit repair workshops and art exhibits, and basically it was just such a liberating way for people to see how beautiful their community was. And because it was literally like spilling out onto the sidewalk for everybody to see. And I feel like that is the reason why we won that award. You know, not, you know, again, we do have really good stuff there, but it was mostly that we created this this environment that allowed people to see how beautiful their community was and participate in it.

Eve: [00:15:54] So you tested this thesis out. Do you know of any people who stayed in the community because of this third place? So, what’s next? How do you – that’s a big block you’re on, by the way. And yes, that’s going to take quite a lot of work to transform into a community asset, shall we say.

Majora: [00:16:12] Yes. Well, you know, you’ve got to start somewhere. I mean, some environmentalists would say, what’s the best time to plant a tree? You know, 20 years ago. What’s the next best time? Today. And so that’s where you start. And you have to start somewhere. And by creating examples and showing them what it does do is give people that are open to it an opportunity to say, well, if they could do something, why can’t I?

Eve: [00:16:37] Yes.

Majora: [00:16:37] And that is exactly what we’ve seen, like our little cafe has, actually, because it’s just allows people to connect together. We’ve seen everything from people being able to buy homes from one another. We’ve seen people start new businesses and locate them within the community. We’ve seen people develop their own capacity to see themselves as a different person, but the same one, but being able to do it within their own community. I’ve been incredibly excited by seeing folks realize that looking around and going, Wait, there’s people like me here. Why do I feel like I need to to escape when I could build something right here? So, yes. And what’s also super exciting is that I’ve also seen folks from around the country intuitively do this. And writing this book was simply a way to help other folks see that this may be mostly my story and how I got to the point where it’s like reclaiming my community was something that I want to see everybody to do because I feel like we have to do something to sort of repair the social fabric of our country. And we should start in the places that are most impacted by some of the specious problems that whether it’s systemic racism and classism have actually created in this country, but really created low status communities that are not helping us as a as a country evolve into the greatness that it could be.

Eve: [00:18:11] So I know you’re also working on a second third space, which I’ve had the good fortune to visit.

Majora: [00:18:16] Yes.

Eve: [00:18:17] A beautiful old railway building. Tell us about that. What’s going on there? It’s not far away. It’s like less than half a block away from your coffee shop, right?

Majora: [00:18:28] My world is really small at this point. I mean, the coffee shop is literally a three-minute walk away. The other project that you’re referring to is even a minute walk away from where I live.

Eve: [00:18:41] Yes, yeah, yeah.

Majora: [00:18:43] It’s a historic rail station designed by Cass Gilbert, America’s first starchitect, as they call them, Cass Gilbert, who designed also the Woolworth Building and the US Supreme Court building. It was quite the dandy in his day in the early part of the 20th century, and so we had this beautiful aesthetic. And so, this old rail station is about 4000 square feet, and so we’re transforming it into an event hall. So, my husband James and I actually literally did the initial demolition ourselves. Fortunately, we got other people to help us to finish it up, and it’s super exciting because the idea that we can take a space and by its nature as an event hall, it’s literally being filled by other people to do all sorts of things. And so we’re hoping to see it used as an amazing music venue, which actually sort of hearkens back to literally right across the street from where the rail station is, used to be a place where vaudeville excuse me, vaudeville, you know, Latin music as well is like it was like a musical and theater place where people would come right across the we want to bring some of that back as well. You know, and it’s also really interesting for me because that rail station is the reason why my family decided to settle there. My father was from down south, a big old black man who was a Pullman porter, and he bought our house for cash because back in the 1940s, there weren’t a whole lot of banks giving money to black men for mortgages. So, he actually won 15,000 in a horse race in California, put it in a satchel, literally cash, put it in a satchel, brought it back to New York. You found an Italian family that would sell to him, and he bought it.

Eve: [00:20:38] Which, in itself, was unusual, right?

Majora: [00:20:41] Literally, yeah. And he didn’t feel comfortable staying in the house for a couple of years, so he just rented it to them because it was the neighborhood was all white, but he bought that house because there was talk that they were going to reactivate that particular rail station and that was actually his line. So he was just like, Oh. Two blocks from my house. That’s what I want!

Eve: [00:21:01] He understood the power of transit, right?

Majora: [00:21:04] Exactly. Unfortunately, they never reopened it for transit, but he did have the conductor to slow down the train so he could hop off and climb out to his house.

Eve: [00:21:12] Oh, that’s great.

Majora: [00:21:13] Yeah, so that was pretty funny.

Eve: [00:21:16] Right? So, you know, I have to go back to the words that you’re quote that’s on the walls of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. And you said, “Nobody should have to move out of the neighborhood to live in a better one.” And it really sounds like you just got tired of waiting around for someone to fix yours.

Majora: [00:21:34] Yes. In a nutshell, it was just like, you know, I mean, it was a little deeper than that, actually, because it really did come from this place where, you know, because I was one of those kids who measured success by how far she got away. I was told from very early on that I was a smart kid and that I was going to grow up and be somebody. And of course, I believed that I was just like I was really smart. I was reading when I was three. I was like, I’m getting out of here, especially when my brother was killed. And, you know, and I did watch, you know, because of financial disinvestment. All, so many of the buildings in my neighborhood were burned down. And I watched a lot of it. And there was a there was some trauma associated, I think, with like seeing and feeling these things, experiencing these things. So, yeah, I was like, education’s going to be my ticket out. And it was until I ended up back here only because I was broke and I needed a cheap place to stay when I went to graduate school. And that’s the only reason why I came back. And it did. It felt like such a horrifying defeat to be this kid with like I had a bunch of letters behind my name. I went to good schools, and then all of a sudden, I’m like back home and mommy and daddy’s house in the South Bronx. Hard and, but what was amazing was discovering that that education and distance actually was a blessing because like that’s when I saw when the city and state were building this huge waste facility on our waterfront, and we already handled an enormous amount of it. I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, it’s because we just this is history repeating itself. We are a poor community of color, politically vulnerable, and this is what happens. And all I could think was I mean, first was shame when I understood it and I was like, oh, like I just wanted to run away. And I did. And you know what? No one blamed me. But now I see it like, literally, with like eyes completely wide open, and I wanted to do something about it. And yeah, like, I wanted nice things in my own doggone community. Absolutely. For me and for everybody else.

Eve: [00:23:51] Yes. Yeah. I don’t know what to say next because I know how hard it’s been for you. It’s an amazing it’s an amazing journey that you’ve taken. I just want to say that. So, you also talked to me about the Jumpstart program in Philly, which I actually I interviewed Ken Weinstein, who launched the program in our second podcast season. If anyone wants to listen, it’s an amazing program. Tell me about it and why you why you love it so much.

Majora: [00:24:23] Wow. Yes. So, I was actually getting an award in Philadelphia, and it was the Edward Bacon Award who was actually it is Kevin Bacon’s father. And but he was like this amazing urban planner in Philly, and everybody loved him. Yeah.

Eve: [00:24:42] Yeah, yeah.

Majora: [00:24:43] And so I was getting this award and like part of it, and it’s like a really big thing over there. And so, part of it was that I got to hang out with some, some notable people in Philly, and I was like, okay, cool. And I sat in on this roundtable with graduates from this program called Jumpstart Germantown. And they were all, almost all black folks younger than me. And they were all talking about, like, the deals that they were doing. And I was just like. What? This many in a major American city talking about real estate deals and what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And I was amazed. And so, but Jumpstart Germantown literally was a way to get folks from communities just like mine to be more involved in residential real estate development in Philadelphia, in Germantown. And so, the way that it was done, Ken Weinstein was literally, was getting inundated with, because he’s really a nice affable guy, and folks were just like, how do you do this? And he’s just like, oh, I can tell you. And he’d give them that information, and then he realized this is too much. And then he got his friends like help, created a training that gave people just enough information so that they could actually get out on their own. And then the best thing that he did was create a fund. So, where he gave the first couple of loans to those folks to do their first few deals.

Eve: [00:26:13] I remember him saying he realized that no matter what he taught them, if they couldn’t get the financing, it was useless.

Majora: [00:26:18] Exactly.

Eve: [00:26:19] And they couldn’t get the financing.

Majora: [00:26:20] No, no, no.

Eve: [00:26:22] What a guy. Yeah.

Majora: [00:26:24] So I was just like. Wait. What? And I totally flipped out and actually decided, I mean, I literally went to Philly for the next four weeks to just to take that class. And I’d love at some point to be able to start a project like that here in New York. And I actually encourage everybody to consider it in other places, too. But again, what we saw there was an incredible example. It wasn’t like a non-profit kind of like, “Oh, we’re here to help the poor people.” It was more like, “Nah, we’re going to help you compete” in this capitalist system that we’re in so that you can actually reclaim your own doggone community. And I was blown away.

Eve: [00:27:05] Pretty fabulous. And he’s franchised it, right? So, there have been a number of different neighborhoods and cities that are now have jumpstart programs.

Majora: [00:27:13] Yes, quite a few at this point.

Eve: [00:27:15] If I weren’t so busy, I would start one.

Majora: [00:27:17] I know.

Eve: [00:27:18] Pretty it’s pretty fabulous. But requires a little bit of resources. I want to ask one other big question and that is what does meaningful community engagement look like, especially when it comes to redevelopment of an area? What should it look like?

