Incremental Development:A Movement

So, welcome to On the Park Bench, a Public Square conversation brought to you by the Congress for the New Urbanism. On the Park Bench, it presents interactive conversations with thought leaders in uh New Urbanism and allied industries, providing an opportunity for the audience to engage in real time. Today, we're going to have a discussion on incremental development and movement, and uh specifically how to cultivate new talent in the development ecosystem uh to create a diverse and inclusive coalition of developers, and all kinds of topics uh related to that. And we have Ryan Terry, Matthew Petty, and Joel Dixon, um and interviewer Sherry Early, all with or associated with the Incremental Development Alliance. Getting some delay. So, share your thoughts on hashtag on the park bench www.tinyurl.com/otpbfeedback. And I wanted to talk briefly about CNU 30 in Oklahoma City, uh which is taking place um March 23rd through 26th. That's Wednesday through Saturday of next week. Um there's going to be some pre-events on Tuesday as well, and it's going to be CNU's first in-person Congress since 2019. Uh this is an opportunity to see your colleagues, to see uh some of the top urbanists from around the country who will be there, and check out Oklahoma City. They've done some fantastic things uh uh to their downtown and neighborhoods to help bring them back. Learn more: cnu.org/cnu30. Um I will mention though that we're close to 900 attendees at this point, which is um uh we're really happy about uh considering where the country was 2 months ago and it's going to be it's going to be a good good event. But first, perhaps join or renew your membership, become a current member and save $200 off your CNU 30 registration. Check your membership status today members.cnu.org/memberships. And joining us today are again Joel Dixon who's co-principal of Urban Oasis Development, a residential and commercial real estate company focused on development in South and Westside Atlanta, Georgia, where he oversees community development, business development, and investor relations. Born and raised in the Westside neighborhood, Joel has dedicated his career to enriching the very area very areas where he grew up. And Matthew Petty is an Arkansas-based city planner and real estate developer who has been elected three times to the Fayetteville City Council. Matthew holds an undergraduate degrees in mathematics and political science from the University of Arkansas and he is an alumni of one of the Alliance's earliest trainings and has been part of the Ink Dev staff faculty faculty rather since 2017. And Ryan Terry is a real estate developer, urban designer, speaker, and consultant practicing in Central Texas. His practice aims for the recovery of flourishing communities through the renewal of neighborhoods and public spaces. As the founder and managing partner of RNT Studio, a development and consulting firm specializing in urban infill and revitalization, he oversees projects throughout the region. And Sherry Early is executive director of Ink Dev. Sherry has more than 20 years of experience in the field of community and economic development. And prior to joining Ink Dev in 2021, Sherry was the housing programs administrator for the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana. And she has extensive experience in some major organizations in Fort the Fort Wayne area including the Community Foundation, YMCA, the Art Museum, and on the board of the Federal Home Loan Loan Bank. And and generally has been involved in the non-profit community development arena. I should mention that the Incremental Development Alliance Ink Dev has long ties to the New Urbanism. Its founders were new urbanists and it was built up by many people with ongoing ties to CNU. It's all about the power of small developers who are also urbanists. I'm Rob Steuteville, editor of CNU Public Square. And first there's going to be a presentation from the panel followed by a discussion with Sherry and then Q&A from the audience. And so please use the Q&A function of Zoom to ask your questions as they occur to you. And now I'm going to pass this along to the panel. Okay, sorry about that. I had to get volume everything coordinated. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Sherry Early and I am the Incremental Development Alliance executive director. I am new to Incremental Development Alliance. I started in September of 2021. Extremely excited to be here and honored that CNU has invited not only myself, but my colleagues here and faculty members to present and talk a bit to you about incremental development and how it has been and continues to be an improvement in many of the communities that we assist. Hey Sherry, could you speak up just a little bit? Sure. Is that better? Yeah. Hold on. Let's see if I can turn that up. Is that even better? Maybe not. Can you hear me, Rob? Yes, I think that's good. Thanks. Uh-huh. All right, thank you. Um the photo here is just of the four of us and we've already been introduced, so I won't spend time on that. Um one of the key goals of Incremental Development Alliance, if you aren't familiar with us, is to cultivate a thousand small developers and cities that support them. A bit about the training that we do is here. Although, we're not here to talk about that at all. I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to remind you that we um train, coach, and connect and would love for you to reach out to us if you know of I'm sorry. Ah. This is so detrimental detrimental. I apologize. There we Ah. I don't know what's happening, but let me see if I can Ah. I think Ah. I don't know why it's going so fast. I apologize. All right, today's topic is um just to talk about how we cultivate community groups and city officials to continue the work after we leave and then also providing an introduction to um incremental developments new city boot camp. Joel, I think you're first up. Unless I'm wrong. Absolutely. Um thank you so much uh Sherry, Rob. Um uh I'm Joel Dickson uh principal as was mentioned with Urban Oasis Development. Uh I am based in Atlanta, Georgia, which is home sweet home. Uh it's exactly where I was raised. Uh in addition to my work with Urban Oasis, I'm also uh heavily involved in work around creative development with Urban Land Institute and also of course the faculty with Inc. Dev. Um a large part of my mission and and and really my why is that in the neighborhoods I grew up in in South and Westside Atlanta, they were among those busted, disgusted, neglected uh areas um that were disinvested in in urban areas uh throughout America. Um I wanted to see change uh in early 2000s, um an opportunity um or mid-2010s, uh an opportunity presented itself to be a part of that equation as opposed to always uh looking and pointing the fingers at others. And so as a result of that, um we really became more intentional about how to in an incremental fashion uh be a part of those solutions. Um The uh and I don't know if this slide is Hold on. Sorry. Okay, so here we go. I if we just talk a bit about the questions and Joel that'll help guide the comments possibly that you're going to say is um in the training that you receive but also the work that you do, can you discuss how incremental development training builds community groups um of small-scale developers? How do you actually create a group that can continue once we leave? Yeah, absolutely. Um so um for for that for me, um because I was a part of