As one ages, life becomes visible as a series of chapters. As of September 2016, I have opened another chapter. After a half decade in the real estate development industry as a corporate executive, I’ve been successful at working myself out of a job – and am returning to consulting with my firm, Holland Planning Innovations Inc.
My career has had several chapters already I was in consulting for a decade, from 2001 to 2011 – after several years in Vancouver City Hall as a planner, and in 2011, I left consulting to move into the real estate industry. For four years, I was Vice President of Development for the innovative 125 acre New Monaco project in Peachland, moving it through its visioning, OCP and rezoning stages and up to the start of the subdivision process – including winning the top planning award in Canada for its plan (CIP 2012).
Due to health issues in my family that arose in 2014, I needed to be home more and so I handed that leadership role on New Monaco to another team, and took the helm of the Foothills project in Lantzville, on Vancouver Island, closer to where I live.
Ironically, the successful and profitable plan that I led the creation of for the Foothills resulted in the Board of Directors deciding to change the Storm Mountain portfolio significantly and focus primarily on the Foothills – meaning I worked myself out of a job, because this change means that Storm’s CEO, Allard Ockeloen will now be increasingly assuming many of the management roles on the Foothills that were my responsibility in the past.
My relationship is excellent with the Storm Mountain team so I will remain involved in the project as a consultant as needed.
As I look back at the last half decade chapter in the development industry, I have particularly enjoyed taking the knowledge and skills that I developed in community planning innovations over many years, and moving them into the highly disciplined, accountable and real world of development. I have found that the combination of innovation and pragmatism and my comfort working with a community has yielded many benefits to these projects.
While I have really enjoyed sinking my teeth deep into a single project at a time, there are many exciting opportunities in real estate development right now as demographics shift the market for housing types and locations, housing prices increase, online shopping and cultural trends are changing what we ask of our downtowns or commercial areas, and our interface challenges with industrial and agricultural areas present significant opportunities for creativity and innovation.
While my career started on urban projects in Vancouver’s downtown, I’ve become very interested in projects in smaller cities and communities as they grapple with the movement of residents, businesses and investment leaving expensive metro centers and looking for new opportunities in other areas.
This is something that I know well from working in planning and development in Vancouver for many years and then moving my family and business to a smaller city. I know from experience that while lessons can be learned, “Vancouver solutions” do not apply in many or most situations in smaller municipalities and I look forward to assisting developers and communities to creatively respond to the new pressures and opportunities for development from these trends.
Interestingly, this change in Storm Mountain coincided with a growing desire I have had to spread my wings and take on other projects. I’ve recently helped launch the new Masters of Community Planning program at Vancouver Island University and I now teach a several courses there. This work has reconnected me with the broad scope of planning work that I loved in the past.
I’ve always seen myself as a “community builder” and am now also interested combining my community planning skills and experience with my new insights from having been accountable as a real estate development manager.
I believe that success always requires a partnership of knowledge and shared vision between the public and private sectors, and I intend to bring my development knowledge now to the table to help the community planning work I do be innovative in a pragmatic, implementable way.