Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Impact

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

Building efficiency.

Adrian Washington says that until he was past 30, he had never even heard the term ‘real estate developer.’ Today he is known for over two decades of experience in urban real estate development, construction and management and the startup of several companies, the most notable being Neighborhood Development Company, founded in 1999 in his hometown of Washington, D.C. 100% minority owned, NDC is a triple-bottom-line company, responsible for over 1 million sf of completed residential and commercial projects, and about 1 million sf waiting in the development pipeline. Adrian also served for 18 months as the head of the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, charged with leading the $10 billion, 20-year redevelopment initiative of the city’s Southwest and Anacostia Waterfronts.

Having started in management consulting, Adrian shifted gears after he bought an old brownstone in a run-down, but up and coming part of town. He started fixing it up, and found that he loved the process, as well the potential impact on the neighborhood, and eventually he found himself asking, why not try doing something you’re really passionate about? He has said, “I think disrupting is almost always good for an industry,” and true to that Adrian just launched a new business, Platform, to “revolutionize the way that buildings are built.” The idea is simple – integrate all the services required to build the platform (foundation structure) of a building to provide a ‘one stop shop’’ for this critical part of any construction project. Plus, they want to leverage ‘green technologies’ and are aiming to be carbon neutral in five years. It’s ambitious and challenging, but we wouldn’t expect any less.

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: [00:01:05] Adrian Washington is determined. A veteran developer with a pedigree that includes a Harvard MBA, Adrian became a developer out of his love of cities. He founded the Neighborhood Development Company in Washington, D.C. over 20 years ago and has built 50 projects to date. Even early on, his goal was to provide affordable housing opportunities. His deals grew from four units to 100. And then the housing crisis hit. His biggest challenge was the rapidly rising construction costs, which make the job of building affordable extremely difficult. So, in 2021, he launched another company, Platform USA, which is focused on providing efficiency and affordability for the messiest, most inefficient part of constructing a building, the platform that supports the building above. This portion of a building amounts to 25% of a building’s cost but takes up 40% of the construction time. And Adrian’s company is on a path to create much more efficiency and therefore cost savings in this critical part of the structure. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:02:45] Hello, Adrian. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Adrian Washington: [00:02:48] Good morning, Eve. Thanks for having me.

Eve: [00:02:51] So you’ve been a real estate developer for decades, one of a pretty rare breed of Black developers. And I’m just wondering, what led you to become a real estate developer?

Adrian: [00:03:02] I became a real estate developer because I loved cities, I love housing, I love the interaction of all the energy that goes on in cities. And I wanted to provide opportunities for people to have affordable options to live.

Eve: [00:03:16] Okay. So that was the biggest problem to solve back then. And it sounds like it’s bubbled up to be one of the biggest right now. And then you went on to found your own company, Neighborhood Development Company, which you’ve owned for over 20 years now. Is that right?

Adrian: [00:03:32] That’s right. We were founded in the 1999 and exactly, as you said, Eve, that back then the challenge was sort of attracting people to cities. Cities still had a bad reputation, but I think we’ve become a victim of our own success. There are so many people flocking to cities and rents have gone up. Prices have gone up. So the challenge has become a totally different challenge than the one we started with.

Eve: [00:03:54] Yeah, actually, that’s a really good perspective. I remember when the word urban was a bad word, but it’s definitely not anymore, is it?

Adrian: [00:04:02] No, no. It’s quite a desirable place to live.

Eve: [00:04:05] Yeah, what a big shift. Okay, so tell us about the projects that you typically tackle. How big are they and what type of projects?

Adrian: [00:04:15] Okay. Well, we started with very small projects and as we’ve grown over the years, we’ve progressed to much bigger ones. So back in the beginning, our projects were very small buildings, four-unit buildings, six unit buildings, and we grew to now the typical building size that we do is somewhere plus or minus 100 units of housing.

Eve: [00:04:34] That’s pretty large and only housing or they mixed use, or commercial?

Adrian: [00:04:38] It’s primarily housing, but we have done several mixed-use buildings. We really focus, in terms of mixed-use of the commercial side, on neighborhood-serving commercial properties. So, for instance, we’ve done charter schools, we’ve done exercise studios, we’ve done fresh food markets, we’re doing a farmers market sort of marketplace in one of our current projects, we’ve brought medical care, health care. So housing is our main thing, but we’ve tried to provide retail and commercial options that help serve the neighborhoods we work in.

Eve: [00:05:13] And where do you find those?

Adrian: [00:05:16] We found this all over. I mean, primarily now because of the scale of projects we do, our projects are ground up. So typically, we will find vacant land in underserved parts of cities, and we’ll take those and we’ll develop what’s there. Sometimes we have to rezone them to make them more suitable. Sometimes we can just build on what’s called a ‘as is’ basis, but we find them in a variety of ways and a variety of places.

