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- [00:00]
Chuck Marone
Okay, so you know that the future of your community depends on the Strong Towns approach. But now you need a plan. Well, we're going to help you make that plan. We have a few slots available in the Strong Towns accelerator program where you'll get a self guided curriculum for real world use, small group coaching sessions with other elected officials, city professionals and community leaders, and two one on one sessions with Edward Erfert and Chuck Marone. Learn more and sign up@strongtowns.org accelerator.
- [00:37]
Abby
This is Abby and you are listening to Upzoned. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of Upside show where we take a big story each week that touches the Strong Towns conversation and we upzone it, we talk about it in depth, we dive deeper into what it means for our towns and cities. So today I am glad to be joined by my friend Edward Erfert who is the chief technical advisor at Strong Towns. You've brought a pretty fun story today, so I'm excited to have you on. So yeah, thanks for joining me Edward.
- [01:21]
Edward Erfert
Great. It's always a pleasure to be on the podcast with you Abby. And I'll tell you, all of your listeners are amazing because after these posts I have people that contact me that I haven't heard of, heard from in years and they reach out and they're like, wow, I heard you on Upzoned.
- [01:38]
Abby
Really?
- [01:39]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. You have some really great folks out there that I know enjoy listening to these stories you share.
- [01:45]
Abby
Well, they're great stories and I always appreciate when whoever's joining me has something unique to, to bring to the table. So this article that we are going to be covering, so this is, this was published in Kilo Land and it is entitled milk facility pays $50,000 for road use. So the story is set in Lincoln County, South Dakota and for anyone who's not familiar with this part of the country, this is an area that's just south of of Sioux Falls and it's kind of in that wedge where South Dakota touches Nebraska and Iowa. So it's the south eastern portion of the state, a pretty generally a pretty rural area. So this is a milk condensing facility where they process milk into dry forms so that it can be transported and the county is requiring this milk facility to pay a fee for wear and tear on township roads that it will be using of $50,000. So this is a payment agreement to reimburse local governments for damage caused by heavy trucking and machinery. And it's an example for how industrial operations intersect with public infrastructure and I guess unseen Liabilities that are built into rural economies. I like the story because it feels kind of niche, but it hits on these very broad themes of who pays for the roads when private operations demand heavier users than anticipated, and what happens when local infrastructure isn't designed to support industrial growth. And perhaps in a county that wants to see industrial growth but just doesn't quite have the infrastructure. And ultimately, how do we build places that are financially strong and accountable, particularly in these rural contexts. So, Edward, let's upzone this story. What are some of your, I guess, what's the context that you'd like to bring or add to this story that you think listeners should be aware of?
- [04:03]
Edward Erfert
Well, I think this is a really good example to go through and break apart our current conventional zoning and development practices. What's so unique with this is unlike looking at a request for somebody to put a new commercial like a daycare in a neighborhood or to take a lot that's low density residential and upzone it to higher density mixed use. This is a dairy with processing for dairy in the middle of dairy agriculture land. There's no infrastructure around here. There's some things out there. The road is a gravel road. It's two miles from the state highway. So it's a place where like the nearest neighbor is in the distance of miles and a half miles. So for me, when I start to think about zoning, I would have never thought in this county that there would be something such as zoning there. So it is. And they're going through this process. And the process started out with the basic things we all would understand about zoning and planning. There's a comprehensive plan that's been established for this county within the county. It's broken down to townships. So the townships are deferring to the county to help with their land use decisions. The, the comprehensive plan says that this is an area that is intended for growth. So as I look at it, I don't think the intent and I didn't read the comp plan, but when they talk about growth, it's not like growth of subdivisions, it's growth of these agricultural uses, that