[00:00:00] Speaker A: The truth could break through.
Welcome back to Housing Voices. I'm Brie.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And I'm Marty.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And we're here with part two of our conversation with Ryan McAllister from Gerding.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: It was so cool. He had so much information and perspective, and I appreciated the fact that he came to the table with heart and that he really just wanted to talk. And so we couldn't. We couldn't shut that interview down.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: No, I didn't. I didn't want to stop because there was so much good content and really good conversation. I got to ask, I think, pretty much every one of my burning questions, but they'll find. They'll find out in this part two.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Right. So welcome to part two of Girding Builders with Ryan McAllister.
This is Housing Voices from the porches
[00:00:52] Speaker A: and shelters, streets and the room.
If the house have voices, the truth could break through.
I also think those are really powerful tools like the muptis. And there are some. Some cities in Oregon that are addressing their SDCs to make it more favorable. Absolute builders to come.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Yep. They're deferring those. They're waiting, letting you wait till, you know, they're done with construction or whatever. It's great.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Which I agree is great. But there's also a flip side of that, too, that somebody's gotta pay for that stuff. Right. And somebody's gotta foot the bill for all of the utilities and the infrastructure in the city. And I'm not asking you to come up with a solution here, but I feel like in some ways, we may be in between a rock and a hard place here where there are cities trying to incentivize builders to make it more affordable so they can start construction and not have those heavy infrastructure charges and costs on the front end. But then also, there are a lot of cities that have very little room left in their capacity for their wastewater, their drinking water, and the. The electricity also, as we've talked about, too, and we're. We're in a tough position here where I don't think anybody, any city in the state of Oregon has enough money.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Absolutely. I would agree.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: In the state of Oregon also. Right. We just went through this disconnect from the federal system because of all of the changes that the Trump administration enacted.
Do you think that the state needs to be doing more in terms of. Because the state of Oregon is pushing a ton of money and a ton of resources towards this, and this $36,000 or 36,000 houses per year goal is
[00:02:48] Speaker C: a very high goal.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a Lofty goal.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: Very lofty.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Do you think that we can hit that goal without any more investments from the state?
[00:02:58] Speaker C: I mean the short answer is, I mean how much to your, to your point, how much more can the state do?
And then, so let, so then, then you start, then I would ask the question, so why are we in this predicament to begin with and is simply throwing more money at the problem going to fix the problem?
And so then that really starts to go and say what if we could really start pushing small business and have small business grow and if small business starts to grow and then all of a sudden you're creating living wage jobs out there and then you start, are you then able to not increase the tax base and then get additional funds to begin to support this? And so I think it's kind of a complicated thing to undo to say that simply changing all the regulations, throwing more money, I don't think that's going to probably fix the issue in its because I think it's so much bigger than that.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: And so I think, you know, what can we do today within the constraints we're within, the hand we're dealt to find a solution that at least begins to move us one step forward?
I think we're finding some of those little things and I think those little gems and can, you know, is it is it's just getting started, but could the notion of maybe some cottage cluster developments that you can get out there and sell to the first time home buyer, could that be the seed that starts the process? I think that's where we probably need to start looking because I don't know that we can.
How do you get to a wholesale change? I mean that feels like that's gonna take way too long to begin to kind of end time we don't have. That's right. With time we don't have. So I think we need to start thinking about it and we need to be looking at the macro side, but on the micro side, on the city by city basis, what can we do to start solving this little by little and can we get some groundswell momentum coming out of that?
Right. I mean, because if all of a sudden we've got homes to buy that are very, very affordable and then we can start creating an economy, you know, start having some jobs associated with that, you're going to start growing. And that's really, I think when you start, when, when you're growing, you have a lot of opportunity. When you're not growing, everything seems to be a problem. Yeah, so let's help that go forward.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: I'm gonna go back to our list of questions. Okay.
[00:05:32] Speaker C: I totally went off the train track.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: No, we collectively might have done that.
We've talked a couple times about things penciling out.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Today versus five and ten years ago.
What's the likelihood of something penciling out today? And what was the likelihood five and 10 years ago?
[00:05:55] Speaker C: That's a great question. Because it's fascinating looking at.
It was in 2013, which in my mind it wasn't that long ago.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: No, it wasn't.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: We were building market rate apartments for just over $100 a square foot. Wow. Down in Eugene.
