[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi, I'm John Koh and welcome to Icons of DC Area Real Estate, a one on one interview show highlighting the backgrounds and career trajectory of leading luminaries in the Washington, DC area real estate market. The purpose of the show is to highlight their backgrounds and their experiences and some interesting stories about their current business as well as their past, and to cite some things that you might take away both from educational standpoint as well as lessons learned in the industry and some amusing and sometimes interesting background stories. So I'm hoping that you will enjoy the show. Before I introduce my guest, I'd like to share that both this podcast and the community I started in 2021, called the Iconic Journey in Cretever, is now part of a new nonprofit organization with that same name. The new company will offer opportunities for sponsorship to grow the community both in membership and in programs. It also allows you as listeners to show your appreciation for this podcast, which has delivered episodes twice monthly since August 2019 with a charitable contribution.
Transitioning the community and podcast into the nonprofit organization is underway. The community, which is open to commercial real estate professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 years old, is currently up to 65 members and growing. If you would like to learn more about either joining the community or contributing to the podcast, please reach out directly to me at John coenterprases.com, separately, my private company co enterprises. Now we'll focus only on advisory work for early stage real estate firms and career counseling. If you have interest in learning more about its services, please please review my
[email protected]. dot thank you for listening. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Icons of DC Area Real Estate. My guest for today's show is Rachel Flynn.
Rachel is a DC native. She grew up here and went to school at Catholic University and then went on into the architectural profession.
She up until July of this year, she had worked as the deputy county executive of Fairfax County, Virginia.
But now this, just this summer, she relocated to Greeley, Colorado and is now the deputy city manager of Greeley.
So during this interview, I actually interviewed her in May and didn't know she was making that move. And then I learned subsequently. So we had a subsequent conversation just recently. This was in late August. So this conversation, this will be released in September.
So we have basically two conversations with Rachel, and the first one was in May and it talks about her career up until Fairfax, and then we talk about her Colorado venture.
So some takeaways for this conversation is that she was in architecture.
Then she went on to Harvard's planning school at Kennedy School, learned that and went into the public sector and had several roles, starting at the city of Lynchburg, Virginia, planning director, then the city of Richmond, Virginia. Then she went to Abu Dhabi, the Middle east.
She came back to the United States, took on the city of Oakland, California, then two private sector jobs, one with Lennar, the home builder, and the second one with Google in California. So she was in California for about eight years, nine years, and then came back to Fairfax County, Virginia, and she was there for four years until four and a half, until she left recently to go to Greeley.
She brings a new urbanist approach to the planning sector, you know, very forward thinking. She comes from somewhat of an activist political background with her family, so she's very on top of it and very assertive in her moves, which was controversial occasionally. So you'll hear about it in this interesting conversation with Rachel Flynn. Please enjoy.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: So welcome, Rachel. Thank you for joining me. For icons of DC area real estate, I've overviewed your background in the introduction.
You joined Fairfax county as deputy county.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: Executive, county executive planning and development recently.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Before we dig further in that, please tell us about your origins and youth and parental influences, if you would, please.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: Of course. I grew up actually in this area. I was born in Washington, George Washington hospital, and my parents had lived in the district, but moved out to the suburbs in Silver Spring, out by Springbrook High School, if you know where that is. And so I grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland, but went back and forth between public and private schools and irish catholic family. And so we went to some catholic schools. And my dad was in politics. He was a lawyer who worked for Hubert Humphrey for a time. He was his legislative aide in the Senate. So every senator has what they call an laden, and he did that. And that was in the early sixties. So he was actually part of the writing of the civil rights bill and the voting rights bill that Humphrey was so passionate about. It's why he joined him. And he was. My dad was originally from Minnesota, so that was the link. And what was interesting, a lot of Minnesotans were coming to DC, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, Humphrey and others.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: So he was LBJ's vice president.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: He was.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Right. So LBJ was really the civil rights guy.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: He was, yes.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: And Humphrey first introduced it in a famous 1948 speech that he gave saying, we have got to do.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: I didn't realize it went back that far. 1948, my goodness.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Yeah. The famous line, people say it's too soon. I say we're 100 years too late. And so he was the one who really pushed it through with Johnson.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah, it was fascinating time. And then my mom, she's originally from New York City, irish immigrant parents, and came down to DC to go to Catholic you. And she was working on her doctorate, and then she actually joined the convent and went to Lourdes in France and was a carmelite. It was really. She was a novitiate. They called them in to see if you like it, if they like it. And she decided she had met my dad before she left, so I think she decided she wanted to come back and be with him and have a family. So there are six kids in the family. I'm in the middle. I know you're wondering how that works, but I have a twin brother, so we're in the middle. And then she started working part time as a social worker, therapist, and then went back to Catholic U and became a professor of social work until she died, sadly. They died in the eighties. They were young, and they were in their sixties, so that was sad. But we all pulled together, and it was a great upbringing, a lot of political activism. My parents were very interested in the anti war movement and civil rights movement. And I remember coming down here a lot for marches, for speeches and whatnot. And DC was a very different city then, as you know. Yeah. There was northwest, which was, you know, fine and wealthy for the most part, but where we're sitting today, union market.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: So you lived here during the riots in 1960?
[00:08:45] Speaker C: We did, yep. I remember my mom had us go around the neighborhood and collect food in a wheelbarrow.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: My sister. Really? We were so embarrassed. We didn't want to do it, but now we look back and go, yeah, we were part of that. Part of that movement.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: How old were you when the speech on the mall took place? Martin Luther King's speech?
[00:09:04] Speaker C: I would have been 53. Four.
I was a little young then. Yeah, I didn't go to that.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: But your parents go to that, you.
[00:09:10] Speaker C: Know, I don't know if they were. Yeah, they might.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: If you were in that movement, I would think they would have.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: You would have thought. Yeah. I'll have to ask my siblings. That has never come up. It's interesting.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Cause that was such an incredible time in Washington.
[00:09:23] Speaker C: It was. It was exciting.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: So where did you go to high school?
[00:09:26] Speaker C: I went to Springbrook for one year, and then I switched to Holy Cross, which is in Kensington.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Yes. It's very close to where I live.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah. And I wanted to be in a smaller school. It was all girls. It was perfect. I really, really enjoyed it. My sisters went to Stone Ridge. Half the family was like public school, half was private. So we had a nice blend of it all.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Well, since your mother taught at Catholic, I assume that's why you went there. Is that part of the reason, or.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: Yes. So she said, okay, kids, here's how it works. You can go to catholic u for free or go where you want and pay.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: So, okay.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: We got dozens of degrees out of catholic U. I loved it. It was a great school. It was a great school.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: So is that where you got interested in architecture? Because I know that was your interest.
[00:10:16] Speaker C: Well, interestingly, my dad, before he switched to law, he was an architecture major, University of Minnesota. And someone said, you should be a lawyer. And so he was always pointing out buildings and planning. He would talk about DC and what was happening architecturally and planning wise. So I think I just developed a sensibility. So I started as a music major, a cellist, and was going to be a symphony cellist, but I didn't really love it. I liked it. It was a great thing. It was a good discipline. For me, you're alone most of the time. I practice 6 hours a day. When I was with people, I'd be in either the symphony or a quartet. And all the cool kids were architects. They were studying architecture. So I said, I want to go where the cool kids are. And I think I had had that in the back of my mind with my dad's background.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: I see you always had an architectural school. Yes, it has. It's interesting.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: It was great. A terrific program. And, you know, right here, nation's capital. We would come down and our assignments would be to come down and look at the pension building. I'm sure you've seen that. That was shocking when we walked in and just a remarkable building and, you know, various churches and what have you. So it was a great Monaco hotel now, isn't it?