type of growth. And then there's zoning and it's got an agricultural zoning because of all the complexities that we add into our zoning codes. And we can't really, if we were to list all the allowable uses, let's just. In any profession and any of the uses out there, we couldn't list them all. So in agriculture, like I'm sure there's a difference between a mushroom plant and a dairy farm or a goat farm and poultry sheds. So you just can't do that. But in there they've got this catch where it says that there are these conditional uses where you can come forward and say, hey, we've got an idea that's unique here. You can set your own way to do that. Here's a facility that they want to slightly expand that's triggering the conditional use. I find it fascinating because it's not like when they say next door neighbors. They're quite a distance from this facility relative to what we might see in other zoning applications. This article comes out as part of an appeals process. It went through public comment, it went through public hearings and community meetings. It went to the planning commission and then went to the city council. And then in the typical process it was appealed to. And that means it has to go back through this process again. So now it's gone through more of these things where neighbors are identifying. If you've ever been to a planning commission meeting, it's everything under the sun comes out, all of the ill. And that's been attached to this use. So I just find this completely fascinating how it is going through. And then it's as it starts to become resolved, and that's what this article is about, are the things that this dairy, this facility have to accomplish as part of their development agreement, as part of the ability to achieve the conditional use. There are caveats and requirements that they have to do and they're not the ones I would normally think about that we would see in other types of development applications like adding a bigger buffer or increasing a setback or requiring or not requiring a certain amount of parking. This one. There are actually two conditions that were put here that I found really fascinating. This article is. First is this factory. This agriculture facility is to pay $50,000. So it's $25,000 to each of the two townships in which their trucks drive through for the purposes of maintaining the gravel roads and culverts on the paved roads. And then there's another caveat which I found fascinating, is that there is a requirement for an annual meeting with the sheriff's office, the district commissioner of the county, the neighbors and the property owner to talk through the various transportation issues that have come up after the factory has been completed. And when I think about that like that seems really well intentioned, but that's forever, that's annually. And the most serious part of it is what happens if there's some issue that shows up. There's no trigger to say, oh yeah, by the way we want more money or we want you to do this other action.
- [09:31]
Abby
Yeah, this is a really interesting example of, you know, it's a. It's an impact fee that's being established through this process. And, you know, that's. That's something that's relatively common. It's something that legally you have to have a rational nexus for. So you have to establish, you know, a relationship between the fee that's imposed and the public purpose of the fee. And this happens, you know, in cities all the time for development. But I think in this context, in a. In a county context, it's. It's kind of an interesting case study because it's $25,000 a year for two years and then these ongoing meetings where I suppose they. They can't continue to charge them fees if there's additional issues. One thing that came to mind immediately is that $50,000, while, while it's probably a lot of money to the person, the applicant, that is looking to establish this use and expand the use, it really doesn't feel like much of a drop in the bucket, you know, for the cost of infrastructure, because actually maintaining roads is so much more than $50,000. And it doesn't seem like there is a clear, bigger picture strategy to how these fees are supporting a broader strategy for updating the streets. For example, if, if there's. If this is a growth area where other industrial users will be coming in and everyone's paying $50,000 and they expect it to eventually be millions of dollars into a fund and that creates a maintenance fund, but it just seems like it's this one user. $50,000 doesn't really get you very far, and it makes it kind of difficult to say that this is going to make a huge impact. So that was one of the first things that came to my mind, just looking at this of like, you know, what. What is it, what is it really doing, and is it really helping at the end of the day to have $50,000 for the roads?