Eve: [00:05:40] And so over the years, like, how many buildings have you developed now?

Adrian: [00:05:44] We developed over 50 projects now.

Eve: [00:05:47] Oh, that’s pretty substantial. And you know, I forgot to ask you, where are they located? I know you live in D.C., but are all your projects there, or do you go further afield?

Adrian: [00:05:57] Primarily, most of our projects are in Washington, D.C. proper. We have a couple under development now in suburban Maryland and we’re expanding to suburban Virginia for future projects. So primarily this area. We looked at other areas of the country to expand. We have some, sort of, places that we’re interested in and I think in the years ahead we’re going to be there because we see the need, not just in the D.C. area, but in other areas as well.

Eve: [00:06:22] So what’s been the greatest challenge in doing this work over the years?

Adrian: [00:06:27] I think there’s been, I wish it was just one challenge, Eve. It’s really a number of challenges. I think that the big challenge we’re seeing now is the economics. Land prices have gone up somewhat, but really its construction costs have gone up tremendously. And the cost to build a building has gone up maybe three-fold since when I started. And also, the time it takes is increased as well. So, we’re constantly looking at ways to reduce that cost and reduce that time to build.

Eve: [00:06:59] And of course, that trickles down to the tenants, doesn’t it?

Adrian: [00:07:02] It absolutely does. I mean, the economics are hard to modify. If it costs you more to build, you’ve got to charge more rent in order to pay for the building.

Eve: [00:07:13] So the affordable housing crisis seems almost impossible to solve with all of this going on. It’s a little depressing, isn’t it?

Adrian: [00:07:20] Well, I mean, it’s not impossible. It’s challenging, you know, and we’re working on different ways. So, we’ve been able to overcome those challenges and we continue to try to get better in finding new ways to do that to meet the need. And we’re not going to be deterred. We’re going to make it happen.

Eve: [00:07:35] So that brings me to your new company which you just founded last year, I believe, called Platform USA. So what is Platform?

Adrian: [00:07:46] It’s called Platform because we’re really focused on the building platform, the part of the building that you really don’t see once the beautiful vertical part is built. But the platform is an extremely important part of the building. It’s where about 25% of the cost is, and it’s about really 40% of the time it takes to build a building is in that part of the building that’s scheduled there. So, we found that there were tons of money, tons of really smart people, lots of focus on the vertical part of the building but almost no company and no company that we’ve seen has a single-minded focus on the underground part of it. So that’s where we focus Platform.

Eve: [00:08:23] What are all the things that go into that underground part? You know, what sort of skills?

Adrian: [00:08:29] Yeah, there are five or six, primarily, components or trades that go into it. There’s the excavation actually digging the hole. There’s sheeting and shoring, holding up the hole before you pour the concrete in. There’s a concrete portion of it that’s part of the structure going up to what’s called a podium. But then there are things like underground utilities, there are things like testing, there’s environmental aspects. So, there are parts that are both what you typically consider the hard cost, construction and excavation, etc. But there are all these other types of things that are in the soft cost and what Platform does uniquely, it provides a one-stop shop for all of those things.

Eve: [00:09:09] And probably a lot of engineering, too, right?

Adrian: [00:09:12] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:09:13] And so how is that handled today and how are you hoping to shift that?

Adrian: [00:09:19] I mean, it’s a mess right now today. I mean, right now it’s just a forgotten backwater of the industry. And developers and contractors they have to go out and, you know, trade by trade, company by company, discipline by discipline, you know, handle all of those individually. So, you’d go out to a geotechnical company to do your drilling. You’d go to a structural engineer to design the underpinnings. You’d go to a excavation contractor to do that. And all of these entities have conflicting desires. There’s a lot of finger-pointing, it’s really a big mess. And so, I think our key innovation in platform is that you can go to one person, one company, a one-stop shop that can deliver all of that, and there’s no finger-pointing. You give us your specification for the platform, we give you a price, and we deliver on that price. One contract, one guarantee. This is much simpler, it’s much faster and it’s much cheaper.

Eve: [00:10:15] Interesting. So how are you going to build those capabilities?

Adrian: [00:10:20] We build them in a couple of ways. In the early phases, we’ve assembled a team of specialized one, who work with us project after project. We do that. So that’s phase one. But phase two, we’re going to acquire companies because we believe that the key to really getting the savings that we need to get is to have all those elements directly under our control. So, we’re going to do acquisitions, what’s sometimes called as a roll-up strategy to acquire these different companies. We have one company right now that we’re in discussions with and we’re going to add more as we go on. So, after year two, year three, we’ll have a fully integrated company with all these components under one roof.