that. So, I'm I'm built through small developers who trained um I was a part of an incremental development boot camp and workshop. Um a lot of it um comes from actual experience, uh which is one an opportunity to have access to the information, but then more importantly to have a community and a tribe as everybody says now, uh that is supporting those efforts. I know specifically in Atlanta, um we also had an opportunity and idea to be a part of a uh a 6-month cohort of small developers in the English Avenue Vine City neighborhood, um of which there was a lot of intentionality by the city of Atlanta and Invest Atlanta, our economic development agency. And so, as a result of putting together both the platform for the training and exposure, but also connecting us to one another, um it definitely helps to really build um that committed small developer network. Um I'd say that linking up with others among the uh uh small developer community nationwide um happens through platforms like this one, uh CNU, um as well as within incremental development alliance, um occasions for us to do ongoing training. And then the final thing that I'll say is just getting work done. Um the most important thing to to developing a cohort um is having projects that happen, that manifest, um because everybody can then wrap around that. Awesome. Ryan, can you speak to that question as well? I can't hear you. Can other people hear him? Sorry. Sorry. Okay, there. That's Uh I think cohort development is always a tricky question, whether Inc. Dev is leading the show or whether a city's trying to do it on its own. And one of the reasons why it's tricky is that, as Joel alluded to, uh you have to have the groundwork laid for people to actually be able to accomplish projects, right? And so I think where cohorts are most successful and where Ink Dev has been most successful is when we have sort of a committed core of individuals in that cohort who already have projects teed up. Because what we see is that once they do a project, and it doesn't have to be huge, right? That doesn't mean they have they have to build a five-story apartment building or mixed-use building, right? It can be simply two or three people who fixed up a couple of duplexes or something like that, or built an Airbnb unit behind their house. Uh, even that really small stuff allows the rest of the cohort to see success and to get involved in the process. So, uh, I think that's something that's very important. And I think the second part is uh, helping people find where they fit in what we call the flywheel. So, the flywheel is essentially the life cycle process of a development. And there are various different day jobs that align with different pieces of that life cycle. So, you might be a realtor or a real estate broker, you might be a general contractor or tradesman, right? You might be a banker or a lender, you might work with CDFI, you might be a city planner. All of those day jobs are aligned with a really key specific part of the process. And when people figure out a way that they can plug into that piece, they then bring that expertise to bear, and then we see that flywheel take off, meaning they see exponential returns based on their efforts because they're plugged into a system. And I think that's that's one of the other key pieces. Thank you. And Matthew, could you please also chime in? Sarah, would you mind repeating your prompt for me? I think I lost a little bit of the run of show. I was listening to the answers. No, that's okay. It's how does incremental development training build a committed group of small-scale developers? Okay, so um I I think what's what's maybe a little bit interesting about this is kind of where where things started with Int Dev and kind of what are what our assumptions were and and maybe some of the things we learned we learned along the way and you know, this really is is still the main the main thing that we're trying to do and um it it's create these these cohorts of people that can support one another and can help one another with you know, sometimes boring things like continuing education, but also um just all the kinds of uh wrap-around services that go with a supporting network that can really help people sustain sustain a project and um you know, we we still offer and we we still do the the real core training that is directly about helping developers establish new skill sets and and new capacities and and new networks and that is still critical, but I think one of the things that we learned along the way that we kind of guessed at and and did some prototyping with was that the the network that's really required to sustain that effort is a lot is a lot bigger than just the people who are doing the development and and um you know, maybe to to belabor this point a little bit uh because I know everybody has has said that already, um but we we really can't understate how critical it is that that there isn't just a champion or something like or or or or someone who is enthusiastic at City Hall, but there's actually uh a group a or even a work group that it that is focused on this and is taking actions quickly and is willing to take calls from people from the developer cohort. For instance, a a lot of cities we can just say it aren't even really willing to spend much time with somebody who's only building a duplex. You know, so there there there are a lot of um maybe softer or or more uh uh or or more invisible more uh uh barriers to to really doing this work um that we've realized that that we've got to be be very diligent about and we we've got to help cities understand they also have to be very diligent about if if they're going to have any kind of a durable cohort. Awesome, Matthew. I think you touched on two or three of our other questions here which we'll we'll come back to uh when we get there. But the second question I have for all of you is sometimes people will attend trainings, are enthusiastic, but the projects don't get started. Um why do cohorts fail and have slow starts? And I think each of you have kind of touched on the importance and what actually makes a good cohort, but um Matthew just simply said lack of city support, I think was very clear on why some of them don't um continue and thrive. What would be some other reasons um that would actually slow and or deter those groups from continuing? Joel? Yeah, absolutely. Um so I will say and and speaking once again from experience um that lack of additional technical assistance post training, um even though you're providing the insights and the understanding and even maybe some of the initial resources like pro formas and and things like that guidance, there's that once you start trying to produce a real actionable uh project as Ryan said have a piece of land or building, there's still those next steps of the architectural plans and XYZ. And I think often times there's just a disconnect with being able to facilitate connecting to that next step or that next set of uh uh tangible resources um technical assistance that's that's usually necessary uh to keep the momentum of the project that you're getting that you're receiving from the training. Awesome. Thank you, Ryan. I think there are a couple of reasons and every city that we go to, um, you know, the context changes and, you know, I've been lucky enough to travel with Ink Dev enough to where I've sort of seen different reasons why things don't get off the ground. I think we've touched on it here. One is places can be, uh, have regulatory