- [11:51]
Edward Erfert
It really points out something that I see in cities of all scales, not just small agriculture communities, but even the big cities, we really have very little understanding of what it actually costs to maintain and upkeep our existing roads. So during this meeting, you could see, like, how much is it going to cost to fix? What should the number be? And I'm assuming that this business is something that these are people that live in the community, they love the community. They too want to make sure that their trucks can get in and out safely. I mean, there's lots of antidotes that were shared during the session, the public hearing where citizens were concerned about the dangers of the road, all of those types of things. So of course a good corporate business partner would want to maintain that. So there's a cost to it. And they apparently are already maintaining other roads to get to their fields and other facilities. But at the local township level and even the county level, I don't think they really even understood what it costs to maintain these. So like in the meeting it was like back of the napkin calculation, some numbers were thrown out and then it was we're going to compromise here to find something that everybody can. Not everybody would be happy with. They all agreed nobody would be happy with this. But it's a movement forward. So when I'm in lots of cities, the reason cities don't know what it costs to do stuff is because we have really talented public works departments that just do their job. They don't calculate how many hours it takes to do stuff. They have a budget. If they're given a $10,000 budget to do a project, they're going to try to do it under $9,000 this week. They may have gotten a better deal on gravel or asphalt the next week. So they just do what they can within their means. So yeah, this community, it highlighted to me they didn't understand what it really costs. And the numbers they were running is what it was going to cost to put gravel on the roads, not even to upgrade with asphalt.
- [14:00]
Abby
Well, in long term, I mean $50,000 worth of gravel. I mean, I don't. Presumably this use will be operating for years, decades to come. And so it just doesn't really get to a very long term strategy of, you know, I think the long term strategy is, is this area intended to support other users that can sustain the, sustain the needs of the infrastructure or is this going to be one high impact user that, you know, creates an impact on infrastructure and doesn't really create the revenue needed to support that infrastructure from the county's or township's perspective. Like I've worked in a community where they've identified, here's the primary area where we are going to have these industrial users. We know it will have an impact on the infrastructure. The primary user is creating some kind of benefits district where they could pay up front for some of these infrastructure costs. And then as other users come into the picture, they, you know, they pay into that. And so it creates a system for managing the maintenance and paying off like a bond or however, you know, the loan that that established the infrastructure or the improvements. But it just to me, like just making someone pay $50,000, that's going to go so quickly. And what's really the long term plan here? Because this will surely be be an issue in a couple of years when that money is gone. Or maybe in a year.
- [15:50]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, or yeah. I mean, what happens if the road washes out or there's a sinkhole, like a catastrophic event? That money will go very fast. When, when we look at these things and it did come up in the meeting, I mean the county commission recognized that these uses are not generating enough revenue to support that adjacent infrastructure. And it just kind of casually came out of their mouths in the discussion. That's why they were extracting these funds for this work. But also like on some of the counties that are the townships, when, when I hear these things from these township folks, they really do want to have like high quality roads, but they're really only serving one or two residents per mile. This is an unsustainable pattern. I've always found that these larger corporations have figured out how to make this work. So they have figured out in their business model it seemed pretty easy for them to come up with $50,000 to cut a check for the expansion of this facility. It seemed pretty easy for them to agree to any of whatever the state Department of highways said they would have to do to upgrade intersections and do all that type of stuff. All of that seemed to be kind of agreed to. Because this is a large corporation. They know that that's the cost of the doing business. That's not something a single property owner, like a homeowner would have the ability to do. And in these areas, one of the approaches is making higher and better uses. So you go and you put more stuff in, it generates more revenue. Another way is to extract more revenue. So we're going to increase the property value or we're going to increase the tax rates up, we're going to fees to do that. But the other thing that we don't think about doing and the other thing that we should be really exploring in these places is, is maybe the township simply says we will not maintain these roads, that we will lower our level of service and expectation so they will be passable. But we have to be honest that we do not have a funding source to fund the upkeep of 36 miles of gravel and paved roads in a township of only a couple hundred people. And I think that if that statement was made, I think that there'd be a different Review of development. One development would be controlled because they would have to figure it out the level of service they were willing to pay to maintain in the long term of their businesses. And I think instead of asking for $50,000 from a single use at one time, were there other uses on these roads, is that they would have to come together as a, as a group to figure out how to generate the revenue for the level of service of roads. They'd be way more creative in this and the township would be unburdened from that impossible obligation to make that. I mean, they basically have made a promise that there's no way they could actually keep for the long term maintenance of these roadways. And you see that when lots of projects come in, because requirements come in on these types of township controlled or locally controlled roads where utilities have to be outside the right of way, there's a lot of gymnastics you have to do. If you want to put a culvert under a road, there's lots of all these layers that get put on to prevent anybody from using that public right of way, except for moving cars. Because it's just so expensive to maintain a thoroughfare in any community regardless of its size.