Okay. And so now put it. And you put all this together and you look at what we're doing. The same type of development, similar type of development. Today you're 2 to 3x that. And so you start looking at the amount of cost it takes to build something.
It's just the.
That is a huge, huge issue. I mean, it's like the rock started rolling down the hill and costs started picking up and all of a sudden we hit the bottom. It was like, man, these are. It's expensive. But then you start peeling apart and looking at all the things that go into it. It's like, well, insulation used to be this much a square foot, and now it's this much a square foot. You know, lumber used to be this much a board foot. Now it's this much a board foot. And so it just keeps stacking on top of itself. So it is harder for things to pencil. And the margins, as far as, you know, your margins on the developer side and just the, the, the room you have for mistakes as far as what if something were to go wrong and you have a site that's got a buried log pond underneath it, which we've experienced that.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Oh, yes, we have.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: So that is a thing that really wrecks a project as far as wrecks a project from being built. And so if you even go back 10, 15 years, there was a lot more dirt out there.
That was. Yeah, it was fine. It wasn't great, but it was fine. We've used all the easy to develop dirt. The low hanging fruit, all the low hanging fruit is gone. And so now everything we're working on, generally speaking, has multiple layers of, be it wetlands, be it, you know, unsuitable soils. And so all that adds cost. And so just compounds the issue of like, why does this project cost so
[00:07:56] Speaker B: much, would you say? Or is it fair to say that the pandemic.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: And the rapid increase in of costs during that time period. Right.
Was one of the key triggers to the increase in price we saw.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: I still remember it was October, I think it was October of 2020, I think it was. Or October 2019.
May is 21.
But I remember it specifically because it was like in the period of a month we saw inflation hit construction at a pace I've never seen before. It was. We were, we were estimating projects and putting budgets together and pro formas were falling apart left and right, both on the public side, like school projects. On the private developer side, nothing penciled out and everything just kind of ground to a halt. So we've seen a massive run up in cost.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: And the builders, your. It's your responsibility to purchase that, to eat that cost.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Well, I mean what we're doing is as far as providing budgets to get to a. Let's call it a contract price.
And so that's where the projects fell apart is like couldn't even get to a contract price because the developer went into it with a pro forma saying, hey, we gotta get this point. And then we started moving forward. Then all of a sudden you just had this cascading amount of cost that piled in there. And then all of a sudden the pro forma was backwards and it's like, well, we're not gonna do it.
So projects that were in construction were in a real hurt because now you're like halfway through construction, all of a sudden you got a massive run up in material costs. And so that is its own unique challenge that is not fun to walk through. You know, how do you deal with that?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: How did you deal with that?
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Well, I mean you have to have very open and candid conversations because we're all being, you know, as far as a project team, we're all affected by this.
What is the goal is to get done? And if this is not penciling out, is there a way to scale this back so that we can actually still complete the project and not the subcontractors go bankrupt, not have a developer go bankrupt and not make pay, you know, not pay the job out. And so it's. There was no one solution. It was just a lot of conversations about this is a bit. Never experienced this before. What are we going to do? So we need to start again problem solving to figure out how do we get to the end here. And maybe the end means we're scaling the project back by 50% and phasing it and then doing a future phase down the road. And a lot of times that's what you really had to do is you had to really look at scope reduction to be able to get it to the point that you could use the available funds. Then you had to go back to the lender and say, by the way, all these changes, I know you landed on 100 units, but we're going to give you 50 units because it doesn't, we can't get there. So not easy conversations.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: No. And you have to navigate that yourself or if the state is involved, did you, did the state support at all?
[00:10:50] Speaker C: So when the, when the state was involved, because we were doing some affordable housing projects at that time, again, you're having those conversations and then, then it's really a matter of, you know, them looking at it saying, okay, what can we do? What tools do we have to go back? Because they were seeing projects that were basically hitting up against the wall that they're not going forward unless there's additional dollars or what do we need to do? Do we need to reset the pro forma, the deliverables? And so I think each project was looked at differently from a unique standpoint to figure it out.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: So we're going to go back and make you squirm a little bit.
[00:11:24] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Because we're going to talk about the policy and the process, the jurisdictions. Do you want to go?
[00:11:30] Speaker A: You can.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: All right.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: So with the city and the county,
[00:11:36] Speaker C: the one we're in right now, let's
[00:11:39] Speaker B: take that one for example. Is that where you'd like to.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: No, I didn't say that.
