Community Involvement

[Bruce Klafter <bklafter@orrick.com>]

I think Peter's comment about community
involvement being "uninteresting" to developers
has been taken somewhat out of context.

Developers are interested interested in designing
projects that will meet their financial objectives and
which can be accomplished without extraordinary
transactional costs (including time and money).

Developers are undoubtedly interested in good
relations with the surrounding community and
community support (or at least non-opposition).  I
believe most developers, however, are not
interested in spending a lot of time working to
facilitate community involvement, i.e. they would
welcome the input, but they're not going to organize
it.  An exception might be in the case of a complex
site, such as a heavily contaminated one, where the
cleanup (and redevelopment) can only be
accomplished with community backing.

In terms of the conference, I think it is correct to
state that a heavy emphasis on mechanisms for
fostering community involvement will be of marginal
interest to many developers.  I would "pick my
spots" without placing too much emphasis on the
subject.   Developers are not some sort of
"necessary evil."  The vast majority of brownfields
projects will be accomplished with private funds,
with private objectives being foremost.  Publicly
funded projects may be exemplary and very
worthwhile, but they will be less common.