Eve: [00:11:00] And what’s your progress so far?

Adrian: [00:11:02] So far, we’ve started construction on our first project. We are wrapping up our contract negotiations to start in the second. We have two more that we’re slated for later this year. So, we have very aggressive growth goals and right now we’re right on track for meeting this.

Eve: [00:11:20] Interesting. So, are the projects you’re going to focus on like the projects you build?

Adrian: [00:11:25] Well, that’s one of the great advantages Platform has. I mean, we have a sister company, my real estate development company Neighbohood Development Company and platform is going to be the exclusive platform provider for that. So, we’ve got a robust pipeline in Neighborhood Development Company. And so that provides a great underpinning, no pun intended, for Platform’s growth, but we’re also going out to third parties. So, we are negotiating several third party contracts right now, and we’re going to do both NDC’s projects and a much greater volume of third-party projects.

Eve: [00:11:57] Pretty fabulous. It’s a really interesting company. It’s got to cost a bit of money to buy these companies and scale up. And full disclosure, you’ve just started a crowdfunding offering on Small Change. So what’s your plan for the financials for this company? How do you think it will grow?

Adrian: [00:12:14] Clearly, the reason that we launched our crowdfunding campaign on Small Change is to provide equity for those acquisitions. I mean, the way our economics are set up, we’re going to be profitable very early on in terms of our base business where we’re predicting profitability for 2022. So, the equity need is not to fund the base operations of the company, but it’s to fund the acquisitions that we’re going to do. And so, we’ve built it into our budget. The money that we hope to raise on Small Change will fund the first couple of acquisitions. And then as we grow, we may go back to crowdfunding or we may use institutional equity to fund that acquisition growth.

Eve: [00:12:51] So what’s the ultimate goal here, Adrian?

Adrian: [00:12:53] The ultimate goal is to change the industry. I’ve been in the industry for decades, both on the development side as well as construction side, and there’s just like a crazy lack of innovation, particularly on underground components that Platform is going to address. So, our goal is nothing less than to change the industry, to change the way that platforms are created, to make the creation of platforms better, cheaper and faster. And by doing that, to lower the cost of housing to address that critical need in housing.

Eve: [00:13:25] Well, kudos, Adrian. It’s a really fascinating company and you’re tackling a super messy problem. So, I wish you great success.

Adrian: [00:13:35] Thank you.

Eve: [00:13:35] Can’t wait to see what happens.

Adrian: [00:13:37] Me too.

Eve: [00:14:00] 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.

Images courtesy of Adrian Washington, Platform USA

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

Repairing the urban environment.

As a university student, Tracy Gabriel blended city planning with international affairs. As a Fulbright Scholar she studied in Damascus. She built a career in planning and development in New York and Washington D.C. that led her, in 2018, to the leadership role for the National Landing BID in Arlington, Virginia, being billed as the state’s ”largest walkable neighborhood” (which even if true may. in fact, be a tad misleading). Formerly known as the Crystal City BID, under her tenure which coincided with the Amazon HQ2 project, the service district increased by over 70%, incorporating portions of Pentagon City and Potomac Yard-Arlington.

Previously, Tracy spent six years across the river as associate director at the D.C. Office of Planning focusing on community revitalization, sustainability, economic development and design. This included the redevelopment of federal assets such as Walter Reed and St. Elizabeth’s Hospitals, as well as working plans for neighborhoods in transition such as Southwest, Mid-City East and Adams Morgan. She also was involved in sustainability projects like the EcoDistrict model and Sustainable DC, and served as citywide lead for Anacostia Waterfront’s planning and development coordination. Before D.C. Tracy worked at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which handled notable design-rich projects like Cornell-Technion Applied Science Campus at Roosevelt Island and Hunter’s Point South on the Long Island City Waterfront. She is a native New Yorker.

Crystal City has a fascinating, sometimes contentious development history. The riverfront runs essentially south to north starting with Crystal City (and Reagan National airport), the Pentagon complex, Arlington Cemetery, and the office tower skyline of Rosslyn. This entire metro area is surrounded and divided by a chaotic spaghetti of thruways for suburban commuters. Crystal City (technically a neighborhood) was originally planned around the car commuters in the 1970s, using ‘superblocks’ and pedestrian tunnels. And so, today, much of the current planning has been working towards corrective development. Tracy has worked on both sides of the Potomac, and probably understands their relationship better than most. Additionally, now that Amazon started putting down roots in Northern Virginia, with property values that are probably skyrocketing, it should make for an interesting conversation.

