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(1/10) We had a vigorous, challenging, provocative, and wide-ranging conversation about the future of real estate with @RepDanKildee, @SmartGrowthCEO, @majoracarter, and @Scott_SmithAZ today. You can watch the recording here. And here's some footnotes. https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-great-real-estate-reset-rethinking-how-and-what-we-build/
(2/10) @RepDanKildee reminded us of the centrality of land control in real estate, before our conversation turned to access to capital.
Land trusts are not unicorns any more, but we need to think even bigger about scaling and spreading them. More: https://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/clts/index.html
Land trusts are not unicorns any more, but we need to think even bigger about scaling and spreading them. More: https://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/clts/index.html
(3/10) @Scott_SmithAZ reminded us that the real estate industry isnt a monolith. Builders have diverse motivations, & you cant herd cats to do what the market doesn't want. He pointed to Mesa's form-based code as a way to get quality + extend flexibility. https://formbasedcodes.org/
(4/10) @SmartGrowthCEO & @RepDanKildee both drew a line between systemic failures in real estate and problematic subsidies. We currently subsidize interests + transactions, which results in a game of growth musical chairs, instead of subsidizing our values + community benefits.
(5/10) One example of how to change this: @RepDanKildee is a co-sponsor of the REHAB Act, legislation to create a federal tax credit to support redeveloping old (but non-historic) buildings near public transportation. https://smartgrowthamerica.org/introducing-the-rehab-act/
(6/10) We talked about this quote. @majoracarter spoke eloquently about how neighborhood integration isn't a magic solution for inequality. We need to put out the fire first. Part of that is integrating the real estate industry. No shortcuts. https://twitter.com/drlungamam/status/1361463381769732096
(7/10) We talked about the need to change the rules of who benefits from change. @majoracarter highlighted the model of #JumpstartGermantown. This brought the conversation full circle back to @RepDanKildee's original point about local land ownership. https://www.jumpstartgermantown.com/
(8/10) But @SmartGrowthCEO challenged us to think about how to change the system so that we go from "model" to mode. This needs a lot of hands on deck, but @jvey1, @Elwood_Hopkins, and I have done some brainstorming about federal and state roles. https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-new-place-based-federal-initiative-for-empowering-local-real-estate-ownership/
(9/10) We talked about climate change, and how the industry paradigm of evaluating projects in a vacuum, relying solely on the land's market price to capture the nuance of location, is broken. Past policy attempts to fix this have floundered. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511481003788786?journalCode=rhpd20
(10/10) So there's a lot of work to do for a #RealEstateReset. Our panelists were unanimous in thinking that the window for it is wider now than it was 20 years ago. Let's open the window AND the doors.