Majora: [00:27:37] Yeah. For us, meaningful community engagement means that it’s actually driven, at least in part, by listening to what the community’s hopes and dreams and aspirations actually are. And by no means assuming that you know what they are before you start. Because if you do, basically what we’ll do is what we see the non-profit industrial complex and even our government telling us what needs to happen in those communities. And that’s the same kind of status quo development that actually concentrates poverty. And what we did, we literally created surveys and did focus groups, and we even had an advisory board built from very informal leaders within our community that allow folks to give them reasons to think about. Yeah, what does it look like? What does a great community look like for me? And they were really specific about what those things were, and we knew it because they would talk about the things that they would leave the community to experience. And when we realized like honestly, where somebody’s hardest is, where they spend their money, and if you weren’t spending it in your community, what were you spending it on? And could we actually create the same kind of experience in our community that make people that just to give people a second look. And it has been hard because there’s such low expectations applied to low status communities and after a while people even internalize them. And that’s why it’s difficult to do that, which is why I’m so glad that I’ve actually gotten there’s company now. I mean, being the first one in to do something as crazy as like a really high-end specialty coffee shop in a place that hasn’t had anything like that in decades. It was exhausting. But at the same time.

Eve: [00:29:35] You got a lot of pushback early on from the neighbors, right?

Majora: [00:29:38] I got some pushback. I didn’t get a lot. What I got was they were very loud, but I think it was basically rooted in fear.

Eve: [00:29:46] I agree. I was going to say the same thing. I think change is very difficult for most people. And.

Majora: [00:29:52] Yeah.

Eve: [00:29:53] And they’re worried about being left out, you know, and, and they usually are left out, let’s be honest about it. So, you know, that was really why I asked that question. Like, how do we make people feel like part of something?

Majora: [00:30:08] Right, and their people are left out because the folks that are doing most of the development never had any intention of letting them in in the first place. I mean, if you think about the kind of development that happens in poverty level economic maintenance, I mean, there isn’t a place for most of the people in our community to even participate at all. I mean, there’s this thing, like, oh, we do community engagement and outreach, which means you get people together for some kind of little visioning thing and some ridiculous highly paid consultant gets like post-its up on a wall. And then you say, you did it. What did you do? I mean, it’s just like this is ridiculous. The kind of development that happens in low status communities was never intended to include people from those communities, except as recipients of like whatever they’re putting out, which we know concentrates poverty, and everything associated with it.

Eve: [00:31:04] Or gentrified it. Right. But either way, they’re left out. Yeah.

Majora: [00:31:09] Yeah, totally. And so, they know that. And that’s why I’ve been advocating as much as I can and also literally putting myself in that role of developer because I’m like, I’m already trying to create more opportunities for folks like we’ve done revenue shares for the cafe. We, we set it up so that people from our community can actively use it in a way that meets their goals and dreams and aspirations. I do that and I’m not a non-profit of not like I do that on my own. We’re absolutely looking to develop more opportunities for crowdfunding investment projects, for people within our community, for the other projects that we’re doing, because we want them to feel like they actually have an investment in their own community. And the only way to do that –

Eve: [00:32:01] I’ll help you bring them to Small Change. That’d be so cool, I’ll be waiting.

Majora: [00:32:02] I’m pretty, I would love that. I would love that. So, it is different when people do the development from our own communities because we are sensitive to what we haven’t had and what we do need and what our dreams are, because we bothered to ask and I’ve also experienced it, you know, I was that little girl who was just like, there’s nothing in this neighborhood. And it makes me feel like I’ve got a stain attached to me because of the way people think about my community. And, and I don’t want that on anybody. Like, I also don’t want them to feel like they’ve got to leave in order to believe that that they’re of any value.

Eve: [00:32:48] Awesome. So final question. If you were to change one thing about real estate development in the US to make better cities for everyone, what would that be? Maybe that’s unfair, you can say two or three.

Majora: [00:33:04] Yes, I’m going to say a few things. I’m sure. So, oh, gosh. If I could change the way real estate development happens in order to support more people doing it. I mean, I’m not exactly sure how to do this, but I know that the cost of doing it just literally is physically doing it is just so high. And I just wish that the cost of construction could go down. Don’t ask me how to do that.

Eve: [00:33:30] Oh God, yeah, everyone I think wishes that.

Majora: [00:33:33] But it’s just insane. And then sort of like the barriers to entry I wish would be a lot more equitable. I mean, I remember my very first deal where and it was just to do a small rehab know our mortgage broker literally made me write a letter because she looked at me, looked at my community and literally said, you know, I have a story in the book. She was like. Why did you want another house? Or another property? You already have one. And I was like, do?

Eve: [00:34:09] Because this is called wealth creation. This is called Building My Future, right?

Majora: [00:34:14] Yes. And but she, to her, it was just like, why would a black woman want to do that? Especially from a neighborhood like that. And so, she made me write a letter to the underwriters explaining to them that I was a fine, upstanding individual. That does nice things for her community. And I was like, I know she doesn’t ask any white men about this, but you know what? I wrote the letter. So, this was me. And I had great credit, property in mind, a willing seller, a free development loan, already pre-approved. I mean, it was just like and that’s a small example. You know, I hear about them all the time, you know, access to capital, how hard it can be.

Eve: [00:34:58] Yeah. So do I, I think the access to capital is completely inequitable.

Majora: [00:35:02] Yeah, exactly. And those are the main two things. But also, I think the other one is making sure that people in low status communities see themselves as rightful developers of their own community. Because that is one of the hardest things where I think even some of the challengers that I get is more like, who do you think you are? And these are people from communities like mine within the social justice industrial complex who are just like, “You shouldn’t do that.” And it’s just like, why should that? It does like because again, such low expectations of folks in our communities like here, I’m being challenged because I’m actually saying, no, I can do better than what’s actually happening here. Yeah. And I get it coming and going sometimes. But there are more people who see the value of it and who are actually thinking about how they can do it themselves.

Eve: [00:35:59] Well, thank you, Marjora. I love you to death. And I think this is fantastic. And I can’t wait to visit again.

Majora: [00:36:08] I know.

Eve: [00:36:09] Hang out in that coffee shop.

Majora: [00:36:11] Yes. Yes. Oh, my gosh. It’s so super exciting. And wait till you see the rail station within the next few weeks. We’re getting it ready for a pretty big event. Ted X the Bronx is

Eve: [00:36:25] Fabulous!

Majora: [00:36:26] Doing their event there. Yeah,

Eve: [00:36:27] That’s really fabulous.

Majora: [00:36:29] You know, we’re phasing it in.

Eve: [00:36:31] I have to come back again soon.

Majora: [00:36:33] You’re going to love it.

Eve: [00:36:34] Cool. Okay. Bye.

Majora: [00:36:35] Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye bye.

Eve: [00:36:44] That was Majora Carter. I’m repeating myself, but I’m still in awe. Majora is uncompromising about her mission. She lives and works in Hunts Point in the South Bronx, one of America’s lowest status communities, just two blocks from the house she grew up in. When it became clear that no coffee shop operator wanted to operate out of her space in the neighborhood. She created her own business to achieve a goal. Now that is putting your money where your mouth is.

Eve: [00:37:27] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Majora Carter

Public Practice.

Trained as an architect, and with a background in planning and government, Pooja Agrawal understands the need for talented architects and planning practitioners in local government, where talent is thin. She co-founded Public Practice to fill that void.

Based in London, Public Practice trains and places architects and planners in local government positions with the  aim of  building capacity to respond to the affordable housing crisis. They currently onboard two cohorts per year and place them in 24 partner councils across London and south-east England but they are growing.

Many associates stay beyond their one year placement. Over time Pooja expects Public Practice to grow and strategically change the talent and culture in government in additional sectors, such as energy solutions, all towards building better places for everyone. 

And in case she’s not busy enough, Pooja also co-hosts a ‘diversity platform’ called Sound Advice, and has a slew of honors and engagements attached to her name.

Pooja has worked as a public servant at Homes England and the Greater London Authority, and in private architecture and urban design practices including Publica and We Made That. She co-published Now You Know, a compendium of fifty essays exploring spatial and racial inequality, is a Fellow at the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose and an Associate at the Quality of Life Foundation. She has previously mentored at FLUID and Stephen Lawrence Trust, taught at Central Saint Martins and was a trustee for the Museum of Architecture. And she was nominated for the Planner’s Woman of Influence in 2018 and 2019.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:08] Today, I’m talking with Puja Aggarwal, the founder of Public Practice and what a pleasure it is. Trained as an architect and with a background in government, Pooja understands the need for talented architects and planning practitioners in local government where talent is thin. She co-founded Public Practice to fill that void. Based in London, Public Practice trains and places architects and planners in local government positions with the aim of building capacity to respond to the affordable housing crisis. They currently onboard two cohorts per year and place them in 24 partner councils across London and South England, but they are growing. Many associates stay beyond their one year placement. Over time, Puja expects Public Practice to grow and strategically change the talent and culture in government in additional sectors such as energy solutions, all towards building better places for everyone. And in case she’s not busy enough, Puja also co-hosts a diversity platform called Sound Advice and has a slew of honors and engagements attached to her name. Puja is a dynamo. Listen in to learn more.

Eve: [00:02:37] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:03:13] Hello, Pooja. I’m hugely excited to talk to you today.

Pooja Agrawal: [00:03:17] Hi Eve, thank you so much for having me.

Eve: [00:03:20] You’re an architect by training, but you launched a non-profit called Public Practice, which I think has a really clear and simple vision. “We find, select, and place built environment professionals into local authority teams.” I’m just wondering, why did you start Public Practice? Can you take me on that journey?