contamination, right? The rules at city hall and the zoning code or the building code just don't allow good stuff to get built and the city doesn't do anything to change that. So, it doesn't matter what people want to do, they're not allowed to do it. So, that's one reason why stuff doesn't get done. Um, another reason why stuff doesn't get done a lot of times is, uh, a general lack of appropriate funding mechanisms, right? Uh, depending on some places we go to, uh, those communities may not have a lot of access to equity capital and they may not have access to traditional lenders. Now, that's not every city, but it's certainly a major factor in some places. And then I think one of probably the third main reason why it doesn't happen is and I think Joel alluded to it is, um, you know, sometimes you go into a city and the people who come to our training are somehow tangentially involved in the real estate industry, right? They're realtors, they're builders, they're architects. And a lot and those people have a natural leg up because they have all this professional expertise and training to where they know how a certain piece of the puzzle works, right? An architect knows how to build a building and design a building. A realtor knows how to do a real estate transaction. Um, sometimes we go to places where most of the attendees are not involved in the real estate industry at all. Uh and what we see there and I think this is what Joel was alluding to is they don't know how to do the basic stuff like, "Okay, I get it. This is a pro forma. I can do seventh grade math on the computer. You know, I understand what you've taught me, but I literally do not know how to go call an architect and enter a contract for services. Or I don't understand how to deal with a contractor. Or I've never talked to a bank and, you know, the the 45 minutes that you spent talking about it in the workshop, I still am not comfortable enough to go do that. Um and so sometimes I think uh depending on where you go, if that is the case, uh it requires a lot more um for lack of a better term, a more incremental model to bring people along to get their skills up to par to where they can go accomplish that. Right? And for them to feel comfortable with it. Right. Awesome. Thanks. Matthew? Yeah, I I I really like um where where this this answer is going on this question. Um I I've got a a personal story of how I got started with uh you know, I've only done one development. Um I really only did it so I could understand it and prove conventional developers wrong um when I would try to talk to them about how to do things in a more in in a do more urban projects. Um well, I'll probably do a few a few more developments, but I remember I I worked so long trying to understand how I should do the first one. And um I mean, I love spreadsheets. Maybe this is just my personality, but I just spent way too much time. And yeah, sure I made phone calls and I was trying to find people who would advise me about this or that or the other thing, you know, as a as a total rookie who just wanted to do a good a good project who who kind of sort of understood how to read a zoning code. And um I was real fortunate, you know, this is right before InDev was uh kind of made official, and John Anderson agreed to mentor me a little bit about it. And finally, he said to me, he said, "Well, you got you got to leave the weight room sometime. Otherwise, you're just going to be working out forever." And I'm not really a sports guy, but I got the metaphor and I decided I needed to really do a project and stop talking about it. And that's that kind of a decision isn't something that you can really teach. And um you know, we've tried to figure out how to teach it, but it's just not something that that you can actually teach. We can get really good at equipping people with with the skills, but that that kind of internal uh flip in in motivation, you know, that that actual decision or that um that that assertion that you're actually going to to do a project is is something that I think for a lot of people is is really hard to achieve or even know how to how to do for themselves. You know, this is a this is a human psychology thing. And so, with I think the most important thing is to have an actual supportive and encouraging network. And um you know, in some ways may maybe some of us need to own up that we're more critical than maybe we need to be about most people's ideas and most peop- most people's development concepts and so on and so forth and instead of being a constructive um and and that's really what people need. And I maybe this is my habit to kind of jump around on these questions, but you know, this last question I want to allude to now, we'll talk more about later, but um peo- people need cons- constructive help in a in all of these cities or they just won't make the decision to to get started. And and whether or not you're you're formally affiliated with InDev uh as a faculty member or as a staff member or you're an alumni, you've attended something, or or you just kind of watched um the the network and and the work involved and and seen a couple of the outcomes. Put all that aside and if you've ever got somebody that comes to you and says, "You know what? I've got this project idea." Whether or not that idea is perfect or just right, that person really needs to be supported. They and they they really need to to have um friends and co- and colleagues who are willing to tell them, "You know what? I'm I'm going to help you and I'm going to be a resource for you." Otherwise, they're never actually going to make the decision to to do something. Yeah, can I chime in real quick? Cuz Please, go right ahead. Matthew, I absolutely agree with that. Um especially within CNU. You know, I've been involved with CNU as long as I've been involved with Strong Towns. Uh it's kind of how I found met John Anderson and got involved with Strong Towns. And I will say that among CNU, we have a tendency to fetishize things, right? And we are we tend to be very critical of people who aren't doing the done thing right now. You know, a couple years ago it was sustainability. Well, now it's equity, right? Or it's you don't have enough street trees, or how dare you provide that much parking, or this isn't near transit, or how are you activating the street? You know, people need to get over that Right? Because the bottom line is most of the buildings built in America are not a perfect charter award-winning project. And that's okay. What these people need is to be encouraged and to be provided the resources and knowledge to do the best that they can with the resources they have. Right? And if that's just fixing up a run-down commercial storefront, or if that is uh fixing up a house and putting an ADU in the garage, right? And even if they're in, you know, what most neighborhoods that a lot of people at CNU wouldn't be caught dead walking through, that's okay. Cuz guess what? That's where most of our Americans live. That's America. That is what most of our country is like. And so, Matthew's absolutely right. We have to be supportive. You know, I was um before I was a consultant, a developer, I was in the Marine Corps. And I I was fortunate enough to do a lot of things in the Marine Corps that I have later in life found out that younger people want to do those same things. And occasionally, I'll get questions from guys who say, "How do I do this?" Or "What do I do that?" And it's similar to developers, you