- [19:55]
Abby
Exactly. And this is that ultimate balancing act of, you know, people want low taxes, people want stable services. And you know, I think in a, in a rural county setting, people, a lot of people probably want low levels of activity, you know, agricultural activities. And so when you start to introduce these more intense sorts of activities and users, it requires an increase in the services that are being provided. And you know, it makes it difficult, I think, to maintain the same level of taxes unless you have some other strategy for paying for it. And that's probably the conversation that needs to be had in these contexts is, you know, if we're going to be directing these kinds of uses, this kind of growth in this setting, are we willing to pay for it? How are we going to pay for it? And that's an important, I think, big picture discussion and a frank discussion to have about taxes. And you know what, we're in a county setting especially what's the role of the county and is this something that, that the county wants to do or is this not the right place for it?
- [21:15]
Edward Erfert
And this county is probably like my county that they have zero obligations of roadway maintenance. They probably control no roads. It is a very easy give. Like if you compromise something, we're not going to compromise our county tax base. We're not going to compromise our impact fees for our next civic center. We. But hey, we don't have a road maintenance crew because we don't maintain that. And we just assume townships and cities do it really well because they're willing to do these things. So we'll kind of handcuff them in that process.
- [21:49]
Abby
Well, that's a difficult dynamic where you have that detachment between the development zoning process and the public realm maintenance for process. Right. I mean that is a key part of this when you have entities that hopefully they're coordinating. But you know, I would, I'm, I would imagine not necessarily just here, but in a lot of cases there's not as much coordination as there could be between townships and counties. And yeah, the county, this is left to the county zoning and the county processes and they may not be fully thinking about maintenance and who's going to pay for this for the next 10, 15, 20 years and how much it really costs to make that happen. Certainly more than 50,000.
- [22:43]
Edward Erfert
And everywhere I've worked there's always been in the zoning application process, like a development application, there's a sign off for the police chief or sign off for the fire department and school board. And we would always require every place I've been, we would require the applicant to go get a letter like submit something to those groups and get it back. I never got anything back other than yeah, we reviewed it one time I got something where the police chief was concerned because it was the first time they'd ever seen apartments and they were concerned apartments would lead to more crime. Like we've all heard that in places. But the only like feedback after the last community I was in, after our third or fourth development application where we were talking about five to six hundred new homes in our community, the police chief started to see the buildings come up and it then dawned on them that more rooftops would require more policing. Like the development application process wasn't the trigger for them, where they should be asking for that or looking at the long range staffing of what do they need to update that? Because additional police cars would result in higher impact fees. You can't just hire an officer in a police department today. You've got to bring them on board over time. Plus you have officers leaving. So to build your force up, that's an expensive position that may take several budget cycles to build up to that in relationship to it. So yeah, those long term obligations get somewhat overlooked in our zoning process. And of course all the planners out there will say, of course we know rooftops and one police officer for X amount of homes because we read that in planning Magazine last month or. Yeah, we know we need to have more fire trucks because we saw that at our conference. The fields that we work with, the other folks that aren't at the table with us in the room when we're signing the development agreements, even though they send you a letter that says, yeah, we've looked at it, that's really all that they have done.
