I didn't get into this business to be a social worker," a developer complained to me recently. After 30 years of helping builders bring projects to completion, I'm hearing more and more of them complain that public officials aren't satisfied anymore when private developers bring projects in on time and budget. Increasingly, the public sector expects private developments to include recreation facilities, affordable housing and such.
Real estate developers have always had their share of problems. I've helped many of them solve the challenges of unseasonable weather, unscheduled union demands, fluctuating financing, last-minute client revisions, uncertain entitlements, inexplicable zoning, conflicting neighborhood issues, unreasonable deadlines and off-the-wall environmental restrictions. In Los Angeles County, as a former city manager of Bell Gardens and a community planning director for Burbank, and for the last 16 years as CEO of Kosmont Cos., I've helped more than 500 agencies and developers cope with such problems. Lately, I've seen an increasingly difficult, even unfriendly political climate and ever-more demanding community expectations, particularly in California but also nationwide.