Pooja: [00:03:39] Yeah, absolutely. So, you’re right, I am an architect by background, and it takes a very long time, I think probably in most places in the world, to become an architect. I guess the things that always attracted me to architecture was the impact it can have on people’s lives. And throughout my career, I was always trying to work for places that were sort of pushing what that actually looks like. So, I was always interested in looking beyond the building. And I think even when I was studying, it was always that same kind of radical at the time. So, hold on, why are you talking about what’s happening just outside the building? We’re interested in the fabric of the building or the form of the building. And I was more interested in the wider context of the places that we were designing these propositional buildings in, or through actual practice. I worked in both New York and in London for a number of years in private practices. And I guess increasingly started to come across some really interesting clients who tended to be public sector clients. And I realized then that, I guess, actually the clients had some of the really interesting opportunities to shape those places. So, I guess as an architect, you were given this remit. We were given you’ve got a budget of 300,000 pounds to design this town centre in this place. And I suppose I was asking, hold on, why are we even looking at town centres in the first place? Why is it this particular town centre and why only 300,000 pounds?

Pooja: [00:05:16] And I realized, actually the people that were making that decision had a lot of power, and there was this really interesting opportunity to be in that position and make change from that side of the table. So, I joined the Greater London Authority, which is the equivalent of the city mayor, the Mayor of London. And here that’s about eight hundred people working in an organization. So, I brought, I suppose, my architectural background and design into this team that was looking at regeneration more broadly and was able to make, I guess, some of those spatial decisions with my background, but also input on a whole range of other things like policy, looking at design quality in housing, or looking at the circular economy- how can that be embedded in the London plan? Or just all public spaces – how can that appeal and be equal for all different types of people? So, I guess that was the beginning of my journey.

Eve: [00:06:16] It sounds really, really familiar to me because I made very similar choices, maybe not as clearly as you, but it was very frustrating to be an architect, to be told to kind of draw lines and toilet details and stair details for projects that I wanted to understand why this project in this place? So, I totally get it. I actually ended up at a planning department myself for very similar reasons. Yeah,

Pooja: [00:06:43] That’s fascinating.

[00:06:44] I’m not sure what at the time, I was too young to realise that’s where the power lay. But I think the power definitely lies there, and with finances. There’s no doubt about it. And architects hold, unfortunately, very little power, right?

Pooja: [00:07:00] Completely. And I think that’s it. I realise as an architect, I felt like I was at the bottom of this pecking order of decision makers and people with power. And actually, the higher you would go in that decision making process, you’d be able to make more decisions. So, I guess the ultimate aim is to be the Prime Minister, right?

Eve: [00:07:18] Yeah, exactly. Oh yes, way to go Pooja! So, you know, the thing that’s odd about this is that I think architecture training is probably the best training that you could possibly get. It’s like creatives trained to take absolutely nothing and turn it into something. That sort of brainpower is unbelievable, right?

Pooja: [00:07:41] It’s a really good question. So, especially in the UK system, it’s very siloed the way we think about learning. Actually, I moved to the UK from India when I was about 16, so I’ve done most of my higher education and formal education in this country, and I was really surprised, aged 16, you were having to choose three or four subjects. And I know it’s really different in America and even through university, we choose one subject. Lots of friends are choosing English or science or biology, and yeah, I just…

Eve: [00:08:15] I mean, it was the same for me in Australia. I think we’re based on the English system.

Pooja: [00:08:19] Yes, it’s very similar. Exactly. Unfortunately, I don’t know why. So, I think the appeal for me, even with architecture, was because I have a creative mind, but I also have quite a practical and technical mind, and I’m quite entrepreneurial. So, architecture somehow always was this kind of, the most broad education I could have had and hence choosing architecture. So yes, in many ways, I find it a really interesting training because you do have so many different parts of your brain are working and you’re trying to think about all of these different complexities. What I felt was missing in my own personal education and training, even in architecture, was the more city-making side of things. And I guess that’s why I sort of pushed and found myself working in practices or places that were kind of influencing that. And I suppose, I guess, going back to where Public Practice evolved or came from, it was at the Greater London Authority that when I was working there, we work very closely with lots of different partners, including the municipalities and where I saw places having the most holistic visions or ambitions was where the people were most ambitious or the places or municipalities that had the people power.

Pooja: [00:09:37] So there was a huge gap in terms of the capacity of local authorities, and there’s lots of evidence on this whole subject about, I guess, austerity. You know, the public sector has massively shrunk over the years. There’s a lot of what municipalities do here is kind of children’s and adult services, and all of the more innovative vision making side of public sector has shrunk and planning is a huge part of that. And on the other side, you have all of these brilliant people working in architecture, urban design, who just didn’t really think about working the public sector at all because, I mean, no one ever came and spoke to me about that when I was at university.

Eve: [00:10:22] Yeah, that’s true.

Pooja: [00:10:22] And I do think things have changed over the last 10, 15 years. I’d like to think Public Practice has had a big part of that, at least in this part of the country, but it wasn’t really seen as an ambitious and fulfilled, like an ambitious thing to do. So, I suppose in summary, where Public Practice emerged or came from, me and a colleague set it up from within the Greater London Authority but spun it out as an independent organisation. And the whole purpose of Public Practice is to be able to find those people, attract the most talented people, really advocate for working in the public sector is a really ambitious thing to do. And we place them in the public sector for a variety of different roles that influence places for a year-long program. That’s the kind of core of what we do, and we…

Eve: [00:11:14] It’s a yearlong programme. It’s a specific programme.

Pooja: [00:11:17] Exactly. So the programme itself is a yearlong, but we have found that most of the people we have placed in the public sector, we’re young organisations only just over four years old, over 90 percent of the people we’ve placed have stayed on from that first year. So, from the architectural design side, people have found us. It’s almost like they’re kind of dipping their toes and they’re like, “oh, wait, this is great!” and have continued to stay on. And in parallel, these people who, we call them are associates, we put in a cohort of people, so they all start at the same time. So, there’s say twenty five people starting on this journey together, we have a whole training programme for them that happens in parallel, both in terms of kind of hard knowledge, but also some of the more softer support network that they have with each other that helps them transition into the public sector.

Eve: [00:12:12] That’s really interesting. I mean, I had a very similar journey myself, and I think it’s almost like trade school when you’re at high school. I don’t know what you call trade school in England, but the trades, like being a chef or welding or something that isn’t a college degree. They just don’t talk about them at high school as if they’re some lesser way to live your life, right? So, it’s really interesting. So, you’re pretty young. How do architects and other built environment professionals find you?

Pooja: [00:12:47] So we have really established our brand where we are in London, but in the wider region of this country at the moment, and we really, I think just advocating for the public sector, we just seem to have really grown our support network over time. So, we, really practically and pragmatically, we just really, we’re out there where we have written opinion pieces, we do lots of events, we go to universities so that four years on, they’ll come and join the program. So just to say, this is not, we attract people who have been working for at least three or four years in a professional environment. So, we want people who know what they’re doing and can hit the floor running as it were. So, I guess we’ve just been able to really build our brand and reputation over time. And when we first started four years ago, we were very much focused on design skills and were very much looking at London. But over those last four years, what has been quite interesting to see is actually the local authorities are asking us for a whole variety of different skills to be able to impact their places. So, for example, loads of local authorities have committed to being net zero by 2030, but do not have the skills to be able to even envision what that looks like. So they come to us

Eve: [00:14:10] That’s pretty ambitious, yeah.

Pooja: [00:14:12] Absolutely. So, they come to us and we’re able to find those people who are really committed to making change and put them in those positions. So, it’s been an interesting journey for us.

Eve: [00:14:24] So that was my next question. Do you place everyone? What does the process look like for someone who is interested in participating in your program?

Pooja: [00:14:33] So we run a really competitive process, and I think that’s part of the, being part of the cohort is almost that like stamp on your CV because it’s so competitive to get on the program. So, every round of applications, which in this region we do every six months, we get a couple of hundred applications and twenty-five people tend to go through. We run a very bespoke recruitment process, which is a three-step process, and I won’t go into all the detail, but the process has been designed to be really inclusive, and we look at best practice in terms of, how do you create a really inclusive environment for a whole variety of different needs? We look at a whole range of different things. So yes, we look at, you know, a little bit maybe about experience, but actually we look at things like, how do these people work in a team? Are they kind of humble enough? Will they listen to other people? Because working in the public sector is, if you’re talking about architects, you really need to leave your ego behind to get anything done.

Pooja: [00:15:41] The one thing about a public service is bringing people together on a journey to make something happen, and you will always have people with really strongly differing views. Not even in the public, just but within a public sector organisation. And that’s because every single department has a different ambition or is trying really hard to do something really specific. So how do you build consensus, for example? And that’s one of the things we test in our recruitment design process. And then we try and understand people’s own personal motivations and ambitions. We’re a value-led organisation. We believe strongly in the public sector about change-making from within the system. We really believe in social equality, and we believe in that interdisciplinary approach. So, we see whether these people have a passion and really believe in these things. And so that’s how we shortlist from, like I said, a couple of hundred people to about twenty-five people at the end. And at the same time, we do the same with local authorities. We really push them to say, hold on are these ambitious roles because we have ambitious people who want to make change. It shouldn’t just be the standard role that you’ve been trying to recruit to for three years and haven’t had any luck. Like what is it that’s slightly different? Are you being really ambitious about this? Are you engaging with your communities? We push them as well.

Eve: [00:17:05] It’s a real matchmaking process.

Pooja: [00:17:07] Exactly. So, we have a very complex matchmaking process, which we’re refining every round, but we are getting there and it’s really fulfilling to see when it all kind of comes together and all these people the first week when they start their journey together, it’s truly inspiring. And every six months you think, great, this is this is amazing.

Eve: [00:17:26] Well, that was my next question. You talked about a cohort. So, it’s yeah, twice a year event at the moment.

Pooja: [00:17:32] At the moment it is exactly. And at the moment it’s also within a particular region. So, we say that in this country, it’s like the southeast of England, the east of England and London. We have, as of a few weeks ago, actually just got funding from national government to expand our services to across England. So, we are in a really exciting, pivotal moment. And I guess we are in that process of just determining our strategy, but within the next two years, we should be operating across the country.