- [25:02]
Abby
Yeah, they've looked at it. That's such a good point. Because especially in the world where a lot of cities are updating zoning codes and getting their regulations kind of reformed and modernized, there's this whole other aspect of the development processing codes that I think really comes down to, like, applications outside of the zoning code itself, the applications both that the applicant is filling out and what you're actually asking of them, and also how you are creating these documents and applications for the reviewers. Because, you know, let alone the planning department, you may have. You may have different levels of staff that are actually reviewing these things, and their understanding of what they're reviewing may vary. But there's also people who are not. They're a police chief, they're a fire chief, and they may not be. They may not know what questions they should be asking themselves. And the documents they're getting may not give them much context about what is the criteria they should be reviewing, what's the perspective that we're looking for. And I feel like that's so common, and it creates a lot of confusion in the process because not everybody knows what they don't know. There's so many things that could be considered. So I think that that is such a good point. And it's something that really could be improved in, not just in county planning, but just in the development process generally, is how. How we're. How we're directing different folks with different very niche levels of expertise to be looking at a development proposal. Why does it matter to them? Because I'm sure there is a lot of instances where they look at it and they're like, okay, it looks good. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking at here. And then that's it.
- [27:09]
Edward Erfert
And I found, like, it's not a scary thing to talk to these folks. You'll hear a lot of time there's always this battle with developers and firefighters and the building code and the fire codes and the need for turnarounds and wide streets and all of that. That is one thing that we need to tackle. But really understanding how those departments work in the operations of a city is also important. The Fire department and the police department have always been really great allies of mine. When I'm working with those developers that want to do the enclosed cul de sac community and refuse to connect to adjacent streets. When I've had these conversations with the police department and the fire department, all of our first responders, they immediately understand the idea of duplicate entry points, the interconnection of streets so that if one street gets closed, there's a second way for people to get out, that if there's a connection of a street, they can actually get from one place faster and more conveniently to a location. It's hard as planner. Like when planner Ed would sit there, the developers say, oh, no, you're just the planner. You don't understand. You're not an engineer. But having the reinforcement of how this works as a city and having somebody with a badge and fancy credentials, you can use their skill sets, that may be a struggle in some parts of development processes, but you can actually use that when, when everybody's working together, it results in projects that contribute positively to a community where it, it starts to add and contribute more than what it initially started on. So there've been a lot of roadway connections that were thought to be impossible and to the police chief or the fire chief thought it was a good idea.
- [29:12]
Abby
Yeah. That's where different perspectives can more productively come into play, for sure. And that also tells me that planners need to start wearing badges. We need to have our own ashes. Yeah, we need to have our own, you know, badge that we wear. The AICP badge, I guess.
- [29:32]
Edward Erfert
And. And there's something else with this application I kind of want to walk through, because you do this way more than I do. There's something I find. So in this application, as they went through, the council members at the end, and even the planning commissioners identified that within the regulations, if they met all the codes, then they're compelled to approve. So when we look at these planning processes, this is where that public engagement and public comment, some of the commissions like the way that they're planning processes here in this county. It's kind of a quasi judicial type piece in their appeals process. But when you go through and you look at development application, if the comprehensive plan says growth, the next logical thing would be rules that would go and lead to growth. When we go to the zoning, if you meet all of the checkpoints of the zoning, it should be approved. People can protest it. Maybe you don't like this, maybe we misunderstood it, but really, the planning commission and the ultimate deciding body have to approve it, even if it may not be what we had envisioned. It met the rules. And I see this all the time where it's like I meet with citizens after the application has been submitted and it's public and it's out there. I see this where it's like, oh my God, I had no idea X could be approved here. As planners, we all look at this and say, well, of course it could. That was Orange. It's the C2 with this use table. Remember, we had 12 public meetings. We had the consultant did the comprehensive plan. We had the renderings on the wall. It's been on the books since 1960. Didn't you know? And residents don't, because they look out and they see an empty field. So, like going through the process, trying to explain to folks that in that development process that our rules have set us up to make decisions that may not be the decisions we want to make, but we have some legal obligations to it. And if we don't like results coming out of it, there's a different process that we need to go through that may, we may not be able to win on this development, but we can on the next.
