My future vs Property Rights

[volco]

Well, I couldnt find a thread specifically about eminent domain. I don't want to discuss Pfizer vs Susan KEllo, we all know that such company has some very powerful connections in the current administration.

I want to become a Real Estate developer, an urban one. I think it's always been my dream and ambition even before I could grasp the words to define the profession (I thought I wanted to be an architect who owned and decided what to build! ). Its been in me since I was very very little, I would draw buidlings or ships, and count the number of rooms, roughly calculating profit.

But I've been increasingly concerned about the fact that most if not all urban developers claim their job would be impossible without eminent domain laws (or in deffect, armed thugs).

I am very conflicted with this because I hold property rights as an absolute.

Of course I could design a city in the desert, like Las Vegas, or make islands emerge like in the gulf, or fight to gain right over useless public land, but developer is a long hard career and I can't certainly begin with those megaprojects.

So...

Advices?

[Zip]

Rejuvenation.

Taking rotted out urban cores of cities and reinvigorating them with developments.

The best part is that cities fall all over themselves to get "brownfields" cleaned up and the urban sheik love to live in these historic buildings.

The hard part comes from rezoning and passing social hurdles (throw in a park or two into the development, not only will it help win the city council it will make the property that you develop more aesthetically pleasing and therefore more valuable.

Takes lots of cash and lots of partners to make something like this work on a large scale though.

[softwareNerd]

But I've been increasingly concerned about the fact that most if not all urban developers claim their job would be impossible without eminent domain laws

I wasn't aware of this. Most of the subdivisions and office buildings coming up around me are on on the outskirts of already-developed areas. I've always assumed that the bulk of it was from people who sold, converting their once large rural (sometime small-farm) plots. From reading about the larger development companies, I found that many of them buy up such land (in anticipation) quite a few years before they start building. There are other companies that just develop such land: buy it, go through the hassles of dealing with zoning, get the permits that say that sewers etc. will be draw to the a certain number of plots, when ready, and then sell it to builders.

Within already built up areas, a lot of development happens where existing structure are torn down. Still, I assume that the bulk of these happen with the owners' consent, and often it is the owner who is building anew.

Builders have to deal with the city/zoning bureaucracy, but I didn't realize that they routinely use (or benefit from) eminent domain.

[volco]

Rejuvenation.

Taking rotted out urban cores of cities and reinvigorating them with developments.

The best part is that cities fall all over themselves to get "brownfields" cleaned up and the urban sheik love to live in these historic buildings.

The hard part comes from rezoning and passing social hurdles (throw in a park or two into the development, not only will it help win the city council it will make the property that you develop more aesthetically pleasing and therefore more valuable.

Takes lots of cash and lots of partners to make something like this work on a large scale though.

Yes Gentrification is a way to go around it. You buy some estate that's really runned down, convert it into a 5 star project at inmense risk, and then displace the neighboors through either higher taxes (sic) or much too tempting offers, only to find out a stubborn lady that wants -rightfully- to die at her home which is in the middle othe project, like an enclave.

I wasn't aware of this. Most of the subdivisions and office buildings coming up around me are on on the outskirts of already-developed areas. I've always assumed that the bulk of it was from people who sold, converting their once large rural (sometime small-farm) plots. From reading about the larger development companies, I found that many of them buy up such land (in anticipation) quite a few years before they start building. There are other companies that just develop such land: buy it, go through the hassles of dealing with zoning, get the permits that say that sewers etc. will be draw to the a certain number of plots, when ready, and then sell it to builders.

Within already built up areas, a lot of development happens where existing structure are torn down. Still, I assume that the bulk of these happen with the owners' consent, and often it is the owner who is building anew.

Builders have to deal with the city/zoning bureaucracy, but I didn't realize that they routinely use (or benefit from) eminent domain.

Yes the BULK but not all of them.

As far as I've been researching eminent domain is the only tool that keeps developers from deploying thugs like in the old days. It is inmensely widespread.

I guess this could be solved from an aesthetic point of view: if there's a "distonal" house enclaved in the middle of my future Hotel, then, so what? Who cares? Who needs perfectly homogeneous projects or cities?

This reminds me of a dutch professor of architecture I had in London, he loved the homogeneous African adobe "architecture" that makes no distinction between soil and edifice (think Mali, Timbouktu, Songhay). Of course I hated him and argued that I loved how the city of London (near Tower Bridge) was a beautiful mess.

I am still not convinced by neither mine nor your arguments

[Zip]

Yes Gentrification is a way to go around it. You buy some estate that's really runned down, convert it into a 5 star project at inmense risk, and then displace the neighboors through either higher taxes (sic) or much too tempting offers, only to find out a stubborn lady that wants -rightfully- to die at her home which is in the middle othe project, like an enclave.

Well if you want a vocation without this kind of risk then I'd suggest something else. I'm not trying to be flippant but the rewards of property development are so high because the risks are too.

This is the sort of thing I want to do once I'm done with the army but I'm starting very small. My current house was a mess when i bought it. It was structurally sound but a colour blind lunatic with absolutely no class could not have made poorer aesthetic choices inside, and the idea behind an "ornate English garden" is not to let crap grow however and wherever it wants to.

I'm in the process of convincing my wife that we should sell within the next year and move on to the next project. I believe that within that year this house will be worth about $100,000 more than I paid for it (in 2007) and that two more such projects will have us mortgage free and leave my pension from the army to fund the business.

[volco]

Well if you want a vocation without this kind of risk then I'd suggest something else. I'm not trying to be flippant but the rewards of property development are so high because the risks are too.

Risk is not the issue!

[Zip]

Risk is not the issue!

Ok, my mistake, I misinterpreted your post above (#4). I thought you were bemoaning the risk involved.

[volco]

the issue is maybe having to violate other people's right in order to pursue a career. When I have my own business I could chose ways not to do it, but to get there I have to accumulate experience in companies that don't see anything wrong with benefiting from these laws.

And is not that I should pursue another career because of that, real estate development and corporate expropiation would continue anyways. hmmm.....

Edited June 13, 2008 by volco

[Zip]

And is not that I should pursue another career because of that, real estate development and corporate expropiation would continue anyways. hmmm.....

Really? To use a literary equivalent you are saying that Roark should have produced substandard buildings because that was the way money was being made in Architecture?

I'm sure there must be some way to do it without violating peoples rights to property, other wise we would hear about the use of eminent domain so much more than we do.

[volco]

So cynical egoism doesn't exist? Isn't the world as much infected with it as with altruism? Do I want to take part in it? No! and yet it's a hard world out there and developers have always used some kind of legal or illegal force to reshape it. I know I should act on principle, and that that will force me to find new rightful ways, but I am conflicted by the fact that everyone in construction I talk to confirms this dark, though perhaps small, side of the industry, and that conflict is the reason of this thread.