You said city and county. So city and county. Statewide or statewide? Yeah. Okay.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Yes, we'll do statewide.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: We want you to. Yeah. Continue to thrive.
[00:11:51] Speaker C: Continue to thrive, right, yeah.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Where typically in that process do things get hung up?
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Well, I'm going to tell you, it's, it really depends on where it, what the project is and where it sits.
Because if the project sits within the city limits, the county is usually not involved.
If the project is on kind of some of the fringes, then, then the county can be involved or if it's all county. And so I see most of the time, counties seem to have.
Cities have more resources because they're generally larger. Counties often farm out some of their plan review stuff to the city that they're in. And so there's a lot of cross, you know, pollination there, if you will.
I don't know that one is necessarily better than the other. It just, they fill different roles. I mean, counties are more familiar with rural development and cities, generally speaking, understand more dense development and Sometimes if you have a unique project that falls within a recently annexed area, you know, or it's touching county land and so you're working with multiple jurisdictions, there's a lot of conversations to be had there to make sure which rules apply and they don't always know. And so they have to go back and revisit everything. It's like, well, the last time we did this, this is the rule that applied.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: What part? If you could change a part of the code or regulations, what would you change?
[00:13:22] Speaker A: There's a lot of them.
[00:13:23] Speaker C: I know. It's like, well, where do you start?
[00:13:25] Speaker B: You can go through top three. It doesn't have to be just one,
[00:13:28] Speaker C: you know, I, I, I, I think so Here, here's what I would say. I, I think the way we do our land use today takes a lot more time than it should. I think land use is really important. When I say land use, it's like when you look at a piece of property and begin to determine how it can be used. If we need to change the zoning or we need to change the type of usage. But generally speaking it is, you know, it's a lot of times you find those, those properties within a, the city limits, but are maybe under an old zoning or. And so it's some of the old stuff that gets kind of sticky.
So really cutting to the chase though, you know, when we really look at brand new properties, I'm going to say properties that are available to build on within the city limits, that have, that are heavily encumbered by, I'll just say wetlands are a real challenge because you have multiple jurisdictions. Is it Department of State Lands, the Army Corps Engineer, or is it both?
[00:14:27] Speaker A: And you don't have clear guidance from the state on that?
[00:14:31] Speaker C: No. And so, and oftentimes when it's the Corps of Engineers, if you look at their required timeframe, they don't necessarily have a required timeframe and when they have to respond. So a project we recently were in the process of building in Linn county, we had to wait almost a year to hear back on some of the wetland issues.
That in my mind as a state, we've done this a lot. Most of the time and most of the properties that are even considered for, let's call it, potential development aren't your pristine. When I think of wetlands, that's what I think. Yeah. When I think of wetlands, I think of frogs and cattails and blackbirds and ponds and swamp water.
When you look at, you're not going to build a house there, you're not going to develop there. You know, when we look at, when we say wetlands, a lot of the valley area does flood from time to time and historically probably has been a wetland, but it's also been farmed for the last 50, 70, 80 years. And so when you look at the grassy field out there, you and I would both look at it and say, I don't see any cattails or bullfrogs or.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: It's a field with a wet spot.
[00:15:41] Speaker C: It's a field with a wet spot. And so how can we streamline that process? It still needs to go through a process so that we don't miss a step. But does it really need to take that long and be so onerous? If, you know, farmer Jim has been farming it for 50 years and been doing all the different soil amendments to grow grass seed, is it really a question?
I know it says it on a map, but that would be my first thing is like, can we take a look at that? Because that could really free up some land that is flat, that's not on a hillside. So you don't have to worry about slope stabilization issues. You know, you don't necessarily have to worry about wildfire issues because you're in the middle of the valley there. I mean, so, you know, what we don't want to do is push houses up into the hillside anymore because, you know, wildfires are going to continue to be a thing and good luck getting insurance on that.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, by the way. Yeah. And for folks who don't. Who don't really know, because I know generally there's a lot of wet land.
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: In western Oregon.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: A lot. A lot. Yes.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: And what are we supposed to do about it and how are we going to build on it? Because I've heard people bring up a credit system type of situation and I'm really not clear on that.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So part of the wet.