know, getting all neurotic about their first project. Um and the truth is uh you can be as prepared as you want to be, but at the end of the day, it's just about making the decision to go do it. And so, my advice to developers is the same advice I give to folks who asked me about, you know, doing stuff in the military. It's just decide if it's what you want to do, and then go get after it. Right? Because without that decision, and without the decision being made in a fashion that uh there's no turning back from it, projects don't happen. Especially that first project. And Matthew and Joel can both tell you, you know, we'll all tell you, the first project is absolutely the hardest. Awesome. Thank you for that. And as we've talked about how to bring individuals together and some of the ways that we can support them, how do we get cities on board? Can you talk a bit about how do we get cities to value incremental development? And what does that take? Does that take um the individuals here that um are listening today, CNU members? Um what does it take to get them involved? Joe? Yeah, I mean, I think like most things in life, one is, um, you know, being informed. Um, once again, I'll just pick city of Atlanta, Atlanta where I'm at. Um, a lot of people don't know how like like we just lost what it is to even build neighborhoods, you know, and develop. Like seriously, like Incremental Development Alliance and for those I maybe didn't say this fully, I didn't come from a real estate background. I never even went back to school for real estate. My background was in technology. Everything I know I learned by to Ryan's last set of points, um, deciding what it was I was trying to accomplish and what I wanted to achieve and just doing it and learning along the way to be honest. Um, but as I was learning about things and starting to have context around things that I just had ideas about, I realized all of this stuff has already been happening before. Like there's nothing new under the sun. Like so, Incremental Development Alliance is the very cities that Atlanta like in the neighborhoods that I'm in, they were built in an incremental way. They have incremental development already. It's just that, you know, 100 years later we forgot how to even do it cuz it hasn't been being done recently. And so, in my city it's been one, just re-exposing folks to all these neighborhoods that we call great and we want to preserve how they got built in the first place and how they now get rebuilt or reimagined. Um, so that's number one. Number two is a from a city perspective a intentionality and an a commitment, right? At the end of the day, a lot of stuff just doesn't happen just cuz people don't really feel like it's important. Um, and so once cities decide that this is important and they recognize that there is no other way then things start changing, right? And in Atlanta, we've done a lot of big stuff. Like we run across neighborhoods, we destroyed neighborhoods, we built neighborhoods and and that stuff is failing, right? And now when you start adding, as Ryan mentioned, other new things like sustainability, resiliency, inclusion, equity, like literally absolutely none of those are the things that has been being done with the previous way. And so there is, I think now, a certain amount of interest in, okay, maybe we need to consider a new way. So that's number two. And then number three, you have to have leadership. You know, and and our and and city of Atlanta, the mayor runs everything. Like so you get the mayor and a mayor that's willing to be a true leader who says, okay, we see the methods that can work, we're going to help ensure that that happens, then that will inform all of the other pieces of the puzzle that we talked about being challenges like zoning and the opportunity even do the stuff that could be done. Number two, access to resources, i.e. capital. Some of this has to come from private arenas, but in Atlanta, there's a lot of municipal money, public money that could be a part of helping launch that first incremental project, by that first small developer, of whatever sort, to Ryan's point. And so I feel like those are the things that like, you know, have to come together. Why cities don't see the value in it, I think it's just like it's just blind spots. It's just not an understanding and a recognition that first of all, it exists, and so you just have to kind of get over that hump. I will say that we all know and think of government as there is this thing called bureaucracy, and so I would be remiss if I didn't say, even after you have all of that, we I mean, you have to change. Like government has to change. It has to become, we talked about resiliency and flexibility, and government is not that. Like literally, so they have to become more resilient, more flexible, and that's what COVID taught us is that those institutions that are able to navigate change quickly and turn and adjust when government showed clearly that it doesn't or it showed the pain points. And so, that will I think a lot towards like the incremental development approach. So, so yeah, if you don't know, I'm very passionate about this and I'm working every day to get my city aligned in every imaginable way. Before you go, Joel, the photo that I have up here looks like there is quite a few incremental development alliance faculty. But then, can you just share who's all part of this? This is the cohort that happened in Atlanta, correct? Yes, that's correct. So, I was a part of this cohort. It was one So, a number of folks, several other folks, including the woman to the far left, my left, I guess, in the photo, is a member of was a member of Invest Atlanta, which is the economic development arm of the city of Atlanta. And so, they were the ones who provided the funding for a program that was called Community Builders, which was a 6-month cohort of which incremental development alliance team members, who are, you know, spread out, sprinkled throughout this picture, provided training over the course of multiple months. And then, the majority of the folks on this image are the actual small developers or cohort members within the English Avenue and Vine City community and neighborhood. So, in this case, that was the collaborative mix that helped to achieve at least an introduction to what incremental development is, to how it can be applied specifically in these cohort neighborhoods, and then some of the funding related to it. I will say that there was a lot of learning that came out of this. And so, I'm working right now as both a developer and community advocate, but also as an incremental development faculty, on a new cohort that is not necessarily going to be exactly funded by Invest Atlanta, but will take away will pull from a lot of the lessons learned and create a new set of cohort in a different neighborhood within Atlanta. So, they're excited to see that next iteration and you know, kind of learn from the things that you know, might have been missed the first time. Awesome. I We do have questions coming in. Um as I queue those up, if you would go next Ryan and address that same kind of question. Um I'd be I'd appreciate it. Sure. So, um you know, I I think when we see cities that say, "Yeah, I don't really see the value in this incremental development stuff or I'm not really interested." Um you know, I think we need to go back and understand what the incentives are for both the political leaders and the bureaucrats that work in these cities. Um I think