Eve: [00:18:05] Well, that’s very exciting. And I had a question about diversity, and you touched on that. What does diversity look like in architecture and the built environment in England today?

Pooja: [00:18:16] It’s pathetic. It’s really quite depressing. So I personally have been an advocate for diversity in the industry more broadly for quite a long time, and I have sort of attacked it in lots of different ways. So, when I was at the Greater London Authority, we tried to, with the team obviously, it was not only me, but we worked on a more policy-led approach. I have also set up another organisation called Sound Advice with a dear friend, and that was really provocative, really like gets people really uncomfortable and primarily on Instagram, and we published a book with the whole variety of people of colour a couple of years ago, last year. So, I suppose I’ve always attacked it in different ways. At Public Practice in the last six months actually, since I’ve come, we’ve just been trying to break down the data a little bit more and actually seeing where the data gaps are. So historically, we have always compared the data of our associates, of our cohort compared to the industry, and we tend to do way, way better than the industry. But the problem is that that’s not actually that hard. To date Public Practice has done quite well compared to the industry. So, if we were to take something like ethnic minorities, public practices cohorts have been twenty-six percent diverse in that instance.

Pooja: [00:19:46] But some something like architect is only four percent in this country and planning and surveying is even much less. So, we’ve tended to be really like good in terms of the industry or, for example, over 60 percent of people identify as women. And again, I think architecture is about thirty five percent here in this country. So, in some ways, we could pat ourselves in the back and say, we’re doing really well. But actually, what we’re trying to do now is compare ourselves to the regions or the places we represent. And as soon as you do that, of course, our statistics drop. But if we target that in the longer term, that’s really where we’d like to be. So, we, from our data analysis, learned that the lowest number of candidates we’ve had have been black men. So, we have in the last six months launched a #BlackInThePublicSector campaign, and you can see that on our Twitter and LinkedIn, but it’s very much targeting and celebrating Black men in the public sector to be those role models for people to see that as a career ambition. And this will take time to build, make that change within public practice but more broadly, but it’s something that we are genuinely passionate about and are trying to take a very data-led approach to it.

Eve: [00:21:06] You know, I’m kind of surprised because I always think of England as, especially London, as such a diverse place. These statistics are pretty awful. Does that start in architecture school? Like, can you, are you controlled by what’s happening there?

Pooja: [00:21:22] Yeah, there’s a lot of interesting literature about this. And in fact, one of the pieces of work I worked on at the Greater London Authority was called Supporting Diversity, and there’s a lot of evidence there. It looks at the architecture career, journey even, at each stage and shows what is happening, what are the key barriers. And I’m sure this is common everywhere. At every stage you seem to lose, if we’re talking about ethnic minorities, at every stage you get less and less and less. And as soon as you get to the director level of running a practice, it becomes minuscule. So, there’s lots of different ways you can tackle this, but there is definitely a sense of urgency of trying to tackle it, in a real, tangible way.

Eve: [00:22:06] Right. Interesting. How many are there? I mean, you said there are 25 people in a cohort. Is that 25 authorities that you’re dealing with it? That would be a lot.

Pooja: [00:22:15] Yeah. So, at the moment, it tends to be at around twenty, twenty-five authorities in one particular cohort. But of course, there’s always two cohorts running in parallel. So while our network of authorities fundraise, and what we try and do is create those spaces for them to learn from each other as well. And I think that’s a really important and interesting thing. Over the years, it’s been interesting to see where, so it’s been four years now, we’re seeing teams develop, in particular authorities of our alumni and then new associates. So, we might have 12 or 15 people in a particular authority who’ve had some sort of link or route through Public Practice. And another thing that’s really interesting there is seeing people placing people in different departments. So, you might have someone in the transport and highways team, and you might have someone in the housing team. And because of Public Practice, they have a relationship, and you start to see them working together within their local authority. So, we’re seeing that sort of culture shift that is building over time and when you start to see local authorities talking to each other across the region, say, we’re all trying to tackle coastal poverty, for example, you can start to see how we’ll be able to use our network to connect those dots and share those learnings.

Eve: [00:23:38] So you’re building a complete ecosystem of architects who are not practicing architecture but are using their skills in an entirely different way. It’s pretty exciting. How do you think about impact and how do you track that for your organization? Like, what are the stats look like?

Pooja: [00:23:53] It’s a really good question. So, there’s so many different ways that we can track that way. Like I said, we’re quite young now. So, so far, what a really tangible impact is us being able to say we’ve placed over two hundred people in over 50 authorities in this region. We can say things like, from the first few years what we’ve been able to track, over 90 percent of people have stayed on. It’s those types of impacts and statistics that we’re able to capture. Where we’re getting to now, a few years on, are actually looking at particular case studies. So, looking at places like Cambridgeshire. So, we’ve just actually made a video which shows, over the years, the different types of skills we brought into Cambridge, whether it’s digital skills or community engagement skills or architecture and urban design skills, and how they have worked to create different projects in places. It’s hard for us to take the impact of what associates are doing on the ground as the impact that Public Practice is making directly but we see that more as that qualitative evidence that we’ve been able to influence these places by those places having those multidisciplinary skills within their authorities.

Eve: [00:25:09] What are some examples of some really notable projects that have been impacted by your placements, that you love? Your favorites.

Pooja: [00:25:18] One, if the local authorities we’ve worked with quite a lot over the years and we’ve placed a whole number of different associates, I think it’s over 10 people there over the last few years is, it’s a district council called Epping Forest District Council but there’s a particular area where five different authorities come together working on a garden town. So, Harlow and Gilston Garden Town. And their whole ambition was delivering over sixteen-thousand homes. What is really particularly interesting about this is the different types of skills they came to us for. So, we’ve placed urban design architect and master planning skills, but we’ve also placed sustainability skills, landscape architecture, planning skills and also ecology and biodiversity. And that has been really interesting seeing all of these different people working together. So, we placed someone who had a very specific specialism in SUDS (sustainable urban drainage systems) and other people who were more transport experts. And one of the kind of, I guess, outcomes of products that came out of the work they were doing was a sustainability guidance and checklist. And these things seem really like, oh, it’s another report or a technical thing, but a lot of what, about working in public sector is bringing all of these different people to commit to saying, we’re going to do this. And in this document, they’ve committed to making these different types of changes or encouraging developers or encouraging people. These are the things that you actually really pragmatically need to look at if you want to create a sustainable place. So, I think that is one, like a more process-driven example.

Pooja: [00:26:54] I guess another example that springs to mind is a project in Oxford City Council, and I think that speaks quite well to where we’ve been over the last few years with COVID. So again, we’ve placed a few associates there with actually more urban design and engagement and actually social enterprise skills there. And with COVID, I guess we were in that position, you know, everyone knows how over the last few years.

Eve: [00:27:33] Very weird,

[00:27:35] Really hard. And suddenly you realize the importance of public spaces as a place to actually bring different people together. And when you’re not allowed to go inside and have a coffee with a friend what do you do? So actually, a few of our associates worked, bringing their different expertise to create a temporary outdoor space, and it’s called Broad Meadow. And it was meant to be this temporary project. And yeah, it has all of these like lovely green elements to it, and it became such a kind of loved place in the town center that actually it’s become a long-term project and the council are investing in it. And most, like, you know, it’s like 90 percent of the respondents said that they want this to become a permanent scheme and building that momentum from the community and really delivering something tangible on the ground that has been really celebrated and loved is a really exciting and another interesting example of something we’ve seen on the ground.

Eve: [00:28:34] What excites you most about the work you’re doing?

Pooja: [00:28:40] What excites me the most is seeing people excited about their jobs. I guess a lot of what I’m doing is bringing all of these people into public sector roles, and I think that, almost that first day when people are sort of bright-eyed and thinking, oh, this is going to be a really exciting year and then tends to be about four months in, they’re like, oh my God, this is so hard and I’m not going to be4 able to do anything this year. And then eight months in they’re like, oh, I don’t know if I’m gonna achieve anything. And then 10 months in, they’re like, oh, wow, look at this thing, it’s happening. And seeing that journey…

Eve: [00:29:17] That’s great. That’s really great.

Pooja: [00:29:18] …it’s really exciting. And now, you know, whenever I go to any built environment, architecture planning event, there will be someone from the Public Practice family that is there. And just knowing that you’re making that influence like you’re creating this network of change through people. For me, it’s really, I find that quite powerful. And I’m sort of this idealist, I do really believe in the public sector and the impact public sector can have. If it’s designed well, if it’s really representative of communities, I do believe that that’s where change can come from. So, for me, that is seeing that kind of change build over time makes me excited and passionate about what we’re trying to do here.

Eve: [00:30:08] So would you say that Public Practice has met your expectations?

Pooja: [00:30:13] Well, I mean, nothing ever meets my expectations. Eve, I’m always trying to improve things.

Eve: [00:30:22] So what can you do better? Then what do you want to do better?

Pooja: [00:30:26] That’s a good question. So, I guess the first thing would be about measuring our impact better, you know, to be honest. You touched on that already. Like, how can we really capture what we’re doing? It sometimes can feel nuanced. Like, how do you capture culture change? That’s hard. And that’s something we’re thinking about. How do we grow across the country and still ensure that quality is going to be a really interesting challenge for us over the few years? And that’s something I’m thinking about. And being maybe just still being in that kind of thought leadership space. What is the next type of need? What is it that we need the public sector to have in-house in a year’s time or two years’ time knowing what is happening in our wider context? Being able to be able to predict that and build. Be ready for that or always tell them that that’s what they need. I think that is another interesting space that we are constantly thinking about.