And let's say you want to develop some lands that are, you know, again, mapped as wetlands. And so you. And if you don't have the ability, there's a couple different paths and I won't go down in the weeds on it. But really cutting to the chase, so let's say I've got a five acre parcel and I want to develop all five acres. As for housing, and it's all zoned on a map, wetlands. But it's not denoted as significant wetlands. But I'm in theory taking that wetland inventory out of the available land to build on. Then I need to basically buy credits for wetland banking, which I totally Support wetland banking. Where you've got areas in the state where in the valley that you enhance. Say, if we're gonna have wetland, let's make it the best pond we possibly can. Let's have all sorts of frogs and, you know, blackbirds and all that stuff. And so what you're doing is taking, let's say I'm using the farmer's field and you're, you're buying, you're saying, I'm going to make this into a development and I'm going to take my five acres and, and invest those dollars into enhancing wetland over here. So maybe someone's already done it. So it's a bank.
And so you have to buy those credits. And so essentially, I mean, that's, that's great.
Essentially though, from a developer standpoint, it basically doubles the cost of the land. And so that's the real hard part is because it, last time I checked, it was over $100,000 an acre to, it's called mitigate the wetland. I think it's closer to 125 to buy. 125,000 per acre to buy a credit.
So again, you go back to how does it pencil and why are things so expensive if you just doubled the price of the land?
It's got to come out somewhere. And so it then goes all the way back to if we're doing something in the city.
Wetlands all have been taken care of. Right. We don't have, so can we solve, can we avoid wetlands altogether? That would be the preferred thing. Right.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Who do you buy the credits from though?
[00:18:54] Speaker C: There's a wetland bank and there's different wetland banks around.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: And by bank, I'm going to say it's a, it's a, it's a set aside piece of land that has been enhanced to certain standards that, you know, it's like, hey, I'm going to take, you know, I'm going to take as an example, I'm going to take 50 acres of farmer's field and I'm not no longer going to put grass seed in it, but it's been fairly boggy. I'm going to enhance it and make it more of a significant wetlands. That's my general understanding of now I've created a bank of 50 acres over here and I've sold, I can sell whatever I want to a developer. So then pretty soon I've sold, sold everything here. So it's like trades back and forth.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: And so there's, you're not limited in, in doing that. You can, for example, if you found a plot of land.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: Well, if we're out of wetland right now, we're. There's a shortage of banked wetlands.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Really?
[00:19:47] Speaker C: Yeah. In the Willamette Valley. And so our inventory is down to very, very small, if not much at all.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: So could I go make a wetland bank and then I can sell that to Girding?
[00:20:02] Speaker C: That's something you'd have to take up with the wetland bank people. I would say probably the deq, you know, Department of State lands on. How you establish that, where you establish it.
That's a great question.
I don't know why. I don't know the specific requirements of how we get a wetland bank established, but I'd be curious to know. Why do we not. Why is this now a factor limiting development? Because we don't have any more wetland credits available because the banking's full. It's like, what does that mean? How do we fix that? I mean, let's fix it, right?
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah, let's just fix it. Something pretty straightforward.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: It seems kind of silly. I mean, we should be able to fix it. We're smart people.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Well, and I think this is.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: We have the ability to be really smart.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: We really have that ability.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Well, it seems like a process that we have created. I mean, it is a process we created because all of this are. All of these are processes we've created. And you would think that for the state of Oregon, who is pedal to the metal in terms of growth for housing and housing production, that we would have solved something like this and also used our best and brightest minds to create an incredible research and science backed approach to this. Because I don't want to destroy like actual true wetlands.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah.
I think it's just when we start piling on layers upon layers upon layers and then we haven't stopped to say, well, how did we get here and are we in the right spot? Did we end up where we wanted to be? Or is there a chance that what could we do differently and still accomplish the same thing? And I know there's all these regulations, both state and federal, but we made the rules. Can we just not look at the end goal here and decide that is there not a way to unmake them or get them to a spot to say, we need to create this many more acres to solve this? Again, it's not like they're etched. Maybe they are etched in stone, I don't know. But you would probably know more.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: They. They are not. None of our laws are etched in stone and we can change everything. We're not stuck in the system, we can change it.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: So then I think that's really the conversation as far as, let's look at, you know, good intentions can sometimes just go awry, you know, because when they start and they evolve over time. But I think it's a very positive thing to protect and preserve our wetlands because once they're gone, they're gone.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: But let's think about this and understand how what is more significant than others and what is more valuable to us and how can we enhance it so
[00:22:30] Speaker A: well, and if it's a field that a farmer has been farming for generations or for 50 years, and it is technically a wetland, but not functioning as
[00:22:42] Speaker C: it's a mapped wetland on an overlay on a map.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: And I think that's the part where it's like, I'm curious about this one. Let's have a conversation about it and see is there a way to look at this differently and consider maybe we need to look at how we can, you know, or kind of by creating these really great rules that help us make sure we're not hurting anything, we're protecting all the wetlands. We've kind of painted ourselves into a corner right now. And so I think we need to start to look at how do we not do that anymore?