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: [00:01:07] Tracey Gabriel works at Repairing Urban Environments. She’s president and executive director of the National Landing BID. There she puts her experience as urbanist, planner and place maker to work, leading the makeover of Virginia’s largest downtown with over $8 billion in private investment in the pipeline. Crystal City was designed with the best of intentions and the best of planning principles in the 1970s. It’s a car-centric place spotted with pedestrian tunnels and underground malls. It’s Tracy’s job to turn this inward-looking place into an outward looking one. Walkable, livable and vibrant at street level is the goal. It’s quite a tall order. For a woman who is committed to addressing complex urban challenges and building great neighborhoods, this is the ultimate role.

Eve: [00:02:06] 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 and blog posts.

Eve: [00:02:34] Hello, Tracy, I’m really excited to hear about your work today.

Tracy: [00:02:39] Eve I’m so happy to be here.

Eve: [00:02:41] So a really big question, how do you transform a very large neighborhood built for the car with underground pathways into a paradigm for 21st century urban centers?

Tracy: [00:02:53] Well, that is our grand challenge. So if you aren’t familiar with it, we’re talking about the National Landing area, which is comprised of Pentagon City, Crystal City and Potomac Yard in Arlington, Virginia, just minutes from downtown D.C., Washington, D.C. And you know, this area came to fruition during the sixties and seventies with a very, you know, auto centric sensibility. We had actually like urban density, drivable density, but the sensibility was one of inverted or introverted buildings, mega blocks, retaining walls, just a hostile environment.

Eve: [00:03:44] And this. And I read underground retail, too, so…

Tracy: [00:03:47] Oh underground, exactly. It’s again that introverted nature of the buildings. And we know today that it’s so critical for our urban centers that we actually are competing on place and the experience of place. And so much of that is about walkability. It’s about street level activity. It’s about engaging storefronts. It’s about interesting businesses that create authenticity and the identity of place. As we’re looking at sustainability, it’s also about green and bringing nature into our urban environments. It’s about having every mode of access and getting around. So we are trying to right now in the National Landing area is take that sixties and seventies paradigm and turn it on its head. And actually, our goal is to become the most connected downtown in the country. It’s very ambitious.

Eve: [00:04:51] It’s a pretty big goal, yeah.

Tracy: [00:04:52] It is a big goal. How do you do it, you ask the question? You do it through very good planning. First off, I think as someone who comes from an urban planning background, I’ve appreciated how much our local jurisdiction has focused on planning and important inflection points, including a plan just approved this past weekend and the idea of actually planning for growth. And through that growth and development, making those on-the-ground changes to our urban infrastructure that really have a people-centered transformation at its heart. So whether that’s block-by-block buildings that now have activated retail and storefronts, it’s reclaiming streets for multiple modes and for people. It’s about extroverts eating our buildings, even repositioning, you know, our existing portfolio buildings and making them have the kind of urban sensibilities that we have today. And of course, it’s investment in new infrastructure. Parks connected to place and then actual transportation options that are really about next generation mobility.

Eve: [00:06:03] I love the idea of going from introvert to extrovert for a city. That’s a great way to describe it. But like, let’s start talking first about the actual National Landing BID. What is that and why was it formed?

Tracy: [00:06:17] The National Landing BID was formed back in 2006 as the Crystal City Business Improvement District, and it was really in response to base realignment and closure and the shrinking of the federal sector locally. BIDs are often, come in at the moment where an area needs extra place management

Eve: [00:06:37] And BID stands for Business Improvement District, right?

Tracy: [00:06:39] Yes. And just to tell what a business improvement district is, it’s a public private partnership financed by property owners to focus on the vibrancy and vitality of a central business district or downtown. And the focus has typically been around clean and safe and business attraction. And I think what’s different for, I think the National Landing BID, is that we are really focused on being place makers, storytellers, ideas generators and community builders

Eve: [00:07:15] Who are the major players in a BID. I mean, I know we have a BID locally here in Pittsburgh, and I know they exist everywhere, and they all function a little differently. So, what was the idea behind this particular BID and who pushed it forward?

Tracy: [00:07:30] Yes. So, we expanded three years ago and then became the National Landing BID. We increased our geography to reflect the entire downtown. But it came on the heels of the announcement of Amazon…

[00:07:43] Oh, okay.

[00:07:45] …locating its HQ2 in our area, which, you know, in truth it was a long-standing goal of our area to expand the BID to reflect our entire downtown, and I think with the advent of Amazon coming to the area and the opportunity to actually unify our district is really an essential moment to see the importance of a BID in managing change and growth in the area and being, having a local steward for our business owners and our property owners.

Eve: [00:08:21] It sounds like this might be one of the largest BIDs in the country.