Eve: [00:31:26] So what is that next need? I’m going to have to ask,

Pooja: [00:31:30] What is that next need? =I like, I’m… We just launched this report around town centre recovery, looking at high streets and one of those things that, I guess I’m interested in what you do as well. We had a crowdfunding platform at the Mayor of London and…

[00:31:50] Spacehive, right?

[00:31:51] Yeah, exactly.

Eve: [00:31:51] I love Chris Gourlay. I interviewed him. I’ve known him for years. It’s a really fabulous platform. I was going to ask you, you know, because his model sort of reminds me of what you’re doing, and it’s fascinating to me how he has this partnership with all these local authorities. It’s fascinating how the local authorities are so engaged in the U.K.

Pooja: [00:32:12] Yeah. No, it’s interesting. And maybe it’s almost the work that Spacehive are doing and we’re doing is almost engaging local authorities to see that they can drive that change. I’ve forgotten your question now.

Eve: [00:32:25] Oh, me too. Okay.

Pooja: [00:32:26] What were we talking about?

Eve: [00:32:26] So, what’s the what’s the next step? You know, and…

Pooja: [00:32:30] Oh yeah, what’s the next thing? Yeah, I think it’s something, I feel like we’re still a little bit, and I think I’ve thought of this as well. We can be quite siloed and being like, it’s all about communities leading the change. It’s all about the public sector leading the change. And increasingly, there is something a bit more nuanced about how all of these different players play a role. We also tend to think, where does the private sector fit into this space as well? You know, increasingly there’s a whole conversation about B Corps or, you know, green financing and all of this stuff. And like, how do all of these different bodies, if you want to call them that, these organisms work together in a more network way or in a way that’s not so perhaps idealistic, which I can critique myself for, and not feel like you’re giving up on your ethics because you’re making that longer-term change. So, there’s something there around… oh, that’s so boring to say a partnership working, but there’s something more about, like, a bit more nuance around power and change-making, perhaps.

Eve: [00:33:40] Interesting. So, what’s your big, hairy, audacious goal, as they say in the US – your BHAG?

Pooja: [00:33:48] My what? I’ve never of this.

Eve: [00:33:50] You never heard that before? The big, hairy, audacious goal.

Pooja: [00:33:54] Big, hairy audacious… No, I need to write this down, look it up and make one.

Eve: [00:34:00] I love that: big, hairy, audacious goal. You don’t have one. I can’t. Well, it’s the Mayor of London, right? That’s your BHAG.

Pooja: [00:34:08] Yeah, sure. Or, Prime Minister, we joked about that. No, I think that increasingly I feel like we’re in this interesting space where it’s nice not to be like, this is what I’m going to do in five years’ time. Actually, especially the people we bring into the public sector, our associates have quite squiggly careers. I actually find that quite inspiring that we’re finding our way and through making change you find different opportunities and it’s almost like creating Public Practice. Six years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say I’ll be CEO of an organization that I’m going to create. Like, who knew that was going to happen? So, I guess it’s hard for me to predict what it is that’s going to capture my imagination next.

Eve: [00:34:54] I have a feeling your mother probably knew, but. Anyway, this is truly inspirational, and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, and I’d love to chat more, and I just feel drawn to come back to England at some point and just… There’s something about the way that you approach working with authorities there that’s very different. I love what I see with Spacehive and with Public Practice, and I love that connectivity. It’s really interesting. Congratulations.

Pooja: [00:35:30] Thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure, and I hope…

Eve: [00:35:33] Can’t wait to see what happens.

Pooja: [00:35:34] Yeah. Oh well, you’ll know, I’ll keep you updated. But come and visit, it’ll be lovely to meet you properly.

Eve: [00:35:40] Okay, wonderful.

Eve: [00:35:48] That was Pooja Aggarwal. She’s an insightful and forceful leader, trained as an architect and with a background in government. Puja understands the need for talented architects and planning practitioners in local government where talent is thin. She’s not waiting around for anyone else to fix that problem. She plans to fix it herself.

Eve: [00:36:17] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Pooja Agrawal and Public Practice

Women-owned. Michigan-made.

Jill Ferrari is all about creating impact where it is needed.

An attorney with twenty-five years of real estate development and operations experience, she is also the co-founder (with Shannon Morgan) of Renovare Development, a woman-owned, social impact, real estate development company focused on transformational projects in Michigan. To say Jill knows this space would be an understatement. She has worked in consulting and community development, managed complex brownfield redevelopment projects in multiple states, and she has experience forming complicated capital stacks that combine both federal and local funding with unique financing programs and conventional debt.

Previously Jill was CEO of Shelbourne Development, working on affordable housing, and before that, CEO at Michigan Community Resources, working on community and economic development. And as the former director of community development for Wayne County, MI, she managed the distribution of over 100 million in federal funds to various projects and communities, including the development of housing for victims of domestic violence and returning citizens. Jill also serves as co-chair of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Michigan District Council and is the founder of ULI Michigan’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, designed to promote leadership for women in the real estate industry. Plus, she is a member of the ULI Michigan Small Scale Development Local Product Council and a member of the Women’s Development Collaborative.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:06] Jill Ferrari is the developer who believes in community. She and her partner, Shannon Morgan, co-founded Renovare Development in Detroit just a few years ago. They focus on transformational, mixed-use projects in urban areas and rural main streets that meet community needs. Both Jill and Shannon bring significant experience to their new venture, including private real estate. Government roles and non-profit community development. This gives them the broad perspective necessary for the social impact projects they are developing. Their network of municipal contacts and professional service providers are their secret sauce. These connections provide access to redevelopment opportunities throughout the state of Michigan and beyond. Their first six projects, valued at $88 million, are well underway. Not shabby for a woman owned start up. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:02:16] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:38] Hi, Jill, thanks so much for joining me today.

Jill Ferrari: [00:02:43] Thanks for having me.

Eve: [00:02:45] So you’re a real estate developer with a mission that’s pretty solidly grounded in community. Tell me why this is important to you.

Jill: [00:02:56] When we launched Renovare Development, we knew as mothers that we were uniquely qualified to solve problems through commercial real estate development. As mothers, as women who are caregivers for both our children and our parents, we are cooks, we are problem solvers, we’re executives. We juggle so many different tasks in our lives. We approach commercial real estate development the same way. We look at how communities need to solve certain problems and how real estate can help solve those problems for communities. And it’s just a unique perspective that we are deeply committed to applying in our projects.

Eve: [00:03:44] Most developers need dose of motherhood, right?

Jill: [00:03:48] Or womanhood. You know, I think that we just have a very unique perspective that allows us to see ourselves and our parents and our children in projects. So when it comes to multigenerational products like ADUs and granny flats, or the types of programming in commercial retail centers, we are thinking about our children, we are thinking about our parents and it helps create more sustainable, more community driven projects.

Eve: [00:04:19] You co-founded Renovare with your partner, Shannon Morgan, and when was that? And how did the two of you meet? And why?

Jill: [00:04:27] Right. We met during the crash of 2008, 2009. I was working in community development, I was the head of community development for Wayne County, Michigan. We received a large package of stimulus funds at the time. Shannon was a C-suite individual at a large development company, and she completed a few projects for me. Single family rehab, mostly. And she just stood out as a problem solver. A lot of the developers were really struggling to use those federal funds correctly and within compliance. And Shannon and her team were just really skilled at meeting compliance requirements and getting that money out the door appropriately. And we developed a relationship. And 10 years later, we were working at the same affordable housing development company and just had a really similar vision on what it meant to create transformational projects that really solved community needs. And I think a lot of that is that mother’s perspective, that woman’s perspective, on how development should be done. And we’ve been together since 2019, and we rarely have different perspectives on how things should be done. So, it’s really nice a few years into your partnership that you still think you chose the right person.

Eve: [00:05:51] That’s really great. It’s a perfect marriage. And when did you launch Renovare?

Jill: [00:05:55] We formed in 2008 but didn’t officially launch until 2019.

Eve: [00:06:01] Okay. So, why Michigan? You’re based in Michigan, you’re in Detroit, you’re sticking to Michigan.

Jill: [00:06:08] We have decided to start in Michigan because of our relationships. We have chosen projects, not really because we’ve sought out the location, but because we have been invited. We’ve been invited to a community by the municipality to solve a certain housing need, or we’ve been invited to a community by a major employer to partner on a project or by a local non-profit. All of our projects are partnerships with some local employer agency non-profit who has identified a community need that needed to be solved. And when we launched and made it public what we were trying to accomplish, the invitations were endless. And we’ve chosen these first six projects because we believe deeply in the communities that they’re located in and the partners that we have. And we would love to expand outside of Michigan but the need for housing here and community centric commercial spaces is so deep that we could spend our entire careers and leave legacies for our children just by working in the state of Michigan. But we have some great relationships outside of Michigan. Women across the country that we are connected to that have invited us to come work on housing in their states, and we hope to get to those projects.

Eve: [00:07:30] So what’s the overall strategy for the company?

Jill: [00:07:35] When the company launched, we made a commitment to each other that we would focus on a diverse pipeline of projects. We had seen colleagues really focus on just multifamily or just low-income housing tax credits, and we knew that in order to be sustainable, we needed to pursue a diverse mix of product types. So, in our first six projects, we have a single-family development in Ypsilanti, Michigan. We have long term hold projects, mixed use developments in multiple cities, and we have a low-income housing tax credit project. And the reason that we formulated our business plan that way is that the cash flow is diverse from the different product types, and we wanted to make sure that we maintain that diversity over time because it makes us stronger and makes our cash flow more sustainable.

Eve: [00:08:32] So, some of them are for sale, some of them for rent. Some of them are going to be completed before others. There are developer fees, there’s income from rental or all of that mix of cash flow.