oftentimes you're seeing a combination of a little bit of laziness and a little bit of a lack of imagination. Um because they Remember what the easy button is for for a politician and city council or a strong mayor in a big city, right? The easy button is punch that easy button, do a big money project with big financing that gives me a splash, that gives me some headlines. Uh and I don't have to think too hard about the details. I don't have to worry too much about the nitty-gritty and my timeline isn't drawn out over a period of time that outlasts my longevity in office, right? So, that's an issue and that's never going away, right? That is never going away. Those incentives are going to be there as far as the foreseeable future can be foreseen, right? Um but I think um to turn that on its head, the places that see value in incremental development, uh I think are usually the places that have figured out that uh they don't have the option to punch the easy button and do the big money project, right? So, um you know, and that works on a macro scale and a micro scale. So, what do I mean by that? I mean that uh while the city, for example, the city of Atlanta at large, maybe you never get an entire city-wide thing because Atlanta is huge, or like the city of Houston, right? One of the largest geographic areas for a municipality in the country. Maybe you never get a city-wide thing. But, there are definitely neighborhoods in Atlanta and places like Houston that absolutely recognize the value in incremental development because they understand that maybe they're not getting that big piece of the pie that the other neighborhoods and communities are getting, right? And they understand that they can use incremental development as a way to bootstrap their way to where they want to be. Uh and I and I think that's important and that works on So, that's the micro scale. And then that applies to cities, right? We go to all sorts of mid-size cities and towns across the country who, you know, incremental development is their way because guess what? None of the big developers want to come and do something in their town. Amazon They are not in the running for Amazon's HQ 2.0, right? It's not going to happen. So, you know, I I think um you know, sometimes I think it is it is most helpful to know where the market opportunity is. And we talk about that in our workshops a lot, right? The market opportunity is where, you know, bootstrapped and incremental meet, right? So, it's you can't do incremental projects with big money. They don't They're looking for a totally different thing. So, you need to be thinking about that market opportunity. And I think there thousands of communities in America where that market opportunity is ripe and where people are really receptive. And the other places, they'll come along or they won't. But, at the end of the day, I think I'm not going to bang my head against the wall trying to make uh the state of California or New York City buy buy into incremental development or do things differently than the way they want to do them. I think we we go after the opportunities where uh the people see the value. Excellent. Thank you. And we're time went extremely fast. So, before we go directly to questions, if I could just spend the next 5 minutes asking Matthew to talk a bit about the um city boot camp that Incremental Development Alliance has developed and how and what that consists of. I'd greatly appreciate it, Rob. Sure. Yeah, and you know, this goes to um at least one maybe maybe a couple of uh the points that might answer some of the questions that have come through on on the chat. Um you know, especially about how to how to organize a cohort um or or or how to sustain these things. And And there are some other points to make about this. But, with res- with respect to cities specifically, um we did some early work to try and equip cities with the answers to to to some of these questions or or that the motivation or a work or a work plan. Um and those were really successful for us. We worked in Kalamazoo. These images on the screen are from uh South South Bend. We did similar things in in Atlanta and in Overland Park and in in the early days uh Chattanooga as well. And in each in each one of those instances, the close contact with the cities really helped us convert not just the existing champions and the people who could get stuff done, but but to create cross-departmental work groups that that actually knew what to do. And And more than that, they knew why. They knew why to do it. And um So, this was the early work, but now if you want to go to the next slide, Sherry, what we've done is is we're combining this and um if if you're wondering where to start and you're on the city's side, well, first off, the answer is you have to start with developer recruitment. And that means identifying people who would be developers, not people who already are developers. So, so, so that's something that's a little different. And to support their work and alongside that capacity training, cities need to do something like like what we're pulling together in this boot camp. This has always been about making sure that cities can take really fast and decisive actions. And so, over the course of a couple weeks, this mirrors the programs that we do for training developers and helping developers get get their projects off the ground. And so, there's a bit of a feedback loop between these things. And And what we do is over the course of a couple weeks is we convene a cross-departmental team. We teach them a little bit about the why of what they're doing and why it's important to set up a system that can accommodate things like duplexes and fourplexes and and other middle-scale development, but also the the the compact, very small-scale single single-family development as well. And at the end of this, what what they get is they get some kind of a cursory cursory review of the things that they need to change right away if they're going to support that work. And the idea here is that we're not saddling uh city planning department with the burden of doing an omnibus a a a a rewrite of their codes. And we're we're not tasking them with creating a whole new program division or or anything like that. This is meant to be very quick and it's it's meant to be oriented around how the city can interface even better with developer cohorts that they're recruiting and and and and and building in in their own community. And uh the idea here is there should be a parallel cohort of people at the city that can steward that kind of change that needs to happen on a on a long-term basis after this done. Just like we try to do with developers in in in creating those cohorts. Wonderful. Um Rob, if you'd like to now the questions that have come through the chat and the Q&A, we can start to address those. Okay. And I wanted to remind everybody uh to use the Q&A function of Zoom if you have questions. Um But um Uh do you want me to ask a question through Q&A? Um Yes. And uh Uh so starting off um this is a pretty general question, but uh from Anthony, what is your greatest piece of advice for a planner who wants to become a small developer? Um I'll throw that to any members of the panel. Maybe Matthew, you're or you're both planners, right? Ryan and Matthew to a degree or Uh Matthew more so than me. Um yeah, well, I think the the number one answer is start where you're at and and start where the the community you want to work in is at. So, if you have an idea that