- [32:07]
Abby
Yeah, that's. I mean, that's a really interesting point. And I think it's something that comes up even through like a planning commission process where as a staff planner, it's really important to have a structure where you are helping to inform them of what they're deciding on. Because when a planning commission or even a city council are reviewing something, there's probably very specific things that they need to be asked to review. And it's not a debate over things that are allowed by right. And there, a lot of the times there, there are processes where, you know, public hearings or public meetings are set up into the process. Even for projects that are, that provide, you know, everything, everything aligns with the code. What they're doing is by right, but they still have that process. And people, I think, rightfully get very confused about why they're being asked to come to a meeting or why this meeting is occurring.
- [33:15]
Edward Erfert
They're being empowered to participate where their participation has zero value.
- [33:21]
Abby
Exactly. And I think that that's something that also comes up a lot in cities that cities that might have good neighbor meeting rules where developers, regardless of if they're just going through an administrative site plan review process or they're actually asking for something like a special use permit or a variance or, or change of zoning or whatever, some cities require these developers to go have a meeting with neighborhoods. And in Theory, that's a good idea. But if everything they're doing is by right and they're coming to a meeting with a fully fleshed out plan and saying, hey, I'm submitting this, it's going in front of planning commission next week for approval. What do you think? I think that that creates a very toxic environment where it rightfully very, it very much upsets people because one of the worst things you can do at I think a public or community meeting is to show up with some fully done design. But, but that's how the process has been put together is, you know, when you're ready to go, you need to go talk to the neighbors. And the neighbors don't really understand what they're being, you know, if they even have influence in the process, which they may not, particularly if they're not asking for a special use permit or variance or change of zoning or anything that requires discretion. If it's not a discretionary process, it just creates confusion and angst and anger amongst people who are not working in this process.
- [35:03]
Edward Erfert
Every day I meet with lots and lots of planners and they all feel it's the right thing to do, to go out and do these like, public meetings and engagement and all of that just because, like, yeah, if we have more people in the room, we're going to get better product. All of them, as soon as, like the door closes and we're at the bar, they all say that the public engagement process is the worst part of their job because it puts them in a position that is very uncomfortable because there's nothing they can do about that. It's not a constructive process. Yet their default on everything is like, we're going to take it out whether it's required or not in the code, we're going to take it out to do that because they think it builds some sort of political cover when it goes to the planning commission or at the city council.
- [35:54]
Abby
What did the neighborhood say? Why didn't you talk to the neighborhood?
- [35:57]
Edward Erfert
And I think we don't want anything.
- [36:01]
Abby
Yeah, exactly.
- [36:02]
Edward Erfert
Or we only, we have a neighborhood of 200 people. And on the Tuesday night at 7pm at City hall, three showed up. And they're the ones that show up for everything. And they don't like anything. You know, they don't like their own home, let alone the neighbors. So they're going to tell us that opinion.
- [36:24]
Abby
And I think that that's unfair to the planners because it is just like whatever city you work in, they've established these processes for I, I, I would Agree a lot of the times it is political cover and it's not a process to engagement that's been thought out and is intentional and constructive. And I think that's something that a lot of cities could really create some smart improvements around is how do we engage with people on these development projects in a way that is, I think, timed in a, in a constructive way. It's not, hey, the developer is ready to go now. Go meet with the neighborhood. Good luck.
- [37:08]
Edward Erfert
You spent $200,000 engineering. Yeah.
- [37:11]
Abby
You've paid for all these people.
- [37:13]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, but, but the three neighbors on the street, you've got to get them to agree to this.
- [37:18]
Abby
Yeah. It's like, why isn't it that, you know, hey, we will help you construct a visioning workshop for your site with the neighborhood that documents high level interests. And we're not coming with a design. Don't even bring, don't even bring a pallet of materials. Don't bring anything. And I think it actually would be a better use of like a city planning staff's time and effort to kind of act as that facilitator from a visioning perspective and then allow them to invest their money and plans after that session. And then if they are asking for things, maybe there is another meeting with the neighborhood that says, hey, here's everything that's by right that they're going to do here is specifically what they are asking for that is not by right. And that's the negotiation or the conversation. And it's not just one point where you're just ask. You have a fully fleshed out plan and then you're asking them if they're not mad about it.