[00:11:37] Speaker B: I believe isn't the pension building.
[00:11:39] Speaker C: It's the design center. Design museum.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Oh, the design museum.
[00:11:44] Speaker C: Okay, cool. I know. Or building museum, I guess. Yeah.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Oh, the building museum. Oh, right, sure. Okay, got it. That's a gorgeous building.
[00:11:53] Speaker C: That is.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: So, so rare.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: So then you went into architecture. I did talk about that trajectory, yep.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: So at that time, they had a four year program. Now for architects, it's either five or six if you get a master's, but it was a four year program. And then I also became interested on the construction side of it.
And they had a one year master's program. And a professor said, you know, if you stay one more year, you can get a master's, too. And I said, all right. So I stayed one more year, and I got a master of science in engineering with a focus on construction management.
Then after I graduated, I actually moved to Paris because I always wanted to live in Paris. And I thought, if I don't do this now. So I went for the summer, and he was actually an architect. She taught English, and I lived with a french family when I say he and she. And then they had two little kids. And so I was, you know, your french au pair and or american au pair in France. And my mom and dad came to visit that summer, and my mom said, oh, honey, you should stay for the whole year. This is remarkable. They had a great apartment. And I said, oh, you know, I need to get back and work. And she goes, you have the rest of your life to work. You should stay. It was really good advice and loved it. Met a lot of people, developed a real sensibility for opera and art, and it's just different focus. The architecture of Paris and that, too.
It's just the greatest city. It really is. And it was right at my doorstep. So I went there, and then I came back, and then I started working as an architect in New York City. And why New York?
We would go a lot to visit because my mom had grown up there. She grew up on the Upper west side at Morningside Heights, which was a big irish neighborhood, so we were used to it. And I thought, I want to be where the action is. And everybody said, oh, it's so expensive, and, you know, like what we're hearing now. And so with New York, either you live in a shoebox or you have four roommates. And so I did a little of both, but I wanted to be in New York. You don't need a car, which is nice.
So I ended up with a firm called Cannondesign, which is now a national firm. They actually started outside of Buffalo, two brothers, and then bought Warneke, if you remember Wernicke.
I believe he did the building behind the Renwick. And it was actually a muckity muck with the Kennedys and others. And so they bought that company. And one office was New York and another was Boston. And I was working on a project in Boston, and my sister was living there. So I decided to transfer to that office, and we did a lot of work for Boston University. They were expanding quite a bit at the time. So I went there and was probably in Boston about five years. And then Cannon also focuses on healthcare, and they were doing a hospital outside of Toronto, and I had the flexibility to be able to move. So I moved to Toronto for a year. And Toronto is a combination of New York run by the Swiss is how they describe it.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: That's interesting. I never heard that description before.
[00:15:22] Speaker C: It's so clean and safe. And, yeah, Canada has a different vibe. I couldn't always put my finger on it, but it's a different place.
And then I also had a brief stint in Tel Aviv. Canada was doing the children's hospital outside of Tel Aviv in Petitikva. So I went to Israel during, it was during the war when Kuwait in Iraq, and no one would go. And I said, there's no safer place than Israel. I mean, the IDF. Wow. So I went. It was a fabulous experience. I got to go during construction. So I helped them with the construction administration side, and I did that also while I was in Boston. And that was one area where women just weren't getting involved. And one of the partners was very open to it and said, yeah, sure. And I did a great job, and I really wanted to see how buildings were getting built. You know, we did these drawings. We were out in the design, we were managing the design, but I wanted to actually be out there and see it come together.
Then my parents died, so I moved back to DC and just to be closer to my brothers and worked in the office here, cannon office in Georgetown on a variety of projects. And about that time, I thought, I don't know if I want to do one building at a time. I want to. I'm more interested in the big picture on how cities develop. Like, why are you even putting this building here? It should go over there.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: I want to get into why you. Maybe you pivoted to the public sector through your education, going to. You went on to Harvard at that point. I mean, a lot of people that are in an architecture as long as you were thinking, oh, my gosh, I look at my clients and say, hmm, I want to do that. I want to be a developer. I want to do that. Why didn't you have that urge as opposed to going on the other side to the public sector, just out of curiosity?
[00:17:26] Speaker C: Well, actually, that was on my mind. Like, should I be a developer?
Should I go into public service where we're building cities and directing developers really what we want? So I didn't really know. I went to the Kennedy school, and my focus was urban development, housing, and transportation. And it was great. I mean, it really lives up to its reputation. The professors were remarkable, the case studies, what we.
What we learned like on leadership in particular. I remember taking two classes on that. It was very eye opening about what really is leadership. So then when I got out, I worked for the mayor's Institute on city Design, which was founded by Joe Riley, who became a real mentor of mine eventually. And he was taking a class at UVA, or I guess a seminar and about architecture, urban design. And it was really eye opening for him. And he said, public officials need to know this because they are the chief architects for their cities and they know very little about design. So he started this program at UVA, and then it eventually went to Harvard. Now it's back. Now it's here in DC. And then they started a governor's institute of city design, and it really helps them see their influence, what they need to be paying attention to. And Riley, who's the longest running mayor in America, 40 years, really transformed Charleston. It was remarkable. So when I heard him speak, I thought, huh, now that would be a great field to go into. And at Harvard, they always had all these great speakers. Come when I was sitting in the audience once talking to a classmate of and said, what are you going to do when you're done? He goes, well, people say I should be a city manager. And I always said, what's that?
So he told me about it, and I said, oh, that's what I want to do. Because that's what Riley was talking about. Short of running for office, which I wasn't interested in, I thought, oh, you can really run the whole city. Okay, so this little city in Virginia, because I was thinking of going back south called Lynchburg, Virginia. Terrible name, but actually named after a quaker, John lynch, who started the ferry service across the James river, founded it in the 17 hundreds. And I really liked the city manager. He was very thoughtful, real strategic thinker.
And he really wanted me. I mean, he really worked to get me there because I was also interviewing for a position in Chicago with a housing developer nonprofit, and in New York for a transportation agency. And then a mentor of mine said, you want to have your own franchise, go to a small city so you can have more influence.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: So were you the director of planning there? Is that your role?
[00:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah, community development. So planning and building.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Right, right. So that's not as much administration as actually physical, you know, design and planning. Right. Or was it more administration?
[00:20:41] Speaker C: No, no.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Getting in the weeds.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: So that takes your architectural background into it, basically.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So now you've got the planning part of it.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: Right. And then the building, because I had done construction administration, so that was interesting bringing that together.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: But again, it doesn't quite answer my question about why you didn't want to be a developer. So I'm just. I'm really trying to understand. You know, it just. That led you. I mean, it was just the Kennedy school said, you know, I really want to do this. I don't necessarily want to do my own deals kind of thing. That wasn't really something I wanted to do.
[00:21:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Developing that love of public service.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: You know, I wasn't interested in getting rich. Kind of nice, but, you know, that wasn't the goal.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: And I really wanted to be in the public arena where I felt, you know, hearing Riley and many others at the Kennedy school, I could have the greatest influence, short of being the owner of a development or a building.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Just out of curiosity, did risk come into play there? Did you say, this is a little safer to do this, potentially working for a government, or maybe I'll wait to do something more risky with my life? I don't know.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: I think the risk was in my friends at school said, where are you going? And it was like going from Boston to Lynchburg.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a change.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: And so the risk was, have I really made a mistake going to this? It's not so small a city. It was 75,000 at the time, but still smallish. And I said, well, if I don't like it, I could leave. I mean, I was in my thirties, and, you know, I had flexibility. And I said, you know, if I don't like it, I may go to a bigger place or go back to the private sector, become an architect or a developer. But it was perfect for me. And they were so ready, and I was so ready. I had all this knowledge that I had gained. And Lynchburg, I mean, the suburbs were doing pretty well, but the downtown had really suffered. And it was just classic what had happened in America, right? Where we left the downtowns, we couldn't see the value anymore.