it's it's not worth it for you in in less you can quit your job right away and and go and build a a 100-unit complex, um you're you're violating this principle of starting with starting where you're at. So, instead ask a question, what what's the easiest thing what's the easiest kind of project that you you can achieve using all using almost entirely knowledge or skills or or or networks you already have. So, you know, the corollary to this is only take on one or two new things at a time. So, um in practice this means find a place that's got a simple zoning uh a zoning application that you understand. Um maybe it's an application that other people aren't using, but but you've you you've identified it and you're sure of it. Find a location that that you can be sure of and then focus on what is the very next best thing. And be willing to compromise on stuff that isn't that isn't critical whenever you get started. Um so, when I started we we made this list of neighborhoods, we made a list of sites, and we made a list of criteria that we weren't going to compromise on. And then uh uh and and then we got started from there. Um but really I I made a mistake. I tried to do 20 units and quit my job at the first time, and it took me 3 years, and I had to raise money three times because I made that mistake. Um I could have I could have seen three times as many housing units constructed for my community and constructed for our portfolio if we'd focused on smaller projects instead of apartment buildings. Those smaller. Um Joel, you're not a planner but as technology person you even had less familiarity with uh with land use. Um how did you get start What's your greatest piece of advice? Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to say regardless know the planners when I ask the question, but anybody on this call and whatever you're doing, um the advice that I would give is one, start where you are with what you have including the fact of nothing is too small. Do not think that you have to take on a big chunk project that that's the only thing that will make a difference. I literally started with one house. One single-family house that led to multiple single-family houses that led to multi-unit housing and leads other things. The most important thing is to get started. Like that's the biggest piece of advice I can give to a planner or anybody is to get started. A corollary to that, however, is to get started, and this depends on where you're at, you need the tools. If you're the planner or the individual that already has the tools and you're just afraid, I think that I saw one of the comments or questions, then just get started. It's okay. Like I literally started with nothing. I didn't even know how to hammer and nail anything. Just get moving. It's not more than you can do as long as you pick the right size project. And that's why I go back to pick a small project. If you don't know anything and you're a planner individual who's starting like me from nothing, just get some tools and that's where I will say Incremental Development Alliance's workshop and boot camp, go there first. Before you pick a project, before you get started, before you try to think of anything, just know why and where you want to be at and go get registered for one of our trainings. Like that's honestly what I would tell the previous me and I kind of did that, but I did it a couple years after the fact, but I would start there first. You're going to get scared no matter what. Um, we have a question about five over one residential buildings. Um, and uh, Mark says this is a predominant residential development form in many big city neighborhoods. Um, I don't know if this is considered usually to be incremental development of five over one, um, but he says the banks love funding it and uh, uh, who are who are the examples of uh, smart economically effective neighborhood centric apartment developments? Do you have any thoughts on that type? Uh, yeah, I do. Um, first uh, we should really clearly define what we consider to be small and middle scale development or incremental development as we usually refer to it, and for us that almost always means three stories or less with an emphasis on the less. Um so, that's to say we're we're especially focused in in neighborhoods that are disinvested with vacant properties or or with or with low intense density uses or or we might say under and under intensities. Um so, for example, single-family neighborhoods or or old row house neighborhoods or or or neighborhoods that are just a little bit too spread out and need some sprawl repair, um etc. Or old main street neighborhoods that are neglected, etc. So, you know, there's a there's a answer at a scale that we we're not really focused on five over ones here, but that's to say, you know, we don't have this opinion that um they they should be completely uh prohibited in in general, um especially with housing crisis being what what what they are across across the country. But, on the other hand, we we also think that they happen and that they become prevalent because the system preferences them. And it would be a lot better for our cities, for the locals who live there, and for the general economies and and societies of those cities if the system were preferencing other other formats. Um you know, so those get built because um the the bottom line on those projects is efficiency, efficiency of design, efficiency of construction, uh land assemblage, of of entitlements, and um uh that's why they happen in cities. And small development uh doesn't happen in cities is because there are absolutely none of those efficiencies. It's kind of barriers all the way down, uh whether it's landing or whether it's a city or or or or whatever. Um so, when we talk about five over ones and when people ask us these kinds of questions in in different cities we go to, we say, "Look, we're focused on at least leveling the playing ground so that better infill can can happen in these communities because it's better for the communities themselves." And and I would I would jump in there and just say, keep in mind if you're living in a neighborhood that's completely populated by five-over-ones or even taller buildings, um you're not playing in the right ballpark. Right? So, I used to live in Southern California. I've been to LA a lot. And I can tell you there are neighborhoods in LA where you've probably never been where there's lots of opportunity for small development, but chances are you probably don't speak Spanish and you're not willing to put up with a lot of gang violence in your life. So, just think about that when you think about the neighborhoods I'm willing to work in and the sacrifices I'm willing to make in order to do the work. If you and I I tell this people at workshops, uh if you're not willing to live there and put your ass there every day and you don't want to make that sacrifice, that's fine. That's a life decision for you, but don't complain about the place that you then choose to live because you want those amenities in it. Um uh it kind of goes into a a question that was asked uh from uh a local government official um that uh you know, what are the areas that you would say uh that the local government should really focus on to uh to encourage small development short of a major zoning rewrite? Yeah, I I just tried to type an answer to that question and I and I'll um I'll say it again here and maybe talk a little bit about it, but number one may maybe number two things kind of