Tracy: [00:08:25] In terms of budget, we’re at just about five million dollars, which is probably mid-sized, but I think what we have going for us in terms of biggest is, I think the biggest transformation underway. We have eight billion dollars in private sector investment, of which many people have read about the $2.5 Billion that Amazon is bringing to the area. We are a downtown that is comparable in scale to downtown Oakland or downtown Austin. We’re set to be a downtown Miami soon and we’ll continue to grow from there. So, I think it’s the notable component of our downtown is just how much change is underway in terms of the pipeline of investment and the emphasis on innovation and the repairing of the urban experience is what is a distinguishing feature of our area.

Eve: [00:09:28] So when you repair the urban experience and there’s this focus on transformation, what does that look like for residents or for workers or for retail activities?

Tracy: [00:09:40] Yes, repairing the urban fabric is all about, I think, stitching together our area more seamlessly. I think what we know is that walkability is increasingly important, as is having spaces for surprise and delight and respite in an urban environment. We know that during the pandemic, how important that is. So, the kind of ease of getting around, the ability to have everything that you need in one district to be able to access the small businesses that you love to shop, to eat locally. So that’s all part of the transformation. It’s really about a live work balance. I think one of the things we also know is that, you know, monolithic places don’t feel great. And I think building a place in terms of the urban repair, it’s about balancing the mix of uses and ensuring that workers and residents and live work is and embodied abundance.

Eve: [00:10:43] So just tell us in detail what have been the residential and workplace transformations. What’s been built so far, what’s been accomplished to date and what’s still being planned? It’s probably a really long list.

Tracy: [00:10:56] One of the things we’re seeing and, as we speak, I am looking at several cranes right across the street from me. And what we’re seeing is sort of a block-by-block transformation now. Some are, you know, rehabbing of existing buildings to again go back to our first metaphor of extroverted buildings, we’re seeing, you know, retail that was once internalized being brought to the street front. Bringing more green on a block-by-block basis. Just recently, we reclaimed the front door to our neighborhood or metro system, made that into really a park experience as people came out, come out of our metro. And so, we are building lots of new housing. So we already have 26,000 residents. But each new building in the past 10 years has added to mostly our residential staff, and we have about 7,000 more units already approved and set to be constructed. So, we’ll be actually the fastest-growing residential neighborhood in the Washington, DC area.

Eve: [00:12:04] And what about like from a zoning point of view? Have you made any changes? I ask this question because I was really impressed by a neighborhood in Australia a few years back where they had just left industrial and retail and residential sort of all mixed up, and it was an incredibly vibrant place. It was, you know, really the sort of, a very enticing idea to live in a place like that rather than segregated into like, you know, a neighborhood.

Tracy: [00:12:34] Absolutely. So, I mentioned that good planning has been at the heart of the faith in a blueprint for sustainable growth, for yielding the kind of environments we want to live in. And one example of that is the fact that in the plans, there has been incredible intentionality in retaining a 50/50 balance between office and housing. And in some ways, I think the Arlington County, our local jurisdiction was ahead of its time because what we’re discovering now is that office markets that are just office are feeling very under loved at the moment.

Eve: [00:13:18] The pain? Yeah,

Tracy: [00:13:20] In pain.

Eve: [00:13:21] Absolutely.

Tracy: [00:13:22] And there’s cascading effects where retail can’t survive in that environment. So, the fortunate thing that we have here is that we plan for that balance and we actually have a 1:1 ratio by presence between jobs and housing. And we’re going to continue that with all the growth and development. We’ll continue to have that 1:1 ratio, that ideal balance between jobs and housing. And why is that important? It means that our streets are going to have people on them, no matter what the back to office environment or the new work experience for everyone is, that we will have a vibrant, very characteristically urban place and we’ll be able to sustain the small businesses that again are the lifeblood of how people experience and identify with places on the ground, street level activity.

Eve: [00:14:13] I imagine that you are also able to reduce the amount of parking and the number of cars being used when you have that sort of relationship, right?

Tracy: [00:14:22] Absolutely. You can reduce that, and you want there to be walkable trips to do most of what we have. The other benefit we have locally is that we are investing in the larger-scale transformation of transportation assets. So how do you make it super easy for anyone who lives here or works here to get anywhere else in the region? And so, there’s been a lot of investment in big infrastructure in terms of how we are going to connect people to where they want to live or work, but also then focusing very locally on the micro mobility, the human-scaled streets. How do you get the last mile that you need to get in? And I think, yes, we are overbuilt in terms of parking. Again, we came of age at a time where it was very auto centric, and we have lots of empty garages. So much so that we annually have a bike race in our garages on the three lower floors that that are not used. On weekdays. So, it just shows you we know that we are overbuilt and we actually, only I think 20 percent of our trips are single occupancy vehicles. So, we are extremely transit oriented in how people go to and from our area. And I think the way people want to live is to be able to take some individualized, maybe a scooter, maybe their bike or maybe walking to this and we can offer, our goal is to be able to offer seamless ways to do any of that.