Jill: [00:08:44] Exactly. Some are tax credit projects. Some have more market rate units than others. Most of our, almost all of our projects, have workforce housing as a component of the project because we both come from workforce families. We are blue collar born and raised. And we believe that there are just thousands of Michigan families out there that fit that workforce demographic that can’t afford to buy a home, and we want to be a part of that solution.

Eve: [00:09:14] So actually, I’m going to diverge a little bit. People talk about workforce housing versus affordable. What’s the difference?

Jill: [00:09:21] In our definition affordable housing is from roughly 30 percent area median income to 60 percent area median income. Workforce housing is 60 percent area median income to 120 percent area median income. And that’s where most of our housing is focused.

Eve: [00:09:41] Ok, so where I live, they consider that affordable housing. And the lower end would be really sort of dire need target housing. Ok, got it. These are complicated projects. How do you finance them? Like, I could imagine that the financing of these projects takes up more time than anything else.

Jill: [00:10:04] I think that’s where we’ve spent the majority of the past two years. First, it was identifying the communities and the partners that we wanted to work with, and the next step is the capital stack and really understanding how these pieces work together. Shannon has tremendous experience in low-income housing tax credit ownership in other projects in Michigan, and my background, I’m a lawyer by training but my background has really been about creating unique financing solutions for real estate projects. So, our partnership is very compatible in what we’re trying to accomplish here. But it is a very difficult process to figure out how to stack these deals to make them work. And it’s why most market rate folks don’t spend the time because the fees are less, the cash flow is not as strong, but they are transformational projects that mean everything to the community that they’re in.

Eve: [00:11:01] So to keep a housing project affordable means that equity investors can’t get as much return. I’m really surprised at how many people don’t understand that. That, you know, the more return you give a bank or an investor, the greater the rent or the sale price is going to be, and the less affordable it’s going to be. So, who’s out there who helps kind of fill that capital stack for you

Jill: [00:11:25] In the state of Michigan we are using a local tool, a tax increment financing tool, that is helping create affordability in the single-family units. It was originally written as a brownfield redevelopment financing tool. However, cities in the state of Michigan are utilizing a piece of that legislation that talks about economic development to create workforce housing. So, we’re kind of left, as developers, to using tools as creatively as the state and the community that we’re in will let us to create workforce housing. But to your point, there aren’t a lot of gap financing tools for this population. There aren’t a lot of philanthropic dollars outside of entitlement communities, you know, large urban areas. So, it is really difficult, and we filled the gap with corporate sponsors, we’ve filled the gap with local foundations as equity partners, and it’s just a lot of work.

Eve: [00:12:30] You’ve got six projects that you’re pushing forward totaling how much value?

Jill: [00:12:36] Eighty-eight million in total development costs.

Eve: [00:12:39] And when do you expect the first one will break ground?

Jill: [00:12:43] We are hoping to break ground in Ypsilanti in the summer and the rest of the projects will follow throughout the fall and next year.

Eve: [00:12:53] Okay, and then do you expect your pipeline to grow once that’s underway?

Jill: [00:12:58] Yes. Once again, following the sustainable cash flow model, we’ll be looking for some single-family developments to close in 2024. And then after that, we’ll kind of go back to some mixed-use projects. And again, looking in the state of Michigan, but also, we are partner driven. So, if there’s a partner that pulls us out of the state of Michigan or a community that desperately needs us, we would look elsewhere too.

Eve: [00:13:25] Ok, I want to just shift gears a bit and talk about some of the challenges you’ve been confronted with as a woman, as a developer working in community projects, all of those things. You talk about challenges that you’ve been confronted with, that perhaps a white man would not have been confronted with.

Jill: [00:13:47] Yeah. Fundraising for the development company has been one of the most exhausting and educational experiences I’ve ever gone through. And I have been in real estate for over twenty-five years. The capital world, VC world and angel investment world is really not suited for women commercial real estate developers. It’s a high-risk industry. Investors don’t really understand how to evaluate the opportunity. It’s not an app that anyone can use. Very different from some of the successful tech apps that have raised millions of dollars. So, this space is definitely a very lonely space. And friends and family are a very strong audience for investment, but we have a very strong identity. We are definitely looking to raise significant cash flow and provide an attractive return. But at the same time, we are picking projects based on partnership and community need. So, a lot of investors don’t really understand what we’re trying to do or why we’re trying to do it. So, it’s really difficult to raise money, and it’s been a journey. But we have met some women along the way that are in this space that have been tremendous resources, you included. I think that this space is growing. There’s a lot of emerging women commercial real estate developers who are looking to launch and do their first projects. And I think this growing ecosystem of support for women in commercial real estate is getting stronger, and I’m just happy to see it.

Eve: [00:15:36] It’s very exciting. What about when you go to a bank for a loan? Do you think you’re treated any differently there?

Jill: [00:15:44] It depends on whether we are meeting their needs. So when we talk to banks that have Community Reinvestment Act obligation and we’re working in one of their target communities, the red carpet is rolled out. If we are looking in small towns across Michigan that are not part of anybody’s targeted lending strategies, it is really difficult to get lenders interested in projects. And that’s where we see, one of the biggest challenges in what we do, is that the need for housing and the appetite for lenders is completely mismatched. And we are hoping that the commercial lending industry evolves where there are loan loss reserves and risk management strategies so lenders will be more likely to lend in these smaller towns because there are employers across the state of Michigan who are hoping to expand, are in a position to expand, but are choosing not to because of the lack of housing.

Eve: [00:16:49] Interesting. That’s really tough. So, right now you’re raising funds for your company and this first set of projects on Small Change. Why crowdfunding in amongst all of this?

Jill: [00:17:03] Because our mission is to help solve community problems, we wanted to incorporate the community into our company, and we’re really interested in the way that Small Change was structured and the audience that was being reached and wanted to tap into the network of individuals across the country that are passionate about supporting women in commercial real estate. And honestly, part of our hope is to build momentum for other commercial real estate developers that are women, that they’ll follow in our footsteps and be able to raise funds through the community to help them launch.

Eve: [00:17:47] Well, it’s all really pretty exciting. I’m very excited for you. It’s a great thing to have a new company to work on. But what’s your really big, hairy, audacious goal? Where would you like to be in five 10 years?

Jill: [00:18:03] Oh, I want to take my child on a tour of completed projects, and I want to go to some of those projects and have the community members know me and remember me and maybe even vaguely if we do this right. But I think both Shannon and I feel deeply that we want to leave a legacy for our children. And that’s all really why we’re doing this.

Eve: [00:18:31] That’s really wonderful. I also want to be invited on a tour, maybe sooner than five years. I’d love to see the projects you’re working on, and…

Jill: [00:18:39] We’d love to have you back in Michigan.

Eve: [00:18:41] OK! Well, thank you, Jill. Thanks for joining me today.

Jill: [00:18:45] Thank you for having me.

Eve: [00:18:49] That was Jill Ferrari. For Jill, her career as a developer and her womanhood are entwined. Her personal experiences as a mother and caregiver are brought to the table in every project that she and Shannon tackle together. Surely this is an added bonus.

[00:19:12] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Jill Ferari

Scottie loves real estate.

Scottie Smith II, is CEO of Scottie Smith & Associates (SSA), and a licensed broker, developer, author and entrepreneur based in Dallas, Texas.  He is a veteran in the real estate industry, with 15 years of experience, and has helped thousands of people nationwide through his sales and real estate development activities. Scottie has been featured on Black Enterprise, Fox News, Forbes and more as a real estate subject-matter expert. His recently released book, “From Decision to Close“, provides a practical, no-nonsense guide to homeownership. Scottie’s journey in real estate began when he purchased his first home and rented spare rooms to friends during his freshman year of college. This sparked his interest. At 19 he got his real estate license. By the time he was 21, he had invested in multiple properties and had numerous tenants.

In 2011, Scottie founded SSA, a real estate brokerage, with just one other agent. The company has grown more than 200% yearly with new agents continuing to join the team making SSA one of the fastest growing independent real estate brokerages in Texas. He and his team of experts have brokered millions of dollars in sales helping people across the country experience the dream of homeownership.

Scottie also served as a Board Trustee for the Atlantic Housing Foundation for ten years, where he was a member of the Investment Committee helping to underwrite, review and approve more than $500 million in affordable housing projects in several states. This includes the acquisition and renovation of 300 affordable units in Fort Worth, the redevelopment of 250 affordable housing units in Lewisville, and a 32-unit townhome development in South Dallas.

In addition to his thriving brokerage firm, Scottie provides training courses through Lone Star Real Estate Academy, a real estate school he founded in 2015. He also works with underserved entrepreneurs by creating the HUB Space, a non-profit formed to support minority-owned startups. Because of his commitment to the area, Mr. Smith has been appointed by City Councilman Adam Bazaldua to the South Dallas Area Planning Task force, where he has been tasked with creating a 20 year area development plan for South Dallas/Fair Park.

Scottie has been recognized by the National Association of Realtors Magazine as one of the Top 30 brokers under 30, and by the mayor of Denton, Texas as a leader in providing public housing. He was also presented with the Quest for Success Award, Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2015 by the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, recognized and inducted into the Forbes Real Estate in 2018.  Scottie has made a lifelong commitment to use his passion for real estate to provide an avenue that helps people in his community and will continue to keep his goal in the forefront. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, a father of two and brother of twelve.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:11] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:03] Scotty Smith is a very energetic guy. He fell in love with real estate at just 19. By the time he was 21, he had invested in multiple properties and had numerous tenants. It makes sense that in 2011, Scotty founded SSA, a real estate brokerage with just one other agent. The company has doubled in size year upon year, making SSA one of the fastest growing independent real estate brokerages in Texas. He and his team of experts have brokered millions of dollars in sales, helping people across the country experience the dream of home ownership. And if that’s not enough, Scotty started a real estate training program and wrote a book ‘From Decision to Close’. It provides a practical, no-nonsense guide to home ownership. Listen in to learn more about Scottie Smith and his passion for real estate.