the same thing, make lot splits easy and ease up on all the rest of the dimensional requirements so that your your set setbacks on every side of the on every side of the property and you know how wide the driveway needs to be and so and so the really banal boring stuff that is in the code. Um cities can achieve, you know, something like half of of what we recommend and make really really meaningful amendments for small projects with with something like six lines of strike-through or or addition in in their local codes. There's a lot of other really meaningful and substantial stuff that can come after that, even not getting up to the the the level of a full-scale rewrite. Just make lot splits easy and and ease up on the dimensional requirements. And And this is nothing new to CNU, right? We talk about this with all of the all of the uh the the work plans for form-based codes when we're teaching each other how how to do these things or or when we're working with cities or or or when cities are looking at how to write those. And what we do is we talk about calibrating the code to the local conditions. And that's what works for small-scale projects. Um, Joel said it, Ryan said it. Uh, these cities have always been built out of small projects. And it's a modern experiment that that very large-scale projects are are even a thing. And if they will really just recalibrate these two issues of the code, it it's at least half of half of what they need to do to support small-scale stuff. Um, this is probably a you know, an Ink Dev organizational question, but um, Ryan asked are there any low-barrier opportunities to continuing ed for previous Ink Dev cohorts? Um, any suggestions? So, we are developing some one-off workshops that individuals that have attended previous cohorts, but also just incremental development trainings. Um, and we're working on those um now. I'm only 6 months in, just give me a little more time, but we hope to launch those before the fall and possibly just here in the summer. So, keep an eye out for them. We want to do one specifically just on step buildings and what those look like and how you can identify what is needed in your community as well as some repeats of things that we've done in the past. Hopefully, that answers your question. It's coming. Uh Doug asks, "Are there any examples of communities that have done a really good job or just good job of implementing this opportunity? Uh can you name some examples um of of places that people can look to?" I would just like to throw out before the gentleman get start to talk is South Bend. I think it's a great example and one that is continuing to build off what we started. Yeah, I think South South Bend really feels like um the the the best example. You know, we we came in there with uh an early uh workshop for rookie developers and would-be would-be developers. And uh through the continued efforts of of Mike Keen, uh anybody at CNU next next week should take a chance to to see what Mike has to say. Um Mike was just so persistent persistent indomitable really and um brought the city along and we we prototyped those early stress tests and that ended up with um zoning code recommendations. They did they did a uh new form-based code in in certain areas of the city that they were targeting and now they're about to launch a pre-approved building plan uh program. You can also hear about that at at CNU uh next week from uh Jen Griffin and Jen Settle. Uh and and they're they're just totally continuing. Um kind of outside of Ink Dev Network, uh a great example that's going to be on on a lot of people's minds um if they've heard about it, it's probably the residential infill project which was done by by Portland. Uh Ink Dev were think was directly involved in there, but um that was really stewarded by uh the small developer cohort. Um and and organized kind of the learning sessions in the the community planning sessions around that. And it's just a maybe in my in my opinion for whatever it's worth is the best small scale code rewrite for small scale development in the in the country. Um Bryan, Texas, where where Ryan is, implemented a pre-approved building programs trying to support small developers. Couple Oklahoma cities coming after Infill events organized by ULI Oklahoma are pursuing or implementing similar programs and and rewrites. Uh and I think Chattanooga's maybe the other example where we we didn't get to work with the city, but we worked with an institution. Um with with their portfolio properties to help them identify small scale projects that that could fill out the portfolio rather than trying to identify one one big giant developer to take it all down all down at once. So um The thing is about this question, you know, we we there are a bunch of other cities we could list, and and I loved I If no one else will, I will totally brag on Infill anytime. But the fact is there's 4,000 municipalities in the country. You know, that are of a meaningful size, you know, and and um it takes a it takes a long time, and it's kind of incumbent upon us, and it's it's our mission to reach to reach all of them, isn't it? And you know, so I I think really the the question, you know, it's great to know about examples, but maybe a more important or deeper question is how do we really achieve a scale that isn't a handful of cities over a couple of years, which is fine for prototyping, or maybe when we get good at it a handful of cities every year, you you collectively as a sector as design professionals or urbanists or whatever we are, you know, that people who care. But how do how do we get to hundreds of cities a year? Isn't that the real question? And And now, you know, I don't know that any of us really know the answers. If If somebody does, I want to hear it. Pull me aside next week if you're going to be at CNU. I want to know what that answer is. But I think it takes a lot I I think it takes a lot of us coordinating on these things. May Maybe more than we've really realized before. And um uh you know, if you're city and you're into it and you kind you're kind of hip to it, you you need to maybe be thinking, of course, first, how do you do it in your city, but maybe more importantly, how do you be part of a network that that can support all these communities uh um because that that's probably what it's going to take. Um does anybody have any quick thoughts uh about how design professionals can facilitate these discussions with uh cities or or help Inkted reach their goals? Um anything that architects or and designers who are out there should be doing? Um so, Sherry here, and I'd like to invite you to contact me directly and um would like to tell you that we're looking for more faculty members. So, if you're a design professional that would like to become a part of the Inkted faculty, we'd be most definitely interested in speaking with you. Well, how about like in your local community? If you're a architect or somebody who you know, just wants to help. Yeah, I think for me, um you know, once again, design professionals, i.e. architects, are one of the most important next steps after having the tools to getting a project done. If you can better connect, and I know the question was about, you know, cities, maybe they're talking about municipalities, but just connect with the small developer network. Anybody of any sort because they need your tools next. Like you're the first set of tools. When I was starting this out, like even today, that's the first people person that