Eve: [00:15:55] Interesting. So, what’s going to happen to all those empty garages? Are they going to be torn down, converted into lofts? Like, what’s the goal?

Tracy: [00:16:03] Very interesting, because if you, look, there’s so much complexity, because one of the things that we have going on here is that we have a lot of concentrated ownership and that’s historically, and it’s changed hands, but the portfolio has stayed largely intact, which means you have multiple buildings sitting on large parking garages. So very complex urban infrastructure when you don’t have the garages just tied to one building, but you have the fortunate circumstance that with large-scale property owners, they can make investments that are transformative because they see the value, the entire portfolio. So, what the future of our underground is that you mentioned before, the underground retail, what the future of our garages are, I think are yet to be seen. But I think what we know is that we need more of the street-oriented retail and less of the parking garages and more multimodal options. And I think having what we have is an asset, but we don’t need, we don’t need more.

Eve: [00:17:08] Right, right. Interesting. So, I have to ask, who decides on how to rebuild this place? Is this a top-down project or is the community involved?

Tracy: [00:17:18] We have one of the most engaged local communities. I’m so impressed. As an urban planner myself, my history and work experience has been largely in community-based planning, so I’ve always been on the public side of the planning equation doing that engagement. And the thing that strikes me locally is just how engaged. As I mentioned, we have a number of plans that were community-based plans, but we’ve even had the community go further to create their own plans around livability and joint visions beyond, even. So, you have a lot of bottom up planning, and we’re seeing how that has dovetailed into the plans for the county. Ideas like green ribbons going through our neighborhoods, green networks tying together our places have, came up from the community and have made it to our plans. And of course, during the development review process, it is a case study in community conversation over the scale and the benefits of development. So, I think one of the unique things with that level of engagement and involvement and the amount of planning and what is pretty exceptional in this area is just how much commensurate investment in parks and transportation and great design is able to be achieved, which could mean that growth actually can equal greater liveability, which isn’t always the case. And I think so much of that is because of the robust dialogue about how you balance development with the needs of who’s living here.

Eve: [00:19:03] Interesting. So, what does the demographic look like there?

Tracy: [00:19:07] In our downtown area, we have about 26,000 residents, and like much of Arlington County, we probably skew pretty heavily in a Millennial demographic. So, a lot of folks in early to mid-career. And, but we have the full gamut. We have a lot of people who have naturally occurring retirement communities here as well. People who moved here at the outset and then, from a diversity perspective is something that the BID has been really passionate about, is making sure that we retain the diversity that we do have. We are in a very diverse region. Washington, D.C. is a metro area, is a minority majority region, and that is a quintessential component of what great cities are, is having great diversity. And we’re very interested in not just retaining but also growing, making this an inclusive place that is really for everyone. And as you know, I think affordability always is the greatest challenge for ensuring that we retain the diversity that we do.

Eve: [00:20:19] That was going to be my next question. How is affordable housing part of this mix?

Tracy: [00:20:23] I think one of the things that we know is that the perils of growth and development are really what it does. It can potentially do to an already existing affordable housing crisis. I think we have two parallel things happening. One is just growing the inventory of housing generally, as a release valve. So, we I mentioned we have a lot of units in production and it is a hope that that helps to deliver on the demand that exists. Additionally, unfortunately, we started off here with a baseline that there wasn’t very many committed affordable housing units, but that has been a joint focus of the county, of our property owners, of Amazon, to up the focus on affordable housing. And that’s incrementally on a project-by-project basis on what they can deliver in terms of affordable housing, either on site or through funding for affordable housing. And then there were game-changer investments. We had the fortunate circumstance of being Amazon’s housing equity fund, which is a $2 billion fund. Their very first initial investment was in a property that’s just a block from their current campus and that, through the Washington Housing Conservancy, turned an existing housing development into what will be long-term affordable housing, especially workforce housing, over time. So those kinds of investments, where that’s to the scale of like 800 units and another, potentially another 800 units that go with infill development around it. You have 1600 units that are within, or will be, within a block from a major job centre. I think it’s that combination of policy of incremental steps towards affordable housing. And then, we’re fortunate to have this, kind of the game-changer, large-scale investments that really change the conversation and change the metrics that we could accomplish.

Eve: [00:22:40] Yeah, I suppose that’s always the worry. Like if you the more gorgeous you make it place, the more unaffordable the housing becomes, and 800 units just seems to kind of scratch the surface. It’s a problem…

Tracy: [00:22:52] Oh, absolutely.