At least maybe it's just a short term solution to kind of get us unstuck and then reevaluating. I just think it's time we just looked at it again.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Right. Because with 3rd Street Commons, which was where we, I think initially met, it went solidly stopped for over a year because of a governmental agency worrying about a plume that was on an adjacent property beyond certain borders. And it took a year. Right. And that means people are without houses for that year or, you know, they're living on the street.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's.
I, I just think that we've kind of, again, painted ourselves in the corner is probably the best way to describe it. It's like, I, we're smart, we can figure this out.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: And I have a question. I'm not going to try to derail a conversation here. And we're talking about housing specifically, but for the wetlands piece, would you, if you were building a commercial, established a commercial business that's not housing, would you face the same roadblocks with the wetlands mitigation or anything else?
[00:24:14] Speaker C: It's just the property in general. Yeah, it's a development on a property that. First thing, when someone comes and talks to me about Property. First thing I want to do is look at where's it at and if there's a wetland and how much of the property's wetland is it?
That's the first question.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: How much does community resistance play into your work?
Has that improved with the.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: You know what? It is total. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: No, no.
[00:24:41] Speaker C: So it has improved. It's gotten better. It used to be the jurors, you know, the area around here was, you know, very much not in my backyard. Yeah, type of. Yeah, exactly. And I, I'm seeing that there's. It, you know, it's. Generally speaking, it's like, that's fine. I mean, we've got to begin to grow and begin to move forward. There's still going to be pockets of, you know, I don't really want this building here. Don't want this development.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Here's not enough parking.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Not enough parking and.
But I definitely think it's improved. So that's a good thing.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: That's great to hear.
[00:25:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Right. Because we have to find the silver linings.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: You do that very well.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: I do, yeah.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: And I'm like, so I'm going to ask you about how this is worse or how this is a worse development and then you bring in the silver lining. It's nice. Yeah.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Every now and again.
What trade offs are we avoiding as a community when it comes to housing?
[00:25:39] Speaker C: Can you say more about. When you, when you think about trade offs, what do you mean? What are we avoiding?
[00:25:46] Speaker B: What are we sacrificing?
When we think anything, is it, is there anything that we're really sacrificing in the housing or not willing to sacrifice
[00:25:58] Speaker C: in the housing conversation, in the conversation itself.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Like for example, maybe this isn't applicable to gerding because you're an employee owned operation, but are developers going to have to start maybe taking less profits?
[00:26:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that there was a time when, you know, when you were at least sitting back and observing and watching developers when they could, you could make a fair amount of money at the deal.
I don't think that time is anymore. And working closely with a number of them, you know, things have tightened up all the way across the board. And so I don't know that that's necessarily a thing. I mean, it just.
Because if it doesn't pencil, they're just not going to do it or they're not going to do it here.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:50] Speaker C: You know, I mean, I think that's the other Side is like, if it's not working in our state, are they just going to go find somewhere else to do it?
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: And you know, if that's the case, then is that good or bad?