I need is an architect. You provide so many skill sets, and so your understanding of an incremental approach or the right way to encourage it, then you'll be able to connect that dot with that small developer in that city. And once again, the larger city, you know, in terms of city government, it just comes from projects getting done. And even to Matthew's point about how do we reach a hundred? I come from a industry, technology, that learned how to scale. We're all about pilots, MVPs, and then scale up what works. So, the best important thing we can all do is not think about the scale of a hundred. Just think about the scale of one, cuz you can scale one thing effectively surprisingly really quickly. So, that's why we just need everybody to just do one. Like, wherever you're at, because that one will show somebody, "Oh, man, this can happen in my town." The hundred will take care of itself. You just need the one. The one gets to about 10. A hundred is overnight. Like, I'll be honest. This is how we scale in technology. Is we try to get 10 clients. When we get 10 clients and it's working, we know we can get a million clients. And so, that's just my thoughts. Yeah. I would also say that, you know, the to pair up with Joel's answer, I do think if you're a design professional and you're attempting to lobby your city government on behalf of these sorts of principles and on and using new urbanist principles, um just keep in mind that you're an ambassador both not only for incremental development when you're doing that, but also for new urbanism in general. Uh and if you're an annoying jerk, uh and the city planners and the city officials don't like you because you're an annoying jerk, you are poisoning the well in your city. So, if you choose to lobby, that that's great, right? But just do so knowing that uh you have a very high burden to uphold because the the price of failure could be really damaging to other people trying to do work in the city. Well, we are at an hour point. So, we need to wrap it up, but let me just ask one more question. I'm going to take the prerogative of the person asking the questions by asking something that's on my mind. And now we're we're just heading out of the post COVID into the post COVID year, it seems. You know, hopefully. And we're going into an unknown economic time, but there are certain economic conditions that that that you three and and Jerry are probably aware of as incremental developers. Can you tell me is this a good time to be an incremental developer in the United States coming in the next year too? And can you tell me why or why not? If I can hop in here because this is a passion of mine because as I mentioned I became an incremental development incremental developer during kind of the recession. So, last economic downturn. And all of the principles are exactly what's needed because of COVID. They were needed before COVID, but COVID really like showed all of the stress points of cities, of neighborhoods, of people, of institutions. And that's the very point of the incremental approach is that it's hard to take a five over one to that question and all of a sudden flip it and change it. You already got it entitled for that five, you know, that five acres. You already started putting the storm water. I saw about waste water in the thing. Like all of a sudden COVID happens, what you going to do with that land? Like your money's sunk in there. But even when you look at now things like built for rent, it's a bit more incremental and a bit more resilient because now you're building two-story townhomes, three-story townhomes that are spread out over that site. If you needed to change that up, you could change that immediately to any number of things. And so that approach is one important too in a post-COVID environment where people don't know, okay, what's going to happen to office? What's going to happen to retail? You know, everybody's downing it. Well, guess what? I'm working on an office and a and several retail projects in the city in neighborhoods that have never had anything. We're sold out of all of that, like 100% because it's small enough. It's 5,000 square feet, 2,500 square feet. Well, even though that sounds like nothing, we do five of those, I'll fill up the equivalent of a 50,000 100,000 square feet of space without the same overhead, without the same risk profiling. And by the time the other guys are wondering, can we go with a 100,000 square foot office or not in the city, I'll already have filled out 100,000 square feet. So, all of these are the principles that post-COVID are really necessary. And don't mention things like affordability, which is the hottest part of the market. Everybody from hedge funds to Singapore are trying to get into the affordable housing market. And the best way to build affordability and bake it in is to do it in certain ways, including the incremental approach to base both rehabbing current structures and buildings, but also densifying in areas in a smart efficient fashion. And so I will say that absolutely the most important thing we could be doing right now is implementing incremental development in a post-COVID world for everybody, for our cities as well as from an economic development perspective. And one more thing I cuz I'm going to have to hop, but there were several questions about cities and rural areas, cities that you know, you may be in a city where neighborhoods are going down, populations are declining. This is not a detriment. In fact, they need you more than ever. I'm in the city of Atlanta that everybody thinks is big, but the city of Atlanta has huge income disparities. Every neighborhood I worked in was in a neighborhood that population was declining, had no a positive economic environment. So, I know, I feel you. I understand what you're saying, and we moved into those neighborhoods, and now every single one of those neighborhoods are the reverse of that, right? But when we were moving in, it was none of that. The same tools are at your disposal even under those conditions, even if you're in a rural or non-traditional a city neighborhood. So, I just say refer back to exhibit A, get started. You have a mission, you have a why, just get started with where you're at, and start impacting one thing on your street, in your neighborhood, in your small town. This does work across the board. Um. Yeah, I'll chime in with Joel cuz that's absolutely true. And honestly, those are the cities I work in all the time with Inc. Dev and for my own business. Bryan, Texas has 80,000 people. All right? It's a working-class city next to a major university in the middle of nowhere. Okay? Um, I work in a lot of other small towns. I worked a lot of Memphis. Okay? Been to Detroit, um, talked to with folks in Kearney, Nebraska. You know, I've been all over with this stuff. Uh, incremental development is a philosophy. It is an approach. Uh, and it applies everywhere to everybody. You just have to apply it properly, right? Maybe it's not new construction somewhere, maybe it's rehabs, maybe it's commercial, maybe it's residential. Um, but the philosophy is what is valid. Okay. Well, uh, unless anybody has any last words, I'll just thank everybody who was part of this. It's been a really good discussion. Uh, thank you so much to the panel, Ryan and Matthew and Joel and Sherry. And it's been a lot of fun in the audience. Thanks for the questions and thanks for being here. We'll see you again and on the park bench in future webinars. Have a great day.