Eve: [00:02:18] Hi, Scotty, it’s it’s really lovely to have you with me today.

Scottie Smith: [00:02:22] Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Eve: [00:02:25] So I have to ask what drew you to real estate as a career?

Scottie: [00:02:30] Well, so, I’ve been in real estate for my entire adult life. Really started as a child when I was helping my stepfather and my mother, they were running a small contracting business and I used to do a lot of work with him. I was doing roof work, H-back work. I was under houses and at the end of the project we’d be handing somebody the key to a finished project that they will ultimately go out and make, you know, a bunch of money on it. So, I wanted to figure out how, one, I wanted to figure out how to stop from being on the roof in hot Houston weather. But two, I wanted to figure out how could I be the key holder at the end of that transaction? And so, my senior year in high school, I read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, then went off to college and my professor, my first real estate professor, actualized what I read in that book. And it made me say, OK, this is something that is real, it’s not just something that’s on paper. And that professor really challenged all of the students to purchase a property by the end of that semester. And for me, it was weird because when I went back home during the college break, you know, winter and stuff like that, I still had a curfew. And so putting in my mind that I could actually own a property at such a young age, blew me away. Didn’t reach the goal that he set to own a property by the end of that semester, but by the time the end of the next semester rolled around, I’d taken some scholarship money that I won and refund from financial aid. And I took that and bought my first property, I was 19 years old, and I took what I learned in those classes and in that book and put it to work.

Scottie: [00:04:18] And so from there, things just kind of spun out of control. I bought a property, and I did a deal with the international buyer. And then I did my first big flip. All of this happened so quickly before I was even the age of twenty-one. And, you know, I couldn’t even go celebrate at the bar like I wanted to because I wasn’t allowed in the bar. But it was such an experience, all before the Great Recession hit that taught me a lot about real estate and taught me a lot about me being able to educate a lot of my friends and family about purchasing real estate and helping them understand the investor’s mindset and applying that to the home buying process. And so, yeah, it just kind of grew from there and I’ve been, you know, going crazy ever since.

Eve: [00:05:12] So it sounds like you love it. So, this interest has blossomed into a number of things like a brokerage, a training academy, a book and a bunch of leadership positions. I wanted to talk to you about each of those. Tell me about the brokerage. When did you start that and why?

Scottie: [00:05:28] Yeah. So, I started my brokerage in 2011, and let me take a step back. Before that, I was in public accounting. When the when the Great Recession hit, I felt like I needed to do something safe. And so, I became, you know, I got my master’s in accounting from the University of Notre Dame, and I’m really just trying to find a safe route, right? But even in that career, I realized I wasn’t walking in my purpose. And so ultimately, I ended up leaving that and starting the brokerage with the expectation to help people understand how to build wealth using home ownership as that vehicle. And that’s the whole purpose of my entire career, right? My goal is to help people using real estate as the vehicle to do so. And so everything that I do, every purpose movement, has to lead with helping people achieve and accomplish something. And so, I started the brokerage. We came out the gate really swinging. It was great. I just started just helping folks and by that time, you know, we got picked up by the NAR at 30 under 30. They saw the work that we were doing here down in Dallas with helping families find affordable housing. And that was really the start of the brokerage really just figuring out how to help the people who, you know, don’t necessarily always have the help.

Eve: [00:06:55] So how big is your brokerage now?

Scottie: [00:06:57] So we have scaled back. At our largest we were about 30 agents strong. We scaled back to 10. And really solid agents who take the principle that I that I’ve taught and that I’ve built this company on, specifically about education, educating our clients, right? Everything isn’t just transactional; it’s about how can we equip our buyers and our sellers with the necessary information to help them make the right financial decision? And so that’s kind of what our mission has been, and it continues to be, educating folks. And from that we’ve gotten a number of people who have asked and approach us about becoming licensed real estate advisors or licensed real estate agents. And so that’s where the academy came in is, OK, let’s go into the community, the underserved community, and help people understand how to become licensed in the real estate industry. And so that’s what we, you know, that’s what I’ve been able to really accomplish is understanding where the need is and bridging the gap between what folks want and what they have access to. And so, a lot of people that we serve and a lot of communities that we serve, they don’t really understand how to get into real estate, how to become licensed agent or appraiser or an inspector. And so, we provide the resources for very, very low cost so that people can realize and actualize this whole idea of real estate as a career.

Eve: [00:08:29] So how many people have you trained in your academy?

Scottie: [00:08:33] Oh, at this point since launching, we’ve had almost 500 students and folks who’ve come through. Through the investing academy, through the licensing academy and through our brokerage, you know, the number of continuing education classes that we offer agents. It’s a very rewarding position to be in, and I’m really happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish over these last 11 years.

Eve: [00:09:03] And who are the teachers who help you? Is that your brokerage team?

Scottie: [00:09:08] It is our brokerage team. So, we have a few trainers. Part of what we do, we have some online stuff that we offer. I’ve authored a textbook that allows for folks to understand the investing and development side of things. And it’s really been, you know, just a working process. We’re consistently and constantly changing and evolving what the curriculum looks like, and it’s fun. And so, we also have a partnership with Dearborn Education. And Dearborn has provided us a lot of access to learning materials as well, so we’ve done some great things with them over the years.

Eve: [00:09:52] And so I think I heard there that you also wrote a book.

[00:09:56] Yes.

[00:09:57] And I think it’s called ‘From Decision to Close’. So, what’s that about?

Scottie: [00:10:00] So ‘From Decision to Close’, that book is ultimately just a guide. It’s the simplest form, the simplest way to help people understand what the process is for purchasing and owning a home. And so, I broke it down to its simplest form, simply because so many people view the home buying process and that process surrounding that, as antiquated, as difficult to understand, scary, it made them anxious. And the demographic that we served, I wanted to make it as easy and plain as possible. And so, when somebody read this book, we want to make certain that by the end of the book, they had a breath of fresh air and they were like, oh, that’s it?

Eve: [00:10:49] And I get it. Yeah,

Scottie: [00:10:51] Yeah. And so, you know, I’ve gotten a lot of, oh, OK, I didn’t realize how simple it was. Yeah, it requires you to do a little bit of work on the front end. But if you follow these….

Eve: [00:11:00] It’s really amazing how simple things are clouded in complicated language, aren’t they?

Scottie: [00:11:05] Right, exactly.

Eve: [00:11:06] So you talked about the demographic you served. Can you tell us about that?

Scottie: [00:11:10] Yeah. So, we typically serve the minority community in low-income, middle-income neighborhoods in the urban community, really.

Eve: [00:11:20] This is Dallas, right?

Scottie: [00:11:22] This is Dallas, correct. And so we were initially in downtown Dallas, and about two years ago, we moved our office to South Dallas, specifically on Martin Luther King Boulevard. And so with our academy and with our brokerage and the Career Institute, we’re hoping to impact this community, create jobs, create understanding of the industry. Because that’s where we serve, right? And so we wanted to not just sell things to the community, but now offer career training, career placement in real estate.

Eve: [00:11:58] Yes, I think you have had some pretty high level volunteer leadership positions, too, if I remember correctly.

Scottie: [00:12:07] Yeah. So, through the work that I’ve done, I’ve been tasked with helping the South Dallas and southern Dallas area create an area development plan. And, you know, South Dallas specifically is an area that had been, you know, before we came into the community and started really developing on a mass scale, it was a community that was systemically disinvested in, strategically ignored. Schools were closing down, homes were getting torn down, the historical elements of the community were essentially getting wiped away. And so, I specifically chose this area because it was, for the most part, completely vacant. And so, I wanted to build homes. With it being six minutes from the central business district of the city, I knew that it was a way to make an impact I could. I could build affordable housing but also help to redevelop and breathe life back into a specific area. And so, through that work, the city councilman has appointed me as a chair of that task force. That is, I guess, our marching orders are to create a long-term development plan specifically for the area. How do we bring economic development, new commercial and residential development, you know, create jobs and things like that? So, we’re putting together a really comprehensive plan around that. That’s been fun. With some board stuff with the Association of Realtors, I’ve been placed there. Really just taking my talent and my knowledge to help people understand the community that we serve, right? And so, I’m kind of the advocate and the representative for the forgotten folks.

Eve: [00:13:50] And I think then, last but not least, you’re also a real estate developer. That’s correct, right? So, you started fixing and flipping houses pretty young. What’s that look like? What has that morphed into?

Scottie: [00:14:01] That has been a journey. So, seven years ago or so I literally took a wrong turn, and that’s how I found the South Dallas area, which is near Fair Park. I was supposed to turn left on the street and actually turned right on the street and ended up in this neighborhood. And I just I kind of just got lost in the neighborhood just to see what’s going on. Around the time when the market was rebounding here in Dallas we had a ton of outside investors from California, New York, Florida, come into the North Texas area, buying properties, all cash. And so a lot of my buyers that our brokerage was working with, we’re financing. They had some type of down payment assistance grants that they were working with. Took a little longer to close those deals so we were getting looked over on properties left and right. When I made that turn, which I say was the wrong time, but you know,

Eve: [00:14:54] It was really the right turn, right? Yeah.

Scottie: [00:14:57] It ended up being the right turn. I saw a vision for this area. We could build these homes and give our buyers first crack at them. And it just opened this, you know, mountain of possibilities for us and what started as, hey, I just want to get a few of my clients into a home because they’re, you know, they’re frustrated, stressed out, all of those things, evolved into, OK, now I’m a community developer, I’m helping to rebuild the community. And so between my partners and I, we’ve built about 60 homes in this area, with another 40 or so slated for the next 18 to 24 months. And so, we’re really working to change the outlook on how people view the South Dallas community.

