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The Self-Storage Conundrum

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When your projects benefits become its negatives. Self-storage is experiencing explosive growth. Annual industry revenue in the US is now $38 billion and it remains one of the fastest growing sectors in commercial real estate with over 7% annual growth since 2012. [1] Changing lifestyles, trends towards smaller housing units, downsizing and other factors continue to drive demand for more storage space. Finding sites was fairly easy once upon a time. Depressed areas, industrial parks and places where a giant concrete box would not be perceived of as a blight on the landscape welcomed this sort of investment in the community. Those easy opportunities are now tough to find as the industry matures and successful developers attempt to locate new storage facilities closer to more densely populated areas. It is hard and getting harder to get new facilities approved. Some communities are even moving to ban their use completely. Denver wants to ban storage units near transit hubs B
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Hiding Is Not a Strategy

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Hiding is not a strategy. The opponents are coming whether they are anxious abutters, political opportunists, competitor funded rabble-rousers or local activists. Keeping quiet doesn't cut it anymore.  Then why are so many developers still keeping a low profile and walking into public hearings blind and unprepared? Some think they can win approvals simply because "It's a good project." Good projects die everyday. The world changed. Having a great reputation and trying to do the right and responsible thing is not enough anymore. Every resident today believes they can fight back and win. Every activist and organizer has access to highly efficient and effective grassroots organizing tools and everyone from industry leading corporations to local businesses are aggressively capitalizing on this new political landscape to thwart competition.  The battle to increase and protect market share is more intense than ever before and new strategies, tools and techniq
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Top 10 CRE Developer Mistakes

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History is constantly repeating with developers making these same old mistakes. Learn from experience and have a strategy to avoid these common problems. 1. “Don’t tell anyone anything.” There was a time when keeping your plans quiet and slipping in under the radar actually worked but that was long ago. Filing a plan in July or August, scheduling hearings around the holidays and doing absolutely nothing to attract attention was a strategy based on the idea that you could tiptoe past activist residents. These days, social media, grassroots organizing tools and a renewed sense of social activism has everyone believing they can fight “progress.” Keeping quiet is far more likely to result in a public hearing full of angry neighbors, conspiracy theories, rumors, awful media stories and a very unfortunate start for your now controversial project. Hiding is not a strategy. File under “That trick never works.” 2. “You, Sir, are a buffoon.” Do not lose your temper, be sa
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The Truth about Fake Protesters

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Whether protesting a president, a policy, a pipeline or a development project, it is highly unlikely that protesters have been paid. It is much more rare and ineffective than you might think. Imagine trying to keep payments to hundreds of people secret, any of whom may tell a friend, brag about the easy money or get their moment of fame by exposing their part in the conspiracy. Even one person claiming to have been compensated will dominate the news and discredit the entire opposition. That’s an impractical and needlessly risky strategy. Professional organizers know better.   It’s not the protesters that are fake. Much more common is the hiring of professional organizers to identify and inflame opponents. They drive turnout to hearings and events where they can provide talking points, supply signs and point protesters to stand at the best camera angle. Using provocative messaging that leverages fear and inherent biases, it is relatively easy to generate opposition
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The Usual Suspects

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These Characters show up at every public hearing. You know they're coming but are you ready for them ? By Patrick Fox    EMAIL Opponents dominate public hearings these days. They are passionate, motivated and ready to rumble while supporters tend to stay home. Local politics kill good projects every day. Successful developers have got to be even more prepared, proactive and strategic to deal with the opposition that is absolutely going to be in that room. Here are just a few of the Usual Suspects you are likely to encounter and some strategies to effectively deal with them. THE ANXIOUS ABUTTER Rightly concerned about what happens right next to their home and how it may impact their property values and quality of life, they are the most motivated and skeptical participants. This is not about smart planning and theory for them. It’s personal. Any developer who has not reached out to them directly well before a public hearing has made an inexcusable mist
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Clandestine Market Defense

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By Patrick Fox   EMAIL It’s secretly acting to protect your market share and profits from an encroaching competitor by generating and organizing community opposition. It is extremely effective and widely done. Even if you are not doing it, there is little doubt it is being done to you. It is extraordinarily difficult to get any development project approved these days. It is an opponent driven system and the politics favor the opponents. As someone who specializes exclusively in land use politics, I can assure you that it is far easier to destroy a project than to get one approved. Leveraging fear, distrust, social networking tools and surging levels of community activism, businesses can harness grassroots politics to stop competing project approvals dead in their tracks. How to Smell a Rat is one of our most popular seminars for executive teams, development professionals and anyone charged with securing local approvals. Identifying competitor generated opposition an
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