I mean, we have to ask yourself that question. Is that a good thing that they're not going to do it here or is it a bad thing? And then I just kind of go back to, you know, if we've got some great programs out there that we want to support that are, you know, taxpayer supported, I would argue we need more taxpayers, which means we need more people in the state to pay taxes. And so how do you get. You need to grow the state. You know, looking at statistics today on the Oregonian is not good on our, you know, growth as far as, what was it, our birth rate and our death rate. It's like we're in retraction.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:38] Speaker C: And so we're trying to solve really complicated problems that require a fair amount of money and our budgets are really, really tight and our people are less. It's like, maybe we need to take a wholesale step back and decide what are our bigger priorities here because funds are not unlimited. And so. Yeah, I probably didn't answer your question, but.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: No, but it was a great, it was a great conversation partially. I'm like, that was really good.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: I also have another question. We had someone on the show, Cassie Wilson, she talks about housing for people with disabilities and accessible apartments versus Florida. Adaptive. Adaptive.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: Adaptive. Yeah.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: And we've heard kind of both sides of the conversation that it costs a lot to make apartments. And she said no. And that they were marginally more expensive or even not really.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it's when you go into it knowing you need to make them adaptive. I mean, for us, what that really means is when you're designing the apartments, you need to make sure that you've got your turn radiuses for the wheelchairs. You're thinking about your cabinet heights, your countertop heights. You're thinking about the grab bars in the bathrooms. You know, is it a roll in shower rol and tub or whatever. So you're designing that with purpose. And typically you're looking to do that all on the ground floor because that makes the most sense. And the project we're doing right now, the, you know, we're looking at the whole building as potentially adaptive, but you know, focusing on the ground floor as somewhere where it's like, well, just put in the grab bars, just make sure the showers are rolling. I mean, make it accessible. And so it's easy to do now it's a pain to do later when the walls are there.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: That's interesting that you say that because Cassie was talking about her experience as a person living with disabilities and trying to just find an apartment in Portland that it wasn't, it didn't always, it didn't sound like from her experience that a lot of builders thought about that straight away. Because in her experience, it was hard for her to find a ground floor apartment that was also fully adaptable. Right.
And do you think that we should make that a requirement for builders? Like, we're not hoping that they're thinking about it when they're building it. They have to.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: I think that there are certain requirements out there as far as minimums. And then there's developers out there that really do think about am I doing the right thing and am I asking the right question? And that's actually what gives me a lot of, makes me encouraged is finding those partners that, yes, it's about, you have to make, it has to be profitable.
But are we doing it for the right reasons? Are we making the right, you know, is it the right thing to do? Developer I'm working with right now is like, well, let's ask the question, is this the right thing to do? Should we do this now? I'm like, I love this. I mean, it's kind of a social conversation that you're having out there instead of like, no, man, we just gotta. There are other developers that. It's just like, just down and dirty, just cut, go, you know, just.
So when we seek to partner with developers, we really try to find like minded individuals, like minded firms that understand that you also need to do the right thing.
And I don't know that you can legislate the right thing. You can try, but someone that moves from a place of. I just want to make sure it's the right thing to do is like, what a breath of fresh air.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Wow, that's a really awesome developer. You'll have to share his name offline or get him to come on the podcast feed.
[00:31:01] Speaker C: He would be fantastic.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yeah, we would love that.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: Oh my goodness.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: We would love that. Because the way that Cassie had talked about it, that it, it wasn't the norm for that type of attitude to be encountered. And I think that she's on the fourth floor. Yeah.
[00:31:16] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: And we're like, why?
[00:31:18] Speaker A: She's got the apartment now? But that was also, that came at an extra cost for her because she had to jump out the apartment when it became available and her old lease was still going and that's just a lot of cost for folks to just find somewhere to live.
[00:31:33] Speaker C: Well, you know, even adaptive also fits the needs of seniors too. And so you think about that. You're kind of solving two for one because. Because as you get older, I mean, I live in a single story ranch house and guess what? I hate stairs. And so I'm super excited about something that is like I could potentially live here for a while because I don't want to have to go up and down stairs and I can just kind of roll around if I need to, you know. And so I think developers that, you know, look at does it fit the need of seniors is all going to fit the need of. Fit the needs of adaptable as well.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: So I know we're short on time and we've gone over and we really appreciate you, but we're not done because we're going to be a Pollyanna. Do the silver lining.
What should. Let's pick on some lenders. What should local lenders understand better about how your projects go, how they're built and how they could partner up with you?
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Most of the lenders on the larger projects are not local and they're more national.
And so when you're dealing with a national lender, not to throw rocks, but their level of understanding and caring is like the rules are the rules and this is what we need. And end of story, stop. If you want the money, this is what it is. So when we have the ability to work with local lenders, they genuinely are more understanding.