Eve: [00:15:43] So those are tough projects to do because there’s no market. When you go to a bank, you’re not going to be able to raise as much money. How do you make them happen?

Scottie: [00:15:54] So yes, before I actually started my first build here in South Dallas, I think I got 14 or so no’s. And then finally, I had to reach out to a private lender down in Austin who saw the potential. And because of their confidence and because of how they saw us, I still, to this day continue to use them. Because they were there, and they have been rocking with this since the very beginning.

Eve: [00:16:24] You had to go to a lender in Austin?

Scottie: [00:16:27] A lender almost three and a half hours away,

Eve: [00:16:30] 14 noes

Scottie: [00:16:31] 14 noes.

Eve: [00:16:33] Why do you think that is? I’m going to push you a little on this.

Scottie: [00:16:37] Well, there was no real market for it. That’s first things first. It wasn’t a pretty area. People did not build in the area. It was falling down. It was dilapidated. At the face of it, it had everything that, you know, worked against it. And so it was difficult to set comps. It was difficult to justify the values. And it really was for homes that we were planning on selling for one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. And so to get that kind of no so many times, it almost got discouraging. And…

Eve: [00:17:15] I’m sure it was very discouraging!

Scottie: [00:17:17] It was discouraging. But I continue to press forward because I saw the potential and I saw the purpose and I understood the mission. And really, ponce we ended up just saying, you know what? everything will happen just the way it should, that’s when things started coming in place. We’ve got introduced to the capital partners down in Austin, and from there it was swinging. And so, you know, we had a little bit more skin in the game than we expected to with the lender starting, but we had to show proof of concept first. And so proof of concept worked and what has happened is that, before it was my partner and I that were building in this area. Now we have no less than 50 other builders that are doing the same thing and really helping to speed along the process.

Eve: [00:18:09] Right. Fourteen noes. OK. That’s a lot.

Scottie: [00:18:13] Yep, that is.

Eve: [00:18:14] A lot of tenacity. So, you’re also doing a really funky little project called The Retreat @ Lake Noire, which I personally know because you’re listing it on Small Change trying to raise funds through crowdfunding. Tell us a little bit about this project. It’s a little different than the affordable housing you’ve been working on.

Scottie: [00:18:33] Yeah, it really is. And so, you know, because I’m in the affordable housing development and anyone that’s in that space understands the politics behind creating affordable housing and the stresses that come with that. And so for the past six years, we’ve been doing, six or seven years actually, we’ve been doing affordable housing. And that has been the focus. And when you’re dealing with a large city like the city of Dallas, it can really beat you up. It can beat you down.

Eve: [00:19:05] And also during the last year, the price increases must be really making it more difficult for you.

Scottie: [00:19:11] Supply chain issues, material issues…

Eve: [00:19:14] Yes. Yeah.

Scottie: [00:19:16] the pricing on that. And so, you know, it is difficult to work in that space. And so, this year, I said I wanted to do, I wanted to get back to developing, but also having fun. And so, this is really a fun project for me. I initially purchased this land to be my hunting getaway. And so, I wanted to hunt. You know, it’s Texas, everybody hunts. I do bird hunting and things like that. But I wanted it to be my hunting getaway. But then I kind of sat down and spoke with a few friends and advisors, and I realized that we could do something more. We can create a getaway, a retreat, so to speak, where folks could unplug, come off the grid and really just, you know, get away from the busyness that is life. And, you know, realizing that there’s a lot of people who suffer from, you know, just mental health issues, just, you know, a lot of stuff on their mind that they just need to pull away from. This is what I’m hoping that the Retreat @ Lake Noire is able to accomplish. Just, and it’s strategically located an hour and a half south of Dallas. And when you go out there, there’s no service, right? And so you literally have to stand in the middle of the land to get some service. And so, it’s ideal because we have so much screen time. We have so much computer time that as a society now, we don’t ever really get to sit with our thoughts. And so with the Retreat @ Lake Noire, I’m hoping that people can just be at peace in a serene environment where you know the luxury tiny cabins end up helping them just be.

Eve: [00:20:53] Well, describe the project to us a little bit because it has a little lake, but how big is the land and what are you building?

Scottie: [00:21:00] Yeah, so it’s a 15-acre site. We’re building a three-and-a-half-acre manmade lake and we’re, around that lake we’ll have 20 luxury tiny cabins that will be, you know, energy efficient, solar powered. We’re stocking the lake with fish. People will be able to fish and enjoy that type of stuff, boating activities. Ultimately just giving people that getaway, that peaceful nature. And so, it’ll be 20, like I said, 20 cabins on a 15-acre site in the middle of nowhere.

Eve: [00:21:37] And I’ve seen the cabins. They’re very, very cute. So, what sets it apart? Is there anything else like that around Dallas?

Scottie: [00:21:44] No, there’s nothing in that direction. There are some things in Oklahoma, just about four hours north of Dallas. They’re much larger cabins called Broken Bow. And then there is one in far east Texas that is a similar kind of getaway, a little further away. And there is something else in far west Texas where, you know, people can go, a little bit further away from the city of Dallas than most people like to travel. But for the Retreat @ Lake Noire, it’s the only one that I’ve seen that has the cabins surrounding the lake and allows for guests to fish and boat in the lake so…

Eve: [00:22:28] Close enough so that you could really take a weekend. Like an hour and a half is not a not a super long drive. Have you started construction yet?

Scottie: [00:22:37] We started site work the week of January 14th. And our guys, once they started clearing the land, we ultimately found that we had a creek coming down the left side of the property, which I’m really excited about because it allows for us to add another feature. And so we’re going to put a path down the side of the creek that allows for guests to walk along that.

Eve: [00:23:03] A little trail. Yeah, nice.

Scottie: [00:23:05] A little trail. So yeah.

Eve: [00:23:06] When do you think it’ll be finished? When are you going to start taking bookings?

Scottie: [00:23:09] So we’re going to take bookings after the first 10 are completed. I think the target for that is at the end of the year. Full construction on this should take about 18 months from start to finish on completion on that.

Eve: [00:23:24] And so why crowdfunding? What are you hoping you’ll accomplish crowdfunding the equity for this project?

Scottie: [00:23:30] Just being able to have more partners on a deal is exciting. I’ve been doing, you know, for the past few years I’ve been doing everything on my own with, you know, a handful of investors every now and again. But this year I want to ensure that I was opening up these developments for people to get involved in, for people to see a return and, you know, being able to take advantage of these types of investments when they normally wouldn’t. And so most of these types of things are slated for accredited investors, and I don’t think it’s fair that accredited investors can have all the fun, so….

Eve: [00:24:08] Me too. But I think I see another class calling you in the training academy about crowdfunding, investing through crowdfunding.

Scottie: [00:24:16] Right? Yeah, that is something that has been written down up here on my board. I think the first thing, first step is successfully complete a crowdfund, so…

Eve: [00:24:29] Yeah, yeah. But I think, yeah, it does require education for sure, teaching people how to invest. So, I’m just going ask some wrap up questions. What accomplishments are you proudest of? You’ve done a lot in a short time.

Scottie: [00:24:42] Oh. Oh, that is a lot. I want to say this. I’m a father, so I have to lead with them. These kids, they blow me away every day. They’re good and decent kids. So that accomplishment of being a good father is dynamic, you know. That’s first and foremost. But from a real estate perspective, I think when I made 30 under 30, that was a goal that I wrote down when I first became a broker, and it was because there was a gentleman on the front cover of the Realtor Magazine that was in Plano. And that’s just, you know, 30 minutes north of Dallas. And I went and talked to him, and I said my goal is to be able to get on the front page of Realtor Magazine as a 30 under 30 recipient. And we had a really long conversation. He told me what to do. I kind of forgot the conversation and then I picked it up and said, this is the year, and I hit that. I applied for five years straight.

Eve: [00:25:44] Oh, that’s sad!

Scottie: [00:25:46] Five years straight. And on the fifth year, they finally, was like, I guess this guy isn’t giving up.

Eve: [00:25:52] Isn’t giving up, yeah.

Scottie: [00:25:54] And so it was such an awesome experience for me.

Eve: [00:26:00] Oh good, That’s great. That’s really great. Congratulations. Final question. What’s next for you after The Retreat? Any other plans?

Scottie: [00:26:09] Yes. So, with this tiny cabin community, a lot of people reached out to me with concepts and ideas, and I’d never really thought about the idea of having a tiny home community for sale. Somebody shot me over, they passed me over a development that was going on in Atlanta that was a tiny cottage community that they were selling, you know, and I looked at it and I said, wow, everything under, you know, for the most part, under two hundred thousand. In Dallas, we have an affordable housing crisis and so I figured…

Eve: [00:26:44] All over the world we have an affordable housing crisis.

Scottie: [00:26:46] Right! So, it’s, you know, if this is a way that I can create more affordable housing and figure out how to do what I need to do there, I think I should explore it. And so, I’ve been exploring it, and I’ve identified a few sites here in the city of Dallas, pretty much already zoned for what I needed to do. And I think I’m going to do a tiny home community here in the city of Dallas, but a for-sale model. And so that’s going to be next step.

Eve: [00:27:14] I can’t wait to see it. Well, thank you very much for joining me. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about your exploits, and you’ll be like 50 under 50 sometime, 40 under 40, I don’t know. There are more goals.

Scottie: [00:27:29] Thank you so much for having me.

Eve: [00:27:31] 30 under 30 is an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations.

Scottie: [00:27:34] Thank you. Thank you.

Eve: [00:27:44] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Scottie Smith