- [38:30]
Edward Erfert
I almost think there's even a thing that the city planners have very little control as to what a developer will bring to the table. But the city planners have lots of control of the process and they know a lot about the zoning codes and the approval and what is required in development application. I think if I was back in local government and I was managing a planning department, I would host monthly public workshops on the process. I, I would. Because that's what I could speak to as, as a planner. I would go out there and I'd say, look, here is our. And I've been interviewing lots of municipalities across North America that are interested in inviting incremental developers to become housing ready. And a couple of municipalities are doing this. They're doing it on a kind of a quarterly basis. They kind of accidentally come into it, but I think we'd be more deliberate with it. Or imagine where you had a evening public meeting or an afternoon public meeting or morning coffee and you brought up the development application and you just said, Here is our 25 page development application for you to build an accessory dwelling unit. What do you think my hope would be the public would say, my God, 25 pages for little two car garage. You could put apartment above seems a little excessive. Oh, why do you need to have a traffic study for this? Like asking those questions to help assert the planner that maybe it's a more streamlined development application or going through, going through and talking about setbacks and use tables. It doesn't seem these aren't exciting things and you have to kind of make it aware. But if you. I found that if I could train folks or educate folks in the community of the process, they could advocate not only for the projects that they wanted, but they could navigate the process to get those approved.
- [40:38]
Abby
Yeah. And it's very empowering for people to understand the process. It's not something that most people understand. Even, even sometimes planners and developers, like these things are complex, they're not consistent in every place you go to. And I think it is worthwhile to build more awareness around and just do your best to empower people with that information.
- [41:06]
Edward Erfert
And you would go through it. I mean, we would go through stuff. And if somebody was really shocked about an allowable use or a zoning category or a definition as a city planner, you could then tackle that and it wouldn't. You could hit things off in the past of the process. And I think that would also build trust. I mean, I. Everywhere I go, planners get picked on by the public. They're easy, they're easy whipping posts of all these things. But if you actually work in the things you're most comfortable in, the things that you've been trained and most knowledgeable in, I think that's where these professionals could really shine. So a thing like this, like this crazy dairy story. If the neighborhoods, if the neighbors understood the process, they know what they could do to demand more to make this a better project. They could also would know when to mobilize for various meetings, what would be required, and who knows, whatever. There may be something unique to this community that needs to be observed that a planner wouldn't be aware of, but local residents on the ground would say, hey, we would like for you to verify this one thing. I will tell you, every development applicant will do that if they know at the very beginning it is a requirement, a part of the process. It'll be adversarial if it's midway through or at the end. Also now we need to do a lighting study or some noise study that we didn't know we needed to do. We don't know what the results are going to be and we're on the cusp of an approval.
- [42:47]
Abby
Yeah, totally. Well, this has been a really interesting conversation, Edward, and I appreciate you coming on today to have this one with me. Before we finish, I want to do the down zone, which is the part of the show where we have been sharing anything that we've been up to these days, anything we've been reading or activities, anything, any music we've been listening to. Edward, do you have a down zone for me?
- [43:18]
Edward Erfert
I do. I just finished reading Unreasonable Hospitality. This is by Will Giarra and it has to do with. And I can't even remember the name of the restaurant, but it, it is an inside look at the restaurant industry and thinking about going above and beyond in hospitality. Will's story in New York is this idea. It may seem familiar to us now, but the idea that the front of house, the waitstaff, the hostesses in a restaurant would be at an equal level as the chefs in the kitchen. And Will is a front of house person that wanted to elevate the experience of restaurant dining, fine dining, and bringing equal level for the chef and also the hospitality in the dining room. It's a fascinating book. Many of the stories from his restaurant experience are within the Bear. If you've seen that show things with all the fine dining and going above and beyond. So I found that to be just a really fascinating read that's out there now.
