Rob Nanfelt, Executive Director of REBIC in Charlotte, NC, is our usual host for Getting Real With Rob. But today, he finds himself in the guest chair and interviewed by AnneMarie DeCatsye, CEO of Canopy REALTOR Association. In this episode he discusses all things UDO, (and becomes the victim of the Lightning Round questions himself!). His responses are comprehensive and detailed, giving us a valuable glimpse into the City of Charlotte’s master planning document.

Charlotte’s Unified Development Ordinance, referred to as the UDO, has been a point of celebration and angst since being implemented in June of 2023. As we revisit it one year later, questions and complaints about its content persist. However, our members should understand that REBIC has been working behind the scenes since long before the document was ever drafted. Key leaders in the development field worked during the review process to help insert reality into the paragraphs and sections of this complex document. One of the most fact-filled episodes we’ve ever recorded, Rob goes from A to Z explaining the phases of improvement we’re working to help refine. Many listeners may not know that REBIC has formally submitted over 30 change requests, using a form provided on the REBIC website. The party requesting a change can give give a complete and detailed picture of the issue, with context, and offer suggestions about what a change (or text amendment) should contain. Improvements to the document are made solely by the Planning Board, but our hope is that these amendments not only rectify faulty language, but help the UDO become more robust and real-time in the future.

By way of background, Rob Nanfelt, a long time Charlotte resident, joined REBIC as their Executive Director in the fall of 2109, bringing over 25 years of public policy experience to the position. The foundation for this knowledge was honed by his time as a political Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill and a decade long leadership position promoting advocacy for the Colorado Association of Home Builders.

If you work with Rob, you know he possesses a unique ability to quickly understand complex challenges and identify appropriate solutions and is known for easily guiding diverse parties with opposing goals toward common objectives. The statements, “Be overprepared. Stop complaining. Let’s discuss solutions, not problems.” are three of his favorite phrases. He deftly operates at the intersection between soundbite platitudes and real-life-on-the-ground execution believing that only when we examine true cause and effect can we expect to create a plan for meaningful change and achieve positive outcomes.

It wasn’t long into our interview before the conversation got really interesting: “I’ve lived in places that weren’t growing. You don’t want that. It’s sad, actually…” stated our guest Bart Landess, The Executive Director of the Catawba Lands Conservancy and The Carolina Thread Trail. You wouldn’t think our greatest supporter would be a conservationist, but growth and conservation can be complimentary. This all plays into his greatest hope, that we can preserve natural spaces that keep our region beautiful and our people healthy, and it also made plain that conservationists understand municipal growth as much or more than anyone. And that, when planned properly, with an eye for keeping open space accessible, growth can be a very positive thing. “Most folks who are into conservation are big fans of density, because if you have a denser development, it means you can leave green space, and still have the same number of units.”

As we chatted about the planning history of Charlotte, the ‘how we got here’ narrative that fits for most cities that grew quickly in the 20th century, we learned how we shifted from necessary small clusters of homes and businesses with everything close by and lots of parks, to car-centric housing developments that lack essential amenities like grocers and parks because it was assumed that homeowners would drive to get to them. It is a perspective REBIC is excited to share with you, and we were proud to have Bart in the booth. After you listen, we hope you’ll share this episode because Bart is a great asset to our community. And loves to help offer insight and guidance about the transformative powers of open space.

Bart Landess feels like this career is his calling. Originally from Virginia, he spent his childhood on his grandparents’ farms, working in construction, hiking, camping, trail running, even spelunking (really!). With an idyllic summer mixed in, where he worked in a state park renovating old trails. As Bart happily regales stories and shares facts, you feel smarter and happier about dirt in general. And you feel this urge to find shoes you can get dirty so you can walk a trail with him, instead of being stuck in a studio. But then because he’s so full of facts you don’t want to forget, you are glad the record button is ‘on.’ For instance, do you know what a Paw Paw fruit is? Had you considered that Charlotte’s native forests long, long ago were not pine, that pine was planted for the pulp industry? And did you know that Mountain Island Lake provides drinking water for 10% of North Carolina’s citizens? Yeah…where are my hiking shoes?

A little bit more about Bart, he arrived in Charlotte to attend Davidson College as a young man and began practicing law in Charlotte in 1986 with Smith Helms Mulliss and Moore. Going on to work at Davidson College from 1990-1999, then progressing on to the Foundation for the Carolinas for 10 years, he was also with the YMCA of Greater Charlotte from 2010-2019 before coming to Catawba Lands Conservancy and Carolina Thread Trail. When asked to summarize the mission he represents, he shares, “At CLC and CTT, we stress the enhancement to quality of life and health that comes from natural spaces and trails, and work now to assure that, as we double in size in the next 30 years, those values are preserved for future generations and our region remains a beautiful and wonderful place to live and work.”

Listen to and share this amazing podcast!

Let’s hit this topic head on: The crux of the no-growth argument contends that by stopping growth, current residents can keep things stable and unchanged. Although avoiding change is impossible and unhealthy, they ignore this decision’s devastating results proven out repeatedly across the country such as skyrocketing taxes, shrinking access to housing, the inability to attract the best talent to fill needed service positions, business failure, even a disconnect from funding at the state and federal level. Towns age out, infrastructure deteriorates, young people stay away, and regret sets in.

In this vein we were pleased to invite Chris Carney, Mayor of Mooresville, to our sound booth this month. He is both a leader, guide, and an equalizer. Contending with these passionate sentiments daily, he is slowly and surely helping his Town Commissioners and residents cooperate at the ground level promoting solid financial strategies. With deft charm, logic, and irrefutable facts he explains how crippling the no-growth outcome is to any area. How? Listen to this enjoyable episode and find out.

Just 3 days after the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) announced an agreement that would end litigation of claims brought on behalf of home sellers related to broker commissions, Anne Marie DeCatsye, Esq., and CEO of Canopy Realtor® Association joined us in the podcast booth. She shared her insight regarding the impact the settlement has on our region and gave us a preview of Canopy’s upcoming Members Value Campaign, intended to unify the voice of the Canopy membership to all buyers and sellers. She mentioned that unlike other states that are scrambling, NC has always had mandatory buyer agency agreements. But this episode touches on more than just this issue. What many may not know is that Anne Marie, (who tells us one of her biggest pet peeves is people calling her Anne, and that bacon and brussels sprouts is amazing,) served as a deputy executive director for REBIC from 1995 to 2000.

As our conversation ran the gamut from macro to micro, including encouraging everyone in the REBIC membership to do their homework about the inherent value of a Realtor®, she shared her opinions about how essential it is to keep in check policy-overreach that prevents builders from being able to build affordable housing. She also commented passionately on the collaborative value of homebuilders, commercial real estate professionals, and the Realtor® community who decide to work together. We cannot leave out how strongly she admonished us all to register to vote!

Nationally, DeCatsye serves on the Realtor.com MLS Advisory Board, the MLS GRID Board of Managers as corporate secretary, and represents Canopy MLS on the MLS Roundtable, an industry thought-leadership group. She was recently appointed to the Broker Public Portal (BPP) Board of Managers, a collaborative venture between real estate brokerages and MLSs. She is frequently sought out by local and national media to comment on the Charlotte regional housing market regarding issues impacting the industry, and is a popular and respected speaker, having been invited to share her expertise on many influential industry panels.

Listening to Anne Marie’s opinions is a worthy endeavor, as her pedigree is vast. In addition to a bachelor’s in English and philosophy from Creighton University, DeCatsye earned a law degree from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., while working full-time on Capitol Hill. DeCatsye has received an impressive number of awards and recognition, including that she was named one of Charlotte’s Most Admired CEOs in 2019 and 2022 by the Charlotte Business Journal. In 2009, she was awarded the Charlotte Business Journal’s Women in Business Award and recognized by The Mecklenburg Times as one of Charlotte’s Most Influential Women. Early in her career, she was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal in 2021 as one of Charlotte’s 40 under 40. She has been honored in the industry by RISMedia as a 2022 Real Estate Newsmaker in the “Crusaders” category and named one of the most powerful people in real estate since 2018, in the Swanepoel Power 200 report.

DeCatsye currently serves on the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Legal Action Committee. She previously served on the Council of MLSs Board of Directors, the NAR Board of Directors representing large regional MLSs, the NAR Association Executives Committee (AEC), the MLS Executive Advisory Group to the NAR Leadership Team, the NAR AE Strategic Actions Committee, and several other NAR committees, including the NAR Housing Summit, Governance Presidential Advisory Group, and the Risk Management Committee. She also served as chair of the MLS Executives Forum.

To read her entire bio and understand the depth of her local influence and insight, go to our member spotlight page here.

We welcome Charlotte Mayor Pro-Tem Danté Anderson and City Councilperson Marjorie Molina to today’s episode of Getting Real With Rob.

This is an episode where listening between the lines is how to truly enjoy the discussion. If we’d begun the interview by asking each of them for a pedigree of education, experience, degrees, and accomplishments, we’d still be talking. Our guests are two intelligent, dedicated, personable, and approachable leaders, whose ability to create a familiar and warm environment is almost incongruent with the challenges they’ve navigated as they rose to success. They were candid and revealing during our familiar lightning round. And candid and honest during the questions.

If we’d only had more time; but we believe this episode was exactly as it was meant to be.

What is the content? Listen to Rob deftly humanize the issues near and dear to two people who represent a great deal of talent and passion for the City of Charlotte. Hear him uncover their deepest goals for their service as leaders in one of the most influential cities in America. What are their passions? Quantitative and qualitative information is just one strategy they use. As well as applying metrics as the lens for debate and decision, so outcomes can be measured and leveraged for even more progress. Even their cadence of speech suggested patience and listening: Stop and slow things down and look at the future based on collective priorities and meaningful debate. Mayor Pro-Tem Anderson brought up the need for digital equity. A term that should not be underestimated in terms of equalizing opportunity. Councilperson Molina shared the extreme importance of understanding the overlap of what feels like repetitive information but that is necessary in dissecting information. It’s how she digs into facts and doesn’t gloss over them. Both emphasized the need for sensible and immediate solutions are needed to create housing that is affordable for work-force employees throughout the region.

The rest of this episode -- although flooded with valuable opinion and stunning fact -- is pure pleasure.

Thinking outside the box doesn’t aptly describe the way Douglas Welton, Chairman of the Planning Commission for Charlotte/Mecklenburg, approaches the idea of change. For him, he doesn’t even see a box. He sees an open landscape of ideas, opinions, and solutions just waiting to be deconstructed and rebuilt into something new. Professionally he boasts a strong background that ratifies his claims. As the Chief Product Officer at einstein’s legacy v2.0, a company that creates innovative software products for Apple users in the media and video arena, he’s used to viewing problems as teaching moments. In fact, when one visits his website, Douglas describes himself as possessing “…strong leadership for cross-functional teams that enables the creation of winning products, enhances productivity, and ensures the delivery of predictable, measurable results.” He goes on to say he is a “…Prolific idea generator with an adept editorial sense for producing simple, effective, and elegant solutions. Exceptional communication skills that engage and influence team members, executive management, clients, and the media through the many technical, financial, aesthetic, and emotional elements of creating extraordinary products.”

We’re in. Who needs a box anyway?

After a fun lighting round that opened some fun personal dialog, this episode started digging deep into the issues Charlotte faces today with growth and policymakers searching for the best way to stay ahead of future problems. He believes it will take more than just following old ideas to move us forward successfully. It will take trust between policymakers and developers, and an atmosphere where everyone is free to ask, “why?” Among the subjects broached were how he sees the UDO changing and better aligning itself with real-world development needs for which he replied that he welcomes people coming in and really tearing deeply into the language and structure of the document. We told him REBIC is all in!

As we ended this episode, we couldn’t resist asking him about a quote on his website that states, “When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take a step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.” His explanation for this quote? That in the end, there is always something solid for us to stand on. We just have to believe it is there. 

*****

His concrete responsibilities as Planning Commissioner include providing advice and affirmation on long range growth, land use, urban design, transportation, and recommendations for capital projects and sale of real property. Major policy and ordinance initiatives include Charlotte’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan, the associated 2040 Policy Map, and the Unified Development Ordinance. He is also a member of the Executive Committee.

Hey, listeners, get ready for the rush. This fast-paced, funny, and very educational interview with Representative Jason Saine is our first podcast episode for 2024; and what a way to begin! As the Representative for the 97th North Carolina House District (Lincoln County, NC), Rep. Saine is serving his seventh full term in the North Carolina House. He was appointed by Speaker Tim Moore in 2019 to serve as a Senior Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for preparing the state’s $32 billion dollar budget. He previously served as the Senior Chairperson of the House Finance Committee from 2015-2018 where Chairman Saine passed over $1 billion in tax cuts for working families across North Carolina. Rep. Saine was also the founding chair of the IT Appropriations Subcommittee and the IT Joint Oversight Committee, which has led sweeping reforms and advancements in state IT procurement and security policies.

But let’s talk about Jason, the person. As we get into the meat of the interview, you hear a man who is passionate about the good side of politics, who doesn’t use power, he understands it and makes it work like it should. Through it, he has propelled forward a common-sense approach to growth, business, finance, and relationships. As we began the episode, the speed at which we blew through what we like to call our “lighting round” set the stage for the rest of the interview. (Think light-speed.) And we quickly discovered that Representative Saine is a true, from-the-beginning-fan of Star Wars. It makes sense, then, that he is a disciplined and addicted gamer. Where he does his thinking and planning, and his passion for winning! And with only a few hours of sleep at night, he still seems to rise with dozens of new ideas and strategies he will implement in his endeavors to improve the lives of all North Carolinians. In reality? We could have interviewed him all day. 

What else is noteworthy in his list of accomplishments? Representative Saine currently serves as a member of the Federal Communications Commission Intergovernmental Advisory Committee (IAC). In this role he helps provide guidance, expertise, and makes recommendations to the Commission on a range of telecommunication issues for which local, state, and tribal governments explicitly or inherently share responsibility or administration with the Commission. He served four years as the North Carolina State Chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council before accepting a position as the National Chair of the organization in 2018 and he continues as a Board Member and collaborates with legislators across the United States to support model policies that advance limited government, free markets, and federalism. 

Strap-in folks for the wild ride with Rep. Jason Saine and the ever-curious Rob Nanfelt in this episode of Getting Real with Rob!

With more than 10 years of land planning and urban design experience in both the private and public sectors, you’ll find our November 2023 interview with Bridget Grant, guest on the podcast Getting Real with Rob, to be entertaining and educational.

Bridget is the co-head of zoning, entitlement, and land use for Moore Van Allen. But we also discovered she is an accomplished artist. Balancing her professional life with the absolute commitment to dedicating one day a week to her craft, that of painting landscapes in oil. 

As our conversation segued from personal to professional, she was quick to point out that she believes the entire entitlement and land use process needs a “more thoughtful approach.” She believes that we all need to come to the table willing to tie every process to understanding the original “why” for the development. By uncovering that original story or vision, she shares, all parties can infuse the process with elements that help create a better overall project, ultimately making it better for the entire community.

Her responsibilities are vast with Moore Van Allen, and center on helping clients navigate various regulatory environments associated with entitlement and permitting processes, including rezoning efforts, subdivision compliance, land use ordinance and planning projects and transportation and master planning matters. Bridget’s planning and design experience includes zoning interpretation, land development permitting, long range comprehensive land use planning, land acquisition for public spaces, greenway master planning and construction management, and corridor revitalization initiatives. Her experience has given her extensive knowledge in coordinating public/private projects and developing solutions that balance community interest, regulatory standards, and real estate trends.

Before joining the firm, Bridget was a planning coordinator for the City of Charlotte providing technical and design guidance on complex development projects, policy implementation, and community planning. She served as the project manager leading the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Zoning Ordinance rewrite, administered the City’s Mixed Used Development District and was involved in day-to-day land development and policy decisions for south Charlotte including the Park/Montford, SouthPark and Ballantyne areas, as well as many other projects.

Moore Van Allen recently announced that Bridget has been selected as a Connect CRE (Commercial Real Estate) 2023 Women in Real Estate Awards winner in the Atlanta & Southeast region. Grant was selected as a winner from among more than 500 submissions from companies across the country. 

Bridget is an active member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), serving on the ULI Charlotte District Council as a member of the ULI Women’s Leadership Initiative and as a local ULI mentor, and as a former member of the national ULI Urban Development Mixed Use Product Council. She is also a member of the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, and NAIOP, one of REBIC’s Primary Members.

Enjoy this episode!