Clearly, the car had the biggest influence on that, but it still had really good bones. And Lynchburg was the second wealthiest city per capita in America, like, 1890 something, because of tobacco, and the wealthiest was Nuba Bedford, because of the whaling industry.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Well, it just seems to me that the late 19 hundreds in Virginia were reconstruction to some extent, so. To some extent, right? Yep, Virginia. And Virginia had the battlefields. I mean, Lynchburg is right near Appomattox, so.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like a half hour away. Yeah. They never really had a battle there. There was something around the edges, but, yeah. Yeah. So, fortunately, unlike Richmond, which really destroyed. Right. Lynchburg remained intact. And you could see it. I mean, these buildings were remarkable, and they had, it was called the city of seven hills. So they had historic districts on these hills. And I thought, God, I mean, they could do so much here. So I called Mayor Reilly, and I said, would you come and speak? And I had heard he has his famous slideshow. I don't know if you've ever heard him, but if your listeners are interested, just Google Joe Riley slideshow, and it will come up. But he talks about the value of cities and how they're precious heirlooms that we pass on to future generations. And you think about Charleston and the great bones there. Yeah, similar to. And they had a waterfront. We had a waterfront. Ours is a river. Theirs was also a river. A little different, but. So he came, and people say it was the day Lynchburg changed that. People. Yep. Really got it. They gave him a standing ovation.
People were teary eyed. If you've never seen it, it's a very compelling story all attached to the show notes. Yeah, totally. He tells one really good story about this man named Clarence who was, I think, mental, mentally challenged. And when they were designing the waterfront, Sasaki was the firm, and there was a pier that had stones that were already there. And he said, well, don't we need a fence? And they said, no, no, people are going to go to the edge and just sit there. And he said, oh, all right. And so he was out jogging one morning, and he sees Clarence out there, right where they said somebody would sit, and he didn't want to disturb him. And later he saw him at an event and said, clarence, I saw you sitting on the.
At the riverfront. He goes, I go there every day, and I watch the boats go by. And then he turns to the audience, says, this is why we built cities for the Clarences of the world. This is the only river he's ever going to know. He deserves the best riverfront park.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: This is in Charleston. Yeah. So probably the Ashley river one.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah. And so I took that message to the people, and I also worked to get the right people there who have influence and wealth, and they really got it. And I said, we brought in Sasaki. I hired them, too.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:55] Speaker C: And we did a whole downtown plan and focused on the riverfront as well. And I said, I want a project that we will implement immediately, because some people have been working on this for years. They said, oh, another plan? I said, no, we're really. We're really going to get it right. And so we designed 9th street, which goes from the riverfront up the hill. It's a remarkable view to the historic courthouse. I said, that's really our main street, even though we had a perpendicular main street, and I wanted to start it immediately. So while we were doing the plan, they were doing the design and construction documents for 9th street, and we started right away. And we gave money to open children's museum because we needed these catalysts. Children's museum, the Academy of Music, the riverfront artists lofts. So people really start to see it happen. And then when I left, they got it, and they kept going.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: I think of Lynchburg as a two college town.
So you've got liberty, and you have Lynchburg College, which now maybe is Lynchburg University.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Right. And Randolph College.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Oh, is Randolph Macon there?
[00:26:59] Speaker C: Well, they changed the name because it's Coedden. So it used to be Randolph Macon Women's College, and there's a Randolph Macon, as you know, in Ashburn. Is it? And they. So they couldn't go with Randolph Macon. So it's Randolph College. It might even be a university as well. I don't know.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: So three.
[00:27:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: I didn't realize that. Wow.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: And then the community college.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: So was that kind of the dynamics of the city, or was there other dynamics of the city other than those colleges, per se?
[00:27:27] Speaker C: Well, there were also major companies there, like Ge. So a lot of people from the north came down, like engineers and what. So it wasn't just local people? Yeah. And there's a.
It's escaping my mind right now, but a big french company that does nuclear.
A and I'll think of it in a minute. So a lot of outsiders came in to work there. So we had that. It was a pretty solid economy.
And then Liberty, you know, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, as you know, started that in an old historic warehouse and began preaching and then actually used several of the old buildings downtown for dorms for the Academy of Music was an auditorium he used. And I know there are a lot of views on Jerry Falwell and I, but he worked extremely hard. He was very devoted to Christianity, his version of Christianity, and really built that university from nothing to 10,000 students.
And that did have an influence. But he and I actually used to get into it. It was kind of fun. He called me a commie from the pulpit because I was trying to change the sign ordinance. We had these enormous signs, 25 and up, and I wanted to really beautify our major corridors and gateways. And so he and some others who were probably members of his church said that I was anti business. So he would cite. Name me from the pulpit and say, if you want a one way ticket to Beijing or Moscow or Havana, I'll buy you one. It was really funny. People would send me recordings. It was really fun. And he.
He was supposed to build a highway ramp. This is a bit detailed, but during the. There was a downfall because of Jimmy Swagger, James Baker. And not James, Jim. Jim Baker. So there. Who had gotten into trouble, and it brought down the televangelist, the other televangelists, including Falwell. So there was a time when it went into receivership, and there were business people in Lynchburg who had to take over, eventually went back to Falwell. But during that time, he had built this huge arena, and they said, if you're going to expand anymore, you got to build this highway ramp. Because he was basically on a peninsula with a railroad on one side and a highway on the other. And he said, okay. Then he built a dorm because they were starting to grow again. And he moved everyone in without a co certificate of occupancy. And we found out, and we had to call him and tell him, you can't be moving people into a building without a co. And then he said, well, would you like me to tell those young people that they don't have a home? I mean, that was good how he went about it. And we said, yeah, actually, because we don't know if it's safe. So he quickly got it inspected. He passed, and we got him to sign a contract that he would build this highway ramp, which he didn't want to do. And so he gave me grief for that and went on and on. I think it was just intimidation. I was bringing new thinking, and he thought it was the heavy hand of the government, but it was regulations we had. It was deal promises we had. So that was kind of fun. And then. Excuse me, Lynchburg University was a very different place.
You know, your classic small city university and great professors. The president was just lovely man.
And then, same with Randolph Macon women's College. So it was a nice blend. I did teach one course there when one of the professors went on sabbatical, so I taught there. And then I was actually on the board of Sweetbriar College. So Sweetbriar is up the road 10 miles. That's in Amherst county. But I was on that board for about eight or nine years, and that was great. I enjoyed watching it, and I think I'm kind of bad luck for boards cause I was also on the holy Names university board in Oakland, California. You may remember Sweetbriar was about to.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Call, almost went under.
[00:31:48] Speaker C: Yeah. And they announced it in March that that was it, and a group of alums got together and said, no, no, no, and challenge the original agreement to the college and got the attorney general involved, and they saved it. The reason they decided to close, they just couldn't get enough students there with, you know, single gender.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:11] Speaker C: College, and it was so remote, and it just wasn't of interest.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: One of my earlier guests was a sweetbriar graduate.
[00:32:19] Speaker C: Oh, really?
[00:32:19] Speaker B: She was also involved.
[00:32:20] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: In that process. In fact, pretty active in those.
That's wendy white of Ghoulston stores law firm.