The number one, one of the biggest things to, you know, from, from a, just from a construction standpoint is making sure that the money has to get in the hands of the workers as soon as possible, meaning as soon as they're done, you know, we need to be able to pay them once a month or you know, in some so that they can, you know, get paid on a weekly basis from their employer. You know, it's this timely release of payments is super important. It's just keeping that flow going. And when things get tied up in, I'll just call it the paperwork side of things. And things bog down for two weeks when it puts pressure on the lowest common denominator, which is on the element that probably can least afford it. It's that trade partner out there, that painter, that sheetrocker, whatever that really is in their line of credit. And now they're gonna be in their line of credit for an extra two weeks because funding is being delayed and they still have to make payroll right and so we can't. If a particular piece of paper, a lien waiver, is, you know, doesn't have the right date on it, and it needs to have a different date. I mean, let's not take two weeks to review a new date. Or it's just. That's what we typically see is paperwork delaying the cash coming out to get to the workers.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: So I have one more question, and then we're going to ask about the action item.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: I mentioned we talked to Representative Gomberg. They are going into their long session this year in the state legislature. What do. Do you have any words?
What should they know as they're going into it? Because we talked to them about the need for infrastructure, the water and the grid and. And all of that. Is there. Do you want to add to that or is there anything else as they're going into it?
[00:34:41] Speaker C: I just. I feel like. I just. I don't feel like we've gotten enough clarity on how we solve the.
The land issue. You know, I mean, it just.
Cottage cluster housing is going to fill a niche in an existing built environment. Is it going to be the single solution that gets us there? No, we're still going to need to activate some properties that are within the urban growth boundary that are now zoned on a map saying they're wetland, but they're still a farmer's field that have been farmed for 50 years.
How do we solve that problem? How do we make that easier so that we're not having to basically double the price? The dirt from a starting place, you're going to kill affordability if you're start doubling the price of the dirt.
I mean, you really are.
And so if that's really what we're trying to do, how can we reduce that so we can get these starter homes and pass along? Because if the dirt is half the price, then that's going to fall right into the cost of the house going out the door.
Right. Or if it's double the price, it's gotta be passed through because you can't absorb it.
So that would be my thing is like, let's figure out a way to streamline this or look to how do we untangle this mess? Because it feels like until we get our arms around that, we're going to be stuck for a little while and projects are going to be stuck. Yeah, yeah.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: So what I'm hearing is the two big obstacles. There's wetlands and power.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: Yeah, infrastructure.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Infrastructure.
[00:36:10] Speaker C: Yeah, they're all.
Yes, both of those.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: So we kind of gave you A little advanced warning.
We want to give our friends and people who. It's probably just our friends at this point who are watching and listening.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: We want to give them an action item, something to take away, something that they can do to help make a difference.
What is that for today?
[00:36:36] Speaker C: I would say for me it's, I think we just have to, it feels like the problems we're dealing with, let's just. I'm going to go back to wetlands just because it's near and dear to my heart.
That is something that, you know at a local level. I know there's local municipalities that are in jurisdictions that really want to see it solved, but their hands are tied. And so it's really like figuring out how do we get involved or who do we need to be talking to at the state level and is it even the federal level? If the Corps of Engineers, how do we begin to be a part of the conversation and say, I know this is in your manual that's six inches thick, but can we have a conversation about this? And so I would say let's get involved in the conversation about our state when it comes to these issues surrounding wetlands. And how can we take the insignificant, mind you, the insignificant wetlands, the farmer's fields that are just farmers fields for a hundred years and how can we look at a way to maybe create a different classification for them and have that conversation? So I'd say that's where I think it needs to go.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Excellent. Cool. Well, thank you so much for spending so much time with us and talking about a pretty broad.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: Kind of went off on the rabbit trail there.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: That's what we do. But thank you so much, Ryan. Thank you, Alison.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: Appreciate it.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: And I'm Bri.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: And I'm Marty. And thank you for. I forgot what I was supposed to say.
I don't know.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: And I'm Bri.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: Oh, you might have.
[00:38:15] Speaker D: And that's Marty.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: And this is Housing Voices.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Good job.
[00:38:19] Speaker C: Good job.
[00:38:20] Speaker D: Solutions Meet.
A special thanks to our partners Marty Bulford.com and Cynet.net for supporting thoughtful dialogue around housing in our communities.
Music for Housing Voices is provided by Karen DeWolf and Adrienne Kriz. Thank you for helping us set the tone.
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Until next time, this is Bre. Let's keep listening. Keep learning and keep building practical housing solutions together.