Eve: [00:22:53] Every country is having. So yeah, I don’t know how you solve it.

Tracy: [00:22:58] Yeah. The other issue that exists broadly in the housing market is just that predominantly in our market, it’s almost all rental. And that’s a product of the fact that we mostly have REITs here and other things and just historically what has been built. And so, opportunities for kind of multifamily condos and home ownership hasn’t been in abundance and in terms of zoning, I think tackling some of the single family areas to see what other missing middle housing can get developed is also in a joint effort.

Eve: [00:23:35] I think D.C.’s had a pretty transitory population to right, which is kind of pushed it towards more rental than ownership. What I understand, I don’t know. So, tell me the really big things that you’re excited about for the next five years and maybe even the next 10 years.

Tracy: [00:23:52] I’m excited on multiple fronts, but I mentioned before I’m excited about a people-oriented transformation. We actually, as a BID, have tried to be the spokesperson for that transformation, and we have a People Before Cars campaign. But People Before Cars Coalition, bringing together transit advocates to really elevate the conversation. And we have four billion dollars in transportation projects in our area. Four billion. So astounding number. That includes Big Rail that can seamlessly connect our region, transformation of our airport, which is actually adjacent to our district, and one of those projects that we’re talking about is a big idea that the BID spawned and that was, that’s a pedestrian or multimodal connection to the airport, from the airport to our main street, which will be a five+ minute walk.

Eve: [00:24:55] Wow.

Tracy: [00:24:56] And is currently in the planning and will be in the design phase going forward. So, things like that, where we will go from maybe a hidden edge city to the only downtown in the country where you can walk a comfortable and attractive walk to an airport in five minutes?

Eve: [00:25:15] Wow, that’s pretty significant.

Tracy: [00:25:19] Yeah.

Eve: [00:25:20] Are all those funds, federal dollars? Where do the funds come from, the four billion dollars?

Tracy: [00:25:25] It’s a mix, right? So, some of it is state and federal on the big rail projects. Some of it is state on our rail multimodal facilities and other ones are the complete streets projects and the kind of human scale work is being done by our county. So, it is a rich tapestry of transportation funding sources, but also we have public private partnerships to execute new metro station entrances and the like. So many players and, which is why we had put together a report called Mobility Next because there are so many different actors doing different projects, they just see the complete picture. You could understand the scale of the impact of those investments. And you know, quite honestly, from the standpoint of the BID, the thing I’m excited about is to be one of those ideas champions and be able to kind of push the envelope on what it can mean to have people-oriented infrastructure. So, we’re quite excited about that. I personally am excited to see, hopefully in the next five to 10 years in our role as a steward, is to hope that we can have shared benefits of all this development. I think we are a case study in urban development and urban transformations, given the pace and scale of what we’re experiencing and how we do it and how well we do, will be a measure and hopefully a model for how this can get done. And so we’ve been very focused at the BID and amongst our stakeholders having conversations around everything from racial equity to how do we build an inclusive community and, so I’m hopeful that we see advances there. And I think on the horizon, I think that we could have a real innovation district, a hub of activity between Amazon and we have the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus to the South. So, we’re really kind of interested in seeing what a living lab of innovation might be in our area.

Eve: [00:27:28] So I mean, what I love about this is that I think the powers that be understand that this is a really long-term hold on investment, but eventually there’ll be a return, right? And it’s not going to be in a year, but it’s going to be worthwhile because it’s a pretty big investment to make. That’s me thinking like a developer.

Tracy: [00:27:47] Yes. No, absolutely. And it’s precisely that. It’s that being able to think about the future and the impact and what the benefits can be and the return on investment.

Eve: [00:28:01] I’m going to just move to you now. You’ve always been a planner. And what led you to this career?

Tracy: [00:28:08] I would say planning is somewhat in my blood. I’m a born and raised New Yorker. I was raised in Manhattan, lived on the twenty first floor of an apartment building, a rent stabilized unit that my parents still live in, but, you know, I probably spent a lot of maybe too much time dreaming, staring out my window at the cityscape and being kind of a voracious observer of city life. So, it builds a compassion for cities in terms of their form, function, energy, but also I think cities are the top expression of community living and so I really also am interested in community and urban policy. And so what is the well-being of city dwellers? It’s also been kind of front of mind, but I think that foundation and that passion was born out of my experience as being.

Eve: [00:29:14] It sounds like you’re living your dream.

Tracy: [00:29:16] Yes, it is. It is a dream role.

Eve: [00:29:20] Yes. So where did you work before taking on this particular project?

