It's About Growth

The Bonita Bay group's David Graham has an ambitious goal. As the new chairman of the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) Southwest Florida District Council for a three-year term, Graham wants to change the tone of the land-use debate from contentiousness to cooperation.

Since 1991 Graham has been a member of the ULI, a nonprofit organization dedicated to land-use education and research boasting more than 150 members in Southwest Florida. As vice president of planning and development for The Bonita Bay Group and with his previous involvement in the development of Pelican Bay for then-Westinghouse Communities (now WCI Communities), Graham has been entrenched in land-use issues for decades as the region has grown.

Gulfshore Business: The ULI's national mission is to provide responsible leadership in the use of land in order to enhance the total environment. How do you interpret the mission of the local council?

David Graham: Much the same way as the national: It's still responsible leadership, which I think is critical. "Responsible" to me means looking at land-use issues from a very broad and regional approach covering multiple years-not short-term but long-term.

GB: How do the efforts of your group differ from smart-growth initiatives in the region?

DG: We are able to fall back on the expertise of the Urban Land Institute. We have a national perspective and a national research arm to support our education and our leadership so that we're not making mistakes that other areas have by being too narrowly focused. Many jurisdictions, we have found, kind of have an issue of the day, whether it's transportation or affordable housing or density, but they never tie all those together.

GB: How does this leadership concept translate to policy making?

DG: I believe that if you have adequate information, that is extremely powerful, especially information that is directly applicable to the solution of a problem that you've experienced locally. People tend to listen when they find that people have intelligent answers based on research and experience.

GB: What are the biggest challenges for the district council in the next few years?

DG: To lead people to think comprehensively and regionally. We tend to be very issue-oriented and never put the issues together. For example, in urban infill areas where we are discouraging growth, you shouldn't be lowering the density; you should be raising the density. Those lower densities don't permit transit because mass transit requires higher densities to be effective. It also drives the price of housing up when you lower density in certain areas. And then by having the lower den-sity and then the moratoriums on top of the lower density in areas, we force growth out to the greenfields, the environmentally sensitive areas, when we espouse to have the goal of protecting our environment. So what we need to do is to treat all those issues comprehensively instead of individually so that we understand the interrelationships between land use, density, transportation, the environment and all those things.

The second one, obviously, is to look at things in a regional nature. We tend to look at these issues by jurisdiction and we don't coordinate.

GB: The Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council-comprised of 34 elected officials from Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, Lee and Sarasota counties and gubernatorial appointees-deals with many of these issues on a regional basis. What do you see as its role?

DG: I think many of our governments, because of the short-term political demands, are forced to focus on short-term issues and regulations as opposed to long-term planning. Many of our leaders get elected from their individual jurisdiction and oftentimes are forced to focus on their local issues as opposed to the more regional or comprehensive issues. I think that's where we can all help to work together and try to reinforce each other to think regionally and comprehensively.

GB: How would you rate former Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council executive director Wayne Daltry's performance in his first year as Lee County's Smart Growth director?

DG: I think he's doing a very good job but obviously his resources are limited. We both went to graduate school at Florida State University in urban and regional planning. My focus was in transportation; his focus was in regional planning. I think we have the same basic philosophies, and if there's any difference at all it's because I've tended to focus on solutions from a public-private-partnership point of view. By the very nature of Wayne's job, I think he has focused more on the regulatory aspect of things to implement change. He has much more experience in this region than I do and a much deeper understanding of the root causes of many of the problems. But I think I have a lot more tools coming from the private sector to assist with the solution of those, especially from my development background.

GB: In what ways is the council collaborating with Florida Gulf Coast University?

DG: We're hoping to develop certification programs for areas that relate to the responsible leadership of land. We're looking at programs in the arts and sciences area like geographic information systems, databases and demographics. From more of a business side, we're looking at the real-estate development process, real-estate law and other business-related programs that would also help our industry and our land-use orientation both from a public and urban planning [perspective].