- [44:35]
Abby
Interesting. Yeah, I've actually never heard of that book and I used to work in the service industry, so it sounds right up my alley.
- [44:44]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, my kind of first job, the one through high school was at a. It's a weird store. Anybody that grew up in Ohio would be familiar. They're no longer existing today. It's called the Andersons. So imagine in the kind of 80s and 90s and in the 2000, a store where you walked in and it was something of a whole foods with a beautiful wine department, all the fancy Italian foods and groceries and all that. And then all the home goods you would get at like a Target. And in the back you could buy all the lumber and tools. You could buy Home Depot. So very Midwest. It was a family owned store and they were all about customer service. That was their, their main brand. So looking at that from that retail side, it's neat to see on the restaurant side all, all the different things on the hospitality side in the restaurant, what they were doing were things like trying to understand their customer base and to do small things that are a little beyond what would have been expected. So, you know, it may have been things as simple as bringing out that dessert nobody wanted to order, but they knew they'd like and comp that or bringing out a special gift, you know, a small ticket item that really meant a lot to the diners. So yeah, from, from the site, it really is interesting about going above and beyond and a completely different mindset. So it resonated with me a lot. And I think anybody that has a small business or you're working with servicing individuals in a service industry, really fascinating ideas there. I don't know if everything applies to everything we do, but there are a lot of really insightful ideas. And now it raises the bar when I go out to eat now I want that extra umph when I go.
- [46:52]
Abby
Yeah, totally. I love going to restaurants that have that, that extra experiential piece. Well, I'll just share. I. I actually just spent like a week, I think it was about a week in Texas. I went to Austin, Texas for a trip for my younger sister and then I went to Dallas, Texas for work for charrette. And I. I had the opportunity in Austin, I had like one free, almost whole free day to just explore Austin a little bit and had the opportunity to actually go kayaking on their like Ladybird Lake, which runs through the downtown area. And I'd never been to Austin before and I was pleasantly surprised by their downtown area. And it's really cool that they have that river that runs right through it and you can take boats out on it. There was so many people. I did see bats. Yes, yes. The bats were super cool. Yes. That was so neat. And, and also I visited some of the like lakefront neighborhoods that have been developed and they have boardwalks and trails and yeah, it was a really nice trail system that they've built and kind of trail oriented development system that they've built along the river.
- [48:16]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, it's such an amazing city. I haven't been there in a couple of years and every time I see pictures, it is amazing how transformative that city has been. And there've been lots of, from planning and coding, lots of really smart people working in Austin. It is a place. I'm glad you spent time there. There's a lot to learn from a place like that.
- [48:44]
Abby
Yeah. And it definitely wasn't even enough time. There's just, there's so many other neighborhoods that since I've been there, people have said, oh, you should go here and there. And so at some point, I'll find my way back to Austin. And if anyone out there in the ether has recommendations, I'm definitely open to them. I will say I had some the best tacos that I've ever had here. So that was fun. Good food.
- [49:10]
Edward Erfert
Awesome.
- [49:12]
Abby
Well, thank you, Edward, for joining me today. This was a fun story, and. Yeah, join me anytime. And anytime you have a. A niche story like this, I. I'm always. Yeah, I'm always happy to have a conversation about it. So, yeah, thanks.
- [49:29]
Edward Erfert
Awesome. Thank you, Abby. It's always a pleasure to be here. And it's fun talking, planning stuff. I. I hope interesting, but I struggle with planners and. And all of these things we put in our complicated systems, and it's. It's nice to talk to somebody about it and help. It's a little therapeutic to go through and shine some light on some aspects that I'm not. You deal with way more than I do, and I appreciate that input.
- [49:57]
Abby
Well, when you go to planning school, they don't tell you that you're signing up for a lifelong existential crisis. So you're not alone. You're not alone. It's a tough gig. All right, well, thanks again, and thank you, everyone, so much for listening to another episode of Upzoned. Catch you next time.
- [50:32]
Edward Erfert
Tonight.