Tracy: [00:29:25] It’s funny that I feel like taking on growth and change or being able to talk about and have conversations and convene around managing change, around, you know, discussing what is a best community outcome for an area that has been part of, I think, a through line in my career because I realize that if we’re going to have a sustainable future, growth is not optional in certain places, that is if you have a great infrastructure then we need to build around it. So many of the places in my career have been in a state of growth or re-envisioning. And so, before this role, I was focused on neighbourhood planning for all of Washington D.C. So, a community based planning role, really trying to think at the start of what equity driven planning might be and design-forward planning. So was talking to, you know, doing all the work throughout the neighborhoods and in D.C., it was a time of, I think, demographic shifts and lots of development. And so, I think that community conversation and upping the bar for engagement and just doing more to outreach to people and have a conversation was a big part of my role in development. And prior to that, I worked at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. And again, I think that was kind of an era of take it or leave it. A lot of mega-project thinking, but some of those around big ideas for affordable housing. So, I worked on the Queens portfolio, a central business district projects and on projects like Hunter’s Point South, which again, a combination of affordable housing and parks. And how do you create growth in existing neighborhoods.

Eve: [00:31:29] I just want to ask one final question. A project like this makes me wonder or a goal like this makes me wonder what went wrong in the first place. You know, and it makes me wonder, you know, what’s being built today that we’ll have to fix in 20 or 30 years? And I’m sure you’ve thought about that. I think about that a lot when I see projects emerge in the urban landscape. Some are pretty horrifying. I mean, how can we ensure, or can we ensure that the places we build today will work for many years to come?

Tracy: [00:32:04] Yeah, I think it’s a great question. How do you future proof? And I don’t, I mean, and how can you identify your blind spots in the moment? I often ask that question to my myself. And I even think that right now, urban planning lacks a paradigm to to work through some of this because I think the mantra of community engagement has always been the central component of that. And the idea of revitalization. But right now, we’re in an era where we need to know what that next thing is. It’s really about equity and planning, about inclusion, about growth, about really attacking, systemically the affordable housing crisis. I think that planning is lacking that toolbox to really tackle that. So, I think we know some of the places where we have blind spots like, as you mentioned the affordability that we’re achieving, it’s a drop in the bucket for what the overarching need is. Having a focus that’s predominantly on rental doesn’t have the diversity of options that you would want. And then of course, I think we’re already living this now, is like thinking about street level activity is so important. But you can’t have ground level activity everywhere because it kind of erodes the ability to be able to attract it and not every place can sustain it. So, making sure that when we think about how important that is to us that we’re actually more targeted about where that goes and it doesn’t have to be everywhere. I think there’s a growing understanding of that. But I think there will always be misses and then we’ll have vacant storefronts and trouble. And of course, future proofing the future of office is something I think we’re all trying to muddle through and discern what the changes and workforce and kind of what is the permanency of COVID-related shifts in behavior and what will that mean for the future of office going forward?

Eve: [00:34:20] I really appreciate what you’re doing, and I especially appreciate it because I worked for a planning department for a while, and I think you are probably an extrovert, which is why you’re able to drag this place from introvert to extrovert. I’m an introvert, and I found it very difficult managing community engagement. I mean, you haven’t talked about that much, but that is a really tough part of the job because people are so scared of change. You’re in the role of having to convince them, right?

Tracy: [00:34:47] Yeah. You know, I think that one of the things that is a little bit different here and there’s an incredible appetite for community engagement and conversation. We might have meetings like nearly every night, even virtually in this virtual context.

Eve: [00:35:02] Oh, wow.

Tracy: [00:35:03] Right. I think that the thing that is very heartening is just how much alignment there is in terms of what people want as goals and outcomes and where that aligns between the community and the business community and then the county’s planners. There’s so much alignment about what is good for residents and community is actually good for business. So, retail parks, great transportation, walkability, vibrancy, these are all things that, affordability. We want to live in richly textured places and those are actually the places that perform well. So, I feel like the alignment that exists between having the same goals of what, some of what success means, it’s so critical.

Eve: [00:35:56] So it makes your job a little bit easier. Well, thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and the next time I’m down in D.C., I’m going to be heading over to Crystal City and all the other places and checking it out. It sounds amazing.

Tracy: [00:36:10] Well, we’d love to have you. So, thanks so much.

Eve: [00:36:13] Thank you. That was Tracy Gabriel. Tracy loves cities. She’s had a remarkable career as an urbanist, planner and place maker, committed to addressing complex urban challenges and building great neighborhoods. Now she’s turning her passion towards the remaking of Virginia’s largest downtown. We can’t wait to see the final outcome.

Eve: [00:36:53] 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 Tracy Gabriel, National Landing