Last Thursday - Friday was the 3rd annual New West: Real Estate Development in the North West. The event featured a Thursday schedule that was based around a lot of political issues, land-use, and marketing trends. Friday was a lot more economic talk, there was some discussion with developers, and discussion about stream-side set backs.
Here's my quick thoughts from the 2-day event, also I've posted New West's official release below.
On Thursday:
- The first few sessions were broken apart into three different topics, in the morning "track" I went with marketing innovations, in the afternoon "track" I went with land-use laws. Both were decent, not entirely ground-breaking. The marketing discussion lacked a lot of new ideas, mainly just a bunch of marketing firms telling the class that they should spend a bunch more in the paper and add in other marketing schemes that worked well in the 90's. Not much talk about using Facebook or Twitter to market/promote, or using innovative new sites. The land use thing was basically a refresher on how playing nice when doing a development helps.
- The last session was pretty interesting, a politicial discussion with a NY Times Op-Ed writer, a reporter out of Helena, a reporter from Idaho and a reporter from Wyoming. The discussion centered more around local/state elections rather than the national election, here's a few quick points I gathered:
- Bryan Schweitzer has become a ground-breaking democrat, mainly b/c he's bridged issues with some conservative voters around gun rights. Also his more centrist appeal has helped economic trends in Montana and made him very popular. There was some debate as to if he'll be asked to be Energy Secretary or possibly head up the Department of the Interior. The NY Times guy thought Bryan would take either appointment, the Helena reporter disagreed.
- The discussion about Schweitzer carried over to a lot of democrats in the NW Rockies area bridging the gap with a lot of conservative voters. The possibilities and implications that might have, etc. Mainly Wyoming and Idaho are seeing some ground-breaking movements and shifts away from the republican base.
- Some national election talk; most of the panel agreed that if Hillary was on the democrat ticket that states like Montana and North Dakota wouldn't be "toss-up" states right now, due to the dubbed, "Clinton War on the West" from the 90s. Most of the national election discussion wasn't a, "who will win," discussion, but a, "How much Obama will win by," discussion. During the open-mic portion a guy in the audience asked when the "gutless" media was going to talk about real issues, kinda funny.
Friday morning had the most amount of info, it featured an economist that's been here all three years. What's funny was that he sounded pretty negative to a lot of people that were hearing him for the 1st time, however in 3 years of hearing this guy it's the most positive report I've heard him say. The new west article I'm linking to here talks mostly about that, so I wont really hammer out the entire discussion. The main points are this, expect another 12-18 months of this continued trend, afterwards don't expect a rapid bounce-back but rather a steady and progressive climb. Also in reference to Montana, we're a bit over-priced (although his numbers were off) and that we'll have a more shallow dip, and we'll bounce back at the same rate the national market does.
The next few sessions were discussions about land ownership, development, Plumb Creek, sustainable development, and master transportation plans, some quick observations from those:
- The moderator for the development session was trying to be very controversial, lashed out against Realtors - saying that he hears "all the time" that Realtors are saying the market is great so we can trick people into buying now. The panel disagreed (3 developers). I think our local organization does a great job of presenting just the facts, and doesn't spin info. Sure you can get conflicting reports, however I think the moderator's statement was off-base. Also add in that our organization was a major sponsor of this event it was somewhat upsetting to see such a one-sided question at an event that we support. Don't get me wrong, dissenting opinion is good, but just bashing on an entire industry - especially one that's sponsoring your event, seems a little mis-guided.
- The sustainable developer was from Red Mountain Ski Hill in Canada, north of Spokane, WA. Interesting stuff, looks like a funky little town and a neat ski hill.
- The master transportation people I got a laugh out of, one guy (who was probably in his late 40's / early 50's) was apparently the authority on my generation (under 30 years old) saying we all "hate" our cars. I understand the point he was trying to make, but in Montana owning a car is almost a must, this isn't downtown Portland we're talking about. Also I think it was the same guy said that we need the "private sector" to build more roads, and that we need to this and other things to promote affordable housing. However private sector = developers, and if the developers have to put more roads and wider roads in constantly then they'll be paying more impact fees and development costs, guess where they get those expenses back? In the houses they build. I think there's a serious dis-connect between city government and how they think they're promoting affordable housing.
The final session was on stream-side setbacks. It was supposed to be a big fight, but it mainly just featured an upset land owner that looked a lot like David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash who was rightfully upset that his lake-front land would be rendered un-use-able with a 250 foot setback (not allowing construction within 250 feet of water). He called some people communists (I love it when the c-word is thrown out there!). There was discussion that maybe a case-by-case basis should be taken, or a variance option. The Davis Crosby dude brought up that there's no language about compensation if his land is "taken" from him, a valid point - if you have 1 acre that suddenly isn't use-able at all b/c it's too close to a lake or live water, shouldn't you be compensated for that? Some interesting discussion, but not the heated debate it was expected to be.
Uh... think that's it! A long post to start the week, I'd better get to work! Also here's that newwest link - http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/housing_slump_wont_recover_until_late_2009_or_2010_economists
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