[00:32:28] Speaker D: Oh, okay.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Yeah, she's a. Yeah, they really came through.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: She's an aluminum. Yeah, I think she put some money into it.
[00:32:34] Speaker C: Excellent. Well, that was the key. Yeah, they could get more money.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:37] Speaker C: But they couldn't quite get to 700 students, and that was sort of the magic number. And, yeah, it was shocking. And then, I know we'll get to Oakland later, but decade later, when I was on the holy names board, they decided to close, and I thought, I better not join anymore.
I am a curse, an influence.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: So how long did you stay in Lynchburg?
[00:32:59] Speaker C: I was there eight years.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Eight years. Okay. And then what implored you to want to go to Richmond after that?
[00:33:07] Speaker C: So I was ready for that next size city, and they had just elected Doug Wilder as their mayor, and I was interested in a strong mayor form of government, because that's what Joe Riley was. And I thought, if you can have a strong mayor running things rather than one person of seven, it would be a different dynamic. And he got elected, I believe, in zero five, and I ended up there in zero six. So I came same role, director of planning and building, community development and similar kinds of things. Their downtown was already starting to turn around. You got the capital there. You have VCU, which at that time was, I think, the largest university in Virginia.
It's like 30,000 students right there in the core of the downtown and the fan.
But one of my main focuses was the riverfront, because it's interesting, you know, I was on the James river in Lynchburg and come down river, and I was on the James river again.
But this was at the falls, which is interesting. It's why Richmond is there, because when the explorers were coming up rivers, they'd hit the falls, and that was as far as they could go. And there's a fault line on the east coast, so you've got the James, where you have the falls and then the Rappahannock and then the Potomac, where you hit Georgetown and the Great Falls. And that's how Georgetown got developed. So it's really interesting how wise cities end up where they are, but that was as far inland they could go by boat. So bird, who was the founder, went up. There was a high point. Today it's called Churchill Libby park. And went up there, and he looked and he said, my God, this looks like Richmond on Thames. So that's how it got its name. And you look at the two photos and it's remarkable.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: Isn't that something?
[00:35:04] Speaker C: And it's this weeping view. Yeah. And so this developer wanted to put this giant luxury apartment building right in the middle of the view. And I really had concerns about this. I said, you're going to really do harm to the found. You know, the reason we got the name and all those people who go up there for the view, and they were starting to just block the riverfront off. You had money and you own that land. And I thought about Mayor Riley and what he had said, and this is for all the people, right? And they deserve the best riverfront. So we did a new downtown plan, incorporated what VCU was doing, what the state was doing, and really thought about transportation and how to make the streets humanize them a little more, not just for through traffic, which was happened. That's why one way streets came to american cities is to get people in fast and out fast. And we're like, no, we don't want the fastness. We want people to stay here. You know, these are living, breathing streets. So we worked on all that, got a lot of participation and buy in, and then we hired a firm just to focus on the riverfront itself. And at that time, that's when I was leaving. I was in Richmond five years, but they ended up incorporating it. And about two years ago, someone called me and said, hey, Rachel, they finally bought that land where that luxury building was going to go, because I told the mayor, I said, just buy the land from them. We need that. And Mayo Island, I don't know if you know, Mayo island right in the middle of the river. And they bought that, too. And I almost cried. I said, well, that was the vision. And, you know, they finally did it, and now they have. They're building up the riverfront park, and people go there all the time. It's remarkable. So, you know, and again, that's why we do this. Right.
It's so heartwarming. We also did a. What we call a form based code. So rather than zoning, just being focused on uses, it was, if you get the form right and the design right and follow the guidelines, you could just build by right. You don't have to go through rezoning.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: So how did you learn about form based code?
[00:37:18] Speaker C: Through Victor Dover. So there's a firm called Dover Cole. They're out of the Miami area, and they were part of the Dwani platers, Iberg, and the Miami architecture school. Yep. So they went down there. They were actually Virginia tech guys who ended up going down there. And it's part of the Congress for new urbanism, CNU.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:39] Speaker C: And so I just started to follow it, and I actually hired Victor to come to Lynchburg. We were doing the midtown plan to. There was a. They were gonna basically create this, you know, high speed, five lane road all through Lynchburg, through historic neighborhoods. And we didn't need it. We just didn't need it. And then we found out, well, they want a more direct way to the hospital off the freeway. It's like, okay, we can do that. Let's look at that route. But do not destroy these neighborhoods. And that plan ended up saving those neighborhoods and getting the direct route to the hospital and saving a lot of money. It was just a waste of money. And it was sort of like, okay, Lynchburg, it's your turn. Here's your money. But then, no, that's not the way to do it. What do you really need, and where should it go, and how should you spend these precious dollars? So, long story short, I hired Victor for that, and then I brought him to do the downtown plan in Richmond, and he really taught me about the importance of place and design and how it affects people's lives and just the feel of the city. So we did this for Jackson Ward with the historic black neighborhood in Richmond. Manchester.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: Is that the south side of the river?
[00:38:53] Speaker C: No, Manchester is. Manchester is. Yeah. So Jackson Ward is north. Just north of the Capitol.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: It got divided because of a highway. That's where 95 goes through. And now that's part of Pete Buttigieg's secretary of transportation's vision, is to repair these neighborhoods. And so you've seen them, like, in Dallas and other cities, where they're starting to build over these highways and reconnect neighborhoods. They're working on one in Austin, and they were almost all through african american communities. So Jackson Ward is classic.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Another classic one is the cross Bronx Expressway.
[00:39:30] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. Yes.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: That's a classic one.
[00:39:32] Speaker C: Totally forever changed. Kind of how the South Bronx came to be.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Since you lived in New York, I assume you've read the power broker.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Yes. Quite a story.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: It is quite a story.
[00:39:45] Speaker C: Yeah. People would call me the Jane Jacobs of the city. I'll take it. I'll take it. So those were the things we focused on. And then developers just started building. When I go back to Richmond, I'm like, oh, like all these where parking lots were and just vacant, weeded lots, all this housing now it's just great. Again, it's why we do this work.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: So you felt accomplished both in Lynchburg and Richmond with what you succeeded.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: I did, yeah.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: With. So then you decided to go to the Middle east. So why did you do that and talk about that experience?
[00:40:23] Speaker C: Well, a new mayor came to Richmond, and the focus for him wasn't as much on urban planning and development. He went against it, but it just wasn't his focus. And I was. I didn't feel as aligned. And you really have to be aligned with the politicians you work for. And so I actually saw an ad, and I was reading one of the APA American Planning Association's newsletters, and they have the Juan ads. Remember the want ads?
Do they still have that? What do they call that now, John?
Anyway, they're like, come do this stint in Abu Dhabi for zoning reform. It didn't say form based code, but it was basically that kind of thing. And I thought, oh, that would be fun. And so I interviewed the woman who worked there. It was an american firm called Otak from Oregon, but they had opened a Middle east office because the founder was from, originally from Iraq, and so he was familiar with the Middle east. He knew that Abu Dhabi and Dubai were really growing. So I thought, well, that would be really interesting. And then the government decided not to do the project. But she remembered me and then followed up and said, hey, I'm leaving, but would you like to take my role as overseeing planning for this office? And I said, okay, yeah, I'll go.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: So, I mean.
[00:41:54] Speaker C: I know that's a.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Big change in lifestyle.
[00:41:56] Speaker C: I know.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: And living conditions and everything, right?
[00:41:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Still young. I was. I got married, actually, at this point. Met my husband in Lynchburg. He's an attorney, and he was working there. He ended up going to Charlottesville. He was the public defender of Lynchburg. They asked him then to open the new office for the public defender in Charlottesville. And he has three kids from a prior marriage. And as their stepmother, I take full credit for their good looks and intelligence and no responsibility for their bad behavior. So stepmothers really, they kind of get it all right. Anyway, so he had his family. I didn't want kids, and he knew who we married, that I was, you know, gonna go where I needed to go. And he's why I married him. He's a great person. Who knows who he is. He does his thing, I do mine, and we figure out a way to get together, and he goes, go. And, you know, he knew I was frustrated at the end. In Richmond, he said, it's a great opportunity.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: So he didn't go with you?
[00:42:57] Speaker C: He would come visit. He loved it because he loves to travel, so he would come visit. And it was before teleworking, but he kind of used that a little bit.
And I don't know if you. Have you been to.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: I've never been to the Middle east.
[00:43:10] Speaker C: Okay.
When they say it's hot and it's not a dry heat, like Arizona, it is humid and hot. So it's like 120 degrees. You don't go outside in the summer, basically, unless it's night and the sun has gone down.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: And so it's phoenix with humidity in the summertime, is what you're saying.
[00:43:29] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, it was remarkable. And Jim's. My husband's a real walker, and so he would go out. So half the year it's great, and the other half not so great, and he would go out.
I mean, you could die.
You would just look for shade wherever you could find it. Like, if you had to go down the street for something, you're like, well, what time of day is it? Is there any shade? I mean, could make the difference between life and death. And everything got delivered to you, and you take a taxi, like two or three blocks.
But once you got used to it, you know, it was just.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: So what did you do while you were there?
[00:44:02] Speaker C: So we worked on various projects for the Abu Dhabi municipality, Adm, and one was called Marurer Linear park. So it was a major avenue through Abu Dhabi, kind of like Wisconsin Avenue or Connecticut Ave. But it was very vehicle oriented. So the UAE is an interesting story.
They found out they had oil in the fifties, sixties, and they were what was called a british protectorate. And so there was really. There was just nothing there. And the Brits just wanted to have some kind of stronghold so someone else couldn't control it. But it was a trading triangle with, you had Iran, Dubai and India, and that was a trading triangle. So Dubai already had a port. It wasn't huge, but they had one. Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, it was nothing like the island of Abu Dhabi, within the emirate of Abu Dhabi. So emirates are like states. So it's united Arab Emirates.
Abu Dhabi is like the size of Manhattan. And they, I think maybe a thousand people lived on the island in the fifties, sixties. Today there are one and a half million. I think just like that. The country was formed in 71. So what happened was they found out they had oil, and a lot of geologists have been studying it. Saudi was very well established. That's where the Americans were, american oil. And the Brits wanted a piece of that pie. And so they went to the sheikh of Abu Dhabi. He hated the British. He was like, you didn't do anything for us. You didn't build this road. You didn't do anything. And he wouldn't talk to them. And so they went to his brother, Sheikh Zayed, and said, hey, would you talk to your brother? Maybe you could become sheikh, and we'll work with you. So he goes to his brother and he goes, hey, they'll pay for you to go live some lovely life somewhere in the world. And I'll become Sheikh. He goes, great, fine. He leaves. So Sheikh Zayed, he's like the George Washington of the UAE. Remarkable man, very savvy, a very good man. He created that country like human rights. And it's not a democracy, but it's a whole lot better than most people.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: What's the relationship between Abu Dhabi and Dubai?
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Dubai is one of the Emirates, but Abu Dhabi is where the oil is. But Dubai, there was already some money there because of the port. So he went to that Sheikh and said, why don't you be vice president, and I'll be president, and you can get X, Y and Z. We're going to make money off of oil. You'll benefit from that. But you become the financial real estate capital.
We'll be the capital like we're the DC. You'd be the New York or Las Vegas, whatever you want to call it. And it's a big, big emirate, but that's where all the oil is. So then they went to the other sheikhs and they're like, hey, we got to come together. You know, we don't know how to get this oil out of the ground. We got to work with the Brits, and we need to come together. So there were seven of them, plus Qatar and Kuwait, and it was going to be nine emirates. Iran intervenes because Qatar had natural gas.
Abu Dhabi has the oil, right? And Bahrain was the financial capitalist. It was where the Saudis would go to play and put their money and Iran says, you're going to have oil, natural gas, and finance. Uh uh. You're going to be too powerful. So they became their own countries, and they're just dots on. I mean, they're really teeny. So then they form the country, and they hire, actually, a japanese man to design Abu Dhabi. It's a really interesting grid. It's like one I've never seen. And that's how they grew. But pick one of the worst times in world history to. To design a city. It was all about the car. You know, they didn't have, like we talked about Lynchburg and Richmond. That was historic, walkable, mixed use. They didn't have it, but now. So back to your question. What was I doing there? We were helping them make that transition. So Marure was going to become this linear park. I still don't think they built the project, but we worked on that, the urban street design manual, to humanize their streets. Also, how can you make it walkable in the middle of summer? Shade structures are a big deal. They're looking at Metro. Dubai already has metro. They were looking at that. And then, interestingly, one of our clients was the Abu Dhabi National Oil company, Adnoc. And they would build these little cities out in the middle of nowhere where the oil was, but they had to get the engineers there and others there, and so they had to make these really nice little cities out of nothing. So we helped design those. And then there were other smaller projects like that. And it was great.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Since it was british then everyone spoke English. So you didn't have.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: Yes, yes.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Or arabic issues or anything like that.
[00:49:02] Speaker C: Only 15% of the population is Emirati. The rest is all expats. And a friend of mine there said, you're gonna. It's gonna be like being back in college, because we all just hung out. All the Americans just hung out together, and a lot, you know, their spouses were somewhere else, and it was very true. It might be a little bit like working for the State Department and just met people from all over the country. You know, India, England.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: Was Islam the state religion similar to what it is in Dubai?
[00:49:31] Speaker C: It is, yeah. Yeah.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: So they are very strict about alcohol use and things like that, right?
[00:49:36] Speaker C: Yes. So you have to get a license to drink if you want to have it in your home. And there are stores, but they're unmarked, and you have to know where they are. And nobody got a license, but anyway, so you'd go in and they'd give you a black bag, and we called it the bag of shame. And you'd walk out.
Everybody knew you'd been at the liquor store, but you could drink at hotels. But hotels had like 20 restaurants, like sprawling. And you go, this restaurant's affiliated with the hotel. But that was how they got around it. And Emiratis would go too. That was the interesting part. And it's just how it is in life. But I didn't want to stay forever, so I gave it a year. And it's like, you know, I am married and it would be nice to get back. I wanted to experience it. Loved it. It was a great time.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: So it's just a year.
[00:50:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: So then what brought you back to the States, then?
[00:50:31] Speaker C: So then I wanted to get back into the kind of work I had been doing. And the city of Oakland was advertising for a community development director. And I'd always wanted to live in California. And at this point, my husband's little older than me. He was looking to retire. And I said, well, I want to go to California. He goes, great. And so he said, I'll finish up here. And then, you know, come to California. And that's, that's pretty much what happened.
And he, he would probably come half the year. And then, same thing with the other cities. I really focused on the downtown, but Oakland just wasn't, you know, it didn't have that drive to really build, add more housing. So when I came, there were 500 units under construction. When I left, there were 5000. I said, we need to open up for business, you guys. This process that we need this housing, if we're good, downtown's going to be successful. You got to have residential and a lot of it that'll bring then the retail. And then we had a good amount of office, like Clorox's capital headquarters, rather Kaiser Permanente, things like that. And like Richmond and Lynchburg, it had good bones. Like, you hear about the Berkeley Hills, where there's the Oakland hills as well, and they're just as beautiful. And there's Lake Merritt, which is a very prominent place right in the heart. It's actually shaped like a heart. So it's kind of interesting.
And a friend of mine who was a developer, he said, you're the most entrepreneurial, thinking planning director I've ever met. You really combine public service with business mind. And I just had to figure out, if you build quality, how can we just let you go and build?
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Like I said, when I responded to, when we first spoke, I said, and I'll say this now, we don't know each other as well, but I just feel, based on what our conversation was, that you're a breath of fresh air in the public sector. And, you know, knowing what you do know after so many years in architecture, you understand what the private sector needs and wants, which is important.
[00:52:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: To be able to bridge that, you know, what the public need is and what the private incentives are totally.
And in California, that's probably a shock to people because most developers there are used to pretty a lot of bureaucracy challenging development.
You know, nothing like Virginia.
[00:53:07] Speaker C: Well, CEQA is the real challenge in California. The California Environmental Quality Act, C E Q A, that actually was signed by Ronald Reagan after the Santa Barbara oil spill. And people were very concerned about the environment then to lose their precious, you know, natural features. So the bill, the law was well meaning, but it just took on a life of its own. And to this day, they're still trying to figure out how to undo this thing because you can be sued over anything, like, you don't have enough affordable housing. You didn't save, you know, the three legged frog. You didn't, you know, the trees that, you know, you need to take down aren't being so they can be. They can sue you over anything. And it really ties up projects. So then developers end up saying, well, what do you want to. I'll just give it to you. You want labor rights union.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: When you say they can sue, are you talking about private neighborhood organizations?
It's interesting.
[00:54:10] Speaker C: I know it is. But I always say, when you were talking about that public private thing, what does the public sector need to do to help the private sector succeed? So we help with the visioning. You know, we're responsible for the comprehensive plans and all that. And so working with the community, what do you want this place to be? What are your greatest assets? What do you need to work on? What are the natural features? What's your history? And what's the potential for growth? So you develop that vision, and then it's the government who sets the rules. So the zoning ordinances, the building codes, the historic preservation ordinances, whatnot. We create those, the rules and regs so people know what they have to do. Often developers say, just tell me what the rules are. I'll do them, but I got to keep going. So setting those and making them real clear, like form based code. And then we have certain powers the private sector doesn't have. So we can borrow money. We can issue bonds, tiffs, tax increment financing is a way. That's how the mosaic was built in Fairfax, because you borrow on future value and so we have these powers that others we can tax and use that money.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: I did the first Tif in Washington, DC.
[00:55:27] Speaker C: You did?
[00:55:28] Speaker B: Yes, the Mandarin Hotel, which is now the Salamander Hotel.
[00:55:31] Speaker C: Oh, really? Oh, congratulations. That's a powerful tool.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: 1998, long time ago.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow, you were ahead of your time.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: Well, it was, know, Anthony Williams was mayor at that time and they needed economic development. And the other big project that was simultaneous with us was gallery place, just on 6th street. You know, Anchorage and Western will say they were first, but we were actually the first one that was approved of the Tiffs. They had a bigger one than we did.
[00:56:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: A luxury hotel in that location at the time was a big risk. Now, of course, with the wharf being there and all that, it's, you know.
[00:56:12] Speaker C: You were a pioneer.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: Fitting. Fitting location for that.
[00:56:15] Speaker C: Now doesn't that make you feel good that you were part of it is fun?
[00:56:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I was.
So I worked with the developers and getting all that, but the structuring of financing the Tif was a big part of it. Obviously, it was critical. We couldn't have gotten the project done without it.
[00:56:30] Speaker C: Interesting. Yeah. So I. When I learned about that, I said, wow, that, that's a remarkable tool. And I heard about it. There's a really good film that people like seeing films on development called back from the Brink, and the AIA foundation made it. And it's three cities, Suisun, California. It was this little teeny town, very north bay, that had really hit the doldrums. And then Chattanooga, Tennessee, that had been prosperous at one time, but was struggling because their industry collapsed. And then Portland, Oregon, so a successful place that was trying to manage growth. And they talk about these three size, like, what each deals with. And so soon did a tiff. And I saw this film in the mid nineties. It also influenced me to go into public service when I saw that film. And I thought, a tiff, like, why doesn't everybody do that? Because they said, how'd they do it? They borrowed the money. Well, why doesn't everybody just borrow the money? And then I started to study. Well, what does this really mean? Yeah, it was interesting. So back to Ceqa for a second. So I had. I had no idea what a big deal Ceqa was and learned a whole lot when I got there. But the other thing that happened because the downturn in zero eight, Oakland really suffered. I got there in 13. So they were starting to come out of it a little, but they still had some shell shock. But staff to their credit had started. They call them specific plans in California. So rather than a master plan or an area plan, and they, with that, you get the CEQA portion done. So once you get it through, it can take two, three years. But once you get it through and all the legal challenges and everything have occurred, the developers can build by. Right. So we got five done. Lake Merritt, West Oakland, which is a very interesting area, home of the Black Panthers. So a real different kind of place, the downtown. So anyway, we got those done and that was partly why the developers could come in and build.
[00:58:37] Speaker B: Since you were in Oakland and I went to school in USF graduate school, San Francisco, across the bay. So I lived in the city for two years and never, I only went there for a couple of concerts and went over to hang out in Berkeley for a day or two. But, you know, I'm just trying to understand the difference between the East Bay, Oakland and the city.
There is a significant development difference and, you know, the history between the two cities. The. From what I remember, the military had a much stronger influence on the East Bay.
Treasure island and all these different.
[00:59:19] Speaker C: Alameda island, too.
[00:59:20] Speaker B: Alameda and the Air Force base there and all that.
Just, you know, I mean, we're talking about a DC audience here, but I'd be just kind of curious why, how Oakland is different from San Francisco. There's a big difference between the two cities. So what's your impression of that?
[00:59:37] Speaker C: Yeah, there isn't. There isn't. I mean, they want the same things.
San Francisco is just so remarkable because of its natural location and topography and, I mean, there's just nothing like it. It's pretty amazing. They built a city there. When you look at some of those hills, but that's what makes it so stunning. Everywhere you turn there's another view.
[00:59:59] Speaker B: They compare it to Rome, but I don't know if that's a good analogy or not.
[01:00:04] Speaker C: It's close. Yeah, yeah. And it had just such a strong history. But Oakland, that was the end of the line. If you remember the railroad, when it came across America, that was the end.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: Of the western terminus.
[01:00:17] Speaker C: Yeah. And so it really made it because.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: There were no bridges at that time.
[01:00:21] Speaker C: No. So you got off in Oakland, you took a boat over to San Francisco. So it had its own economy and its own world and its own natural beauty. There are the flatlands, and then you hit the Oakland Hills. Unlike San Francisco, which is hills pretty much throughout, you come to some flat areas.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: The Marina district is about the only.
[01:00:42] Speaker C: Flat area in the city of mission.
[01:00:46] Speaker B: When you come down to the presidio was fairly well. It's rolling, but it's flatter.
[01:00:51] Speaker C: Exactly. So then the coastline did become the military area. There was a huge army base, which then, through the Brac system, was given over and a developer turned it into a logistics. You know, I think Prologis came in and built a lot of the warehouses. It's probably built by now. So we were working on that. Then you had Alameda, which is a separate city, and it's quite a large island. And there was, I think it was a navy base there. And same thing. They turned that over to the private sector. So all these areas that had been for the military were now opening up for private commerce and or for living and working.
[01:01:33] Speaker B: Treasure island had already or was being converted.
[01:01:36] Speaker C: Not yet. They were working on it. That was future. I know. We'll get to that. That was a company I worked for that was given that job to transform it. It's gone through a lot to make it happen. But I do think the climate. And it's sunnier in Oakland, which is really nice.
[01:01:55] Speaker B: Well, that's true.
[01:01:56] Speaker C: And it's warmer and it's funny. Just they're so close, but the fog comes here and the fog doesn't go there.
[01:02:03] Speaker B: Amazing.
[01:02:05] Speaker C: It's true.
[01:02:06] Speaker B: You go up to Marin county, it'd be 90 degrees. You go into the city, it'd be 60.
[01:02:10] Speaker C: I know.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: The same time.
[01:02:11] Speaker C: Remarkable. I used to show a slide. You could see San Francisco in the foreground. And then Oakland beyond and above San Francisco, it says, not sunny. And then Oakland, sunny.
That was one of our features. It is changing with climate change, though. It's getting warmer.
So it had its own thriving economy. A really beautiful downtown with streetcars and everything. And then it was hurt by that. Also Kaiser. You know, Kaiser Permanente. So Henry Kaiser made his fortune with steel and building massive projects and then decided, I'm gonna have my own healthcare. That's how that form of healthcare came about.
And he.
So West Oakland was a big industrial area for shipbuilding and whatnot in World War Two. It really thrived. Then when that industry collapsed, that created a lot of unemployment, poverty. A lot of African Americans had moved California for that. So West Oakland became one of those challenged areas where a little bit of rust belt in Oakland, most of it was still doing.
[01:03:23] Speaker B: Richmond, California.
[01:03:24] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. Similar where these huge hangars are.
And then a big latino population in the flatlands, we call it. So the fruitvale area. And so one of the things I really like was the rich blend of people and races and ethnicities that really added to the culture. Exactly. And, yeah, so Oakland's a great place, a tough, tough government because they're dealing with so much.
It has a very rebellious side to it. Like when a thing would have, like Trayvon Martin or something like, oh, man, there's going to be. There's going to be a riot.
[01:04:04] Speaker B: It's where the black power movement started.
[01:04:06] Speaker C: That's right. Black Panthers. Yeah. Huey Newton and. Yeah, they started in west Oakland. Yeah, it's a rich history.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: So did you feel accomplished in the city of Oakland or.
[01:04:19] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, you did.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: Okay. Then you decided to go to the private sector, which is interesting.
[01:04:24] Speaker C: So a developer I'd worked with reached out one day and said, hey, would you like to come work for five point Lennar? So Lennar, one of the biggest home builders in America, also had a multifamily community building branch. And during the downturn, when they were trying to raise capital for the big communities, there were five of them. One was Treasure island.
The financiers would say, well, are you a home builder or are you a community builder? And they said, we do both. It's like, well, one's long term, one's short term. And they thought, huh, well, why don't we break away? So Lennar, I guess communities, or whatever it's called at the time, became Five Point. And they focused on those five developments, and there were two in southern California and three in northern California. And they had just gotten the agreement to do the Concord Naval weapons station site. That is part of the Brac movement. Same with Treasure island and also the shipyard. You may remember the shipyard.
So they asked if I would oversee that. And I thought, well, you know, I always did have that developer bug and thought about it, and they're just handing it to me on a silver platter. And then my husband said, you know, you've always lived where you work because you want to be part of that culture. Like in Lynchburg, I lived downtown. I was the only one who lived downtown. Me and the barbersh, they knew when I was late for work. And now there are hundreds and hundreds. It's so great. Same with Richmond. I lived in Manchester and then in Oakland, I lived downtown. So he said, you know, if you were part of the community because that's really what you do, and you build these great relationships, then, you know, it might be the thing for you. So I said, okay. It was a tough decision. I liked Oakland. Didn't have any reason to leave. But this was just a golden opportunity. So I worked on the Concord reuse project as we called it, and we were in the, we had to do CEQA, we had to do the specific plan for it. And also the development agreement with the city. We didn't have one yet. And it was 12,000 housing units. It was 6 million commercial. It was a huge sports park. I think there were going to be six schools. It was massive and a beautiful piece of property. And Metro went right there. I mean, Bart.
[01:07:02] Speaker B: So you had an open canvas here.
[01:07:03] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. It was remarkable. Remarkable. So I learned a great deal. It was a steep learning curve to learn all the proformas and this and that.
[01:07:14] Speaker B: Did you have to do the street layout and everything, this whole thing? Wow.
[01:07:17] Speaker C: Yeah. So we had master plan.
[01:07:19] Speaker B: Big time.
[01:07:19] Speaker C: Yep. A lot of consultants in every aspect. And then when I was there almost two years, I got not a call, but Google reached out to me and I thought it was a joke. It was kind of a text message, like, would you like to be a Google executive? And I was like, what is this spam?
And I showed to my husband, I go, look at this. He goes, I think it's real. Oh, yes. I would like to be a Googling site.
So ten interviews later, I became a Google executive. And what was happening was Google was growing so fast in Silicon Valley that they had to build or buy a million square feet of office every year. They were adding 20,000 employees. They were growing that fasten.
So they decided that they wanted to expand in San Jose. They really didn't have a presence in San Jose. And San Jose is a big city. I mean, it's major. And the, but the west end was, you know, I don't know if they'd say blighted, but just, there was nothing happening there. But there was a train station there where Caltrain came, and Amtrak and Bart was completing the loop around the bay. And they were on the east bay, come down south of Oakland.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: So south of Daly City. They extended from there.
[01:08:45] Speaker C: The other side of the bay. Yeah. And come around this, go through Milpitas and that area, and then come to Sparta. Yeah. I don't know if it's built yet. I don't know what stage it's in. It was planned. So this was, it was the Diradon station area, they called it, and just west of the financial district, she could call it. And so they were going to build a whole Google campus, if you will, and with housing and office and parks.
[01:09:13] Speaker B: So the Googolplex already existed at that time.
[01:09:16] Speaker C: Yeah. So they were. Their headquarters is in Mountain View. They took over another company that graphics. Yeah, that's right.
[01:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So I have the story of that. I'll just share for my reader, my listeners. Jair lynch, who was a big developer here in Washington when he left Stanford, he was a student there. He went to work for silicone graphics, and while they were in this transitional mode, he set the table for Google to come and buy this.
[01:09:43] Speaker C: Really?
[01:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. It was an interesting story.
[01:09:45] Speaker C: Oh, great story. I didn't know that.
[01:09:46] Speaker B: So the Googolplex is really where silicon graphics was before?
[01:09:50] Speaker C: Sure, sure. So Sergey Brin and Larry Page, they had an office above the ice cream store in Palo Alto. They started this thing, and they were very confident men.
[01:10:01] Speaker B: Did you meet them?
[01:10:02] Speaker C: No, I saw them. They would have Google events and I would see them on stage, but they just made this up in their dorm room. They were both grad students. Page rank. What's that?
[01:10:15] Speaker B: Page rank, they called it. Oh, in essence, how they did the search. So they ranked pages. I mean, technically, my son is a software engineer, so. And he was interviewed by Google as well and offered a job and said no.
[01:10:28] Speaker C: Interesting. Yeah, but, yeah, it was fascinating.
[01:10:31] Speaker B: He explained how they developed the software.
[01:10:33] Speaker C: Yeah. I still think the name made a difference. You know, there was part of it, Yahoo and others. I mean, Yahoo. I don't know. But Google, apparently, it means something. It's like zero, zero.
[01:10:47] Speaker B: Almost an infinite number of zeros.
[01:10:49] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think people just liked it. It had a ring to it, you.
[01:10:53] Speaker B: Know, and their page was as clean as anything. It's just that one line was this Google with the one line, and that was your search when it first started. And still, if you go to the Google homepage, that's what it is. Just one filled in. One fill in. It's been that way since they started. So it's interesting.
[01:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And then they open, you know, other branches. You know, they're looking at AV's. They have a whole branch called X. And it was where the secret research and exploration was going on. And so they had several branches at this time. Now, the iconic structure kind of looks like an anteater, that big design. The Bjork Ingalls group out of Denmark, they really loved him. And so he designed two of those, and that's now, did you work with him that made.
No, not directly. No, because I wasn't working on that. That campus that was already. Or that phase, because it was already under design and going into construction, so.
But he would be around. But they always hired the best architects. Heather Wick, you know, they had top notch everywhere. So this division of Google called Devco development. Construction was just getting built up, and there were maybe about 30 of us when I left. And, I mean, it was such an honor, and the money was crazy good, but there was something about it. It just didn't.
It didn't work for me. Something about the culture. It's very competitive, and I suppose that happens anywhere you go. Like, say you work in the white house, you know, you're among alphas, right? It was just very competitive. It was a different culture. Not that anyone was inappropriate or anything. You know, I'm not bashing Google, but it was just a certain, I don't know, a feel to it. And I would have stayed meantime. That husband, I have remember him. So he had retired, and some people approached him to run for office.
The Charlottesville incident had happened with the tiki torch march. Heather Hyers killed. It was a rough time for Charlottesville, and the prosecutor who was in office would not. He was a Republican, which is very rare. It's Albemarle. So you got Charlottesville, the doughnut hole, Albemarle, which is the doughnut. So it actually. The UVA campus, most of it's actually in Albemarle. And so the tiki torch march was under this prosecutor, and he said, I'm not going to prosecute. There's no law against it. And the community was just shocked.
The death of Heather Heyer and those incidents where the confederate monuments were and the fights that broke out, that was the city. So that prosecutor dealt with that. So some people approached Jim and said, would you run? We have to. We have to deal with this.
[01:13:57] Speaker B: Elmar county.
[01:13:59] Speaker C: And I knew he really wanted to, and I thought that would be tough if I was in California. This is before teleworking and everything had we had this culture we have today with telework, I would have.
Maybe I could have worked it out and been there and come back to Virginia and telework and all that. But that went in possibility. And he had always been there for me, and I thought, this is something he's always wanted to do. This is really important. So it was a very tough decision. And I. So I told them I was leaving. They were shocked, and I don't think anybody had ever left. I said, well, how do I have an exit interview or turn in my badge? And they're. We don't know. No one's ever done this anyway. So I. Well, I also said to my husband, if. Let me see what's going on in Virginia, and if I find something I really like, then I can make the move. And Fairfax was looking for a deputy county executive. So the way counties work, so cities have city managers, counties have county executives, and then under the county executive are four deputies and a CFO. So there's a deputy for safety, there's a deputy for health and human services. There's a deputy for admin, which is like, back of the house, stuff it fleet. And then there's a deputy for planning and development, which is me. So I'm over public works, the building department, which we call land development services. Transportation, which was huge for me. Planning, code compliance, and economic initiatives. And the last one is environment. So I created the economic initiatives department that had not existed. I can tell that story. And then environment was new when it was given to me.
So, a couple of initiatives that the board has recently put forth. One is CCAP, the community wide energy and climate action plan, which a lot of communities now have. And with that, you need a department that can implement it. And we also have a resilient Fairfax, two prong. Now, the board had been working on certain initiatives, office environment, and they decided that we just need to take this more seriously. So that department was given to me and I took over.
It was probably, I don't know, 20 people. And now we're going great guns, it's become.
[01:16:45] Speaker B: So step back for a moment. How were you hired in Fairfax County? I mean, was that us?
Was the county executive hire you or how.
[01:16:56] Speaker C: The board.
[01:16:56] Speaker B: The board.
[01:16:57] Speaker C: The board hires the deputy.
[01:16:58] Speaker B: And it was just an advertised position you responded to, in essence.
[01:17:02] Speaker C: Okay, I got it. Yeah. And so Fairfax has had an economic development authority, the EDA, for years. A man named Jerry Gordon ran it for a long time, and the focus was the big whales bring in these major companies. A lot of them were defense contractors. So General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, those kind of companies. And that is really what put Fairfax on the map economically.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: So where does Victor Hoskins fit into the equation?
[01:17:34] Speaker C: So Jerry retired, and then they hired Victor.
And Victor has been there coming up on five years. Yeah. And so he had just done the deal, the Amazon deal, and he was very, very coveted. So that was a great hire. Yeah.
But within this county government. So they were their own entity. They have their own board. It's a state charter.
But within Fairfax county, we didn't have an economic development department, so I was charged with creating that. And we came up with the name economic initiatives. Actually, John Foust, who was on the board of supervisors, thought that would be a great action word. Initiative. And I said, yeah, that would be good. And we did want to have two economic development groups. So Department of Economic Initiatives. Interestingly, the acronym is DEI, which people get confused now with diversity, equity, and inclusion, but that's kind of cool.
And so that department is about 20 people as well. So two pretty new departments in my portfolio.
[01:18:39] Speaker B: Was this your idea, or was it? Whose idea was these? Were these departments out of curiosity, and why?
[01:18:44] Speaker C: With the DEI, they had said, we need to have our own department. And the reason was, over 90% of the businesses in Fairfax are small businesses. Small business is defined as 50 people or less, and that's not what the EDA dealt with. And they were not retail experts. So when we'd have questions about retail or mixed use developments, you know, what is that? Right? Blend.
It just wasn't what they did. So the timing could not have been better because we created it in 2019 right before COVID And with all that ARPA money that came in with COVID we then redirected it to small businesses. And the thing with small business, if they close, very unlikely, they'll never come back. But if you can keep them going, you know that faint heartbeat, they will most likely survive. So we would give 1015 $20,000 grants, and that was often enough just to pay the rent. Keep them going.
[01:19:51] Speaker B: It's interesting, I interviewed several retail developers and owners on my podcast, and all of them, I asked them about the podcast, about the pandemic and how they dealt with it, and they said, we look to governments to help us to try to keep these retailers going.
We looked at every source of capital we could find, and we had to rent it. We had to abate rent on a lot of these tenants to keep them in spaces.
[01:20:15] Speaker C: That's exactly right. Yeah. Again, back to that question. What does the public sector need to do to help the private sector succeed? And I guess a fourth component of that, I talked about three, but the fourth would be emergencies. Where government is, when there's a massive flood or wildfires or a pandemic, it is government that comes in. And that's what's so great about our country, really, where we come together and we have these remarkable resources to then pull together and redistribute to people. So that's what we did. And now we have a variety, like accelerators we've created and really trying to draw out the innovative community. We work closely with GMU. And one thing we'd like to build on, one of the reasons you have companies like Google and others is because there was a university connected? And when they have R and D at a university and they're known for it, like Stanford, like MIT, like Carnegie Mellon, often those, those type of colleges and universities let students keep their patents and then they can go out in the world and do something with it. So we want to form that kind of relationship with GMU. How can we get these students to start being innovative and then stay in Fairfax and expand these companies? But Amazon has. We are definitely seeing the ripple effects of Amazon. So with tysons, that is our engine. If you look at where our real estate dollars come in, it's huge. And now the silver line corridor. Right? So the last stop was Reston station. And then phase two opened about a year and a half ago, and now it's expanding, expanding to rest in town center and on out to the airport. We were one of perhaps the last major city that didn't have a subway or metro that went to an international airport. So that was a big deal. And they already have millions of riders. So despite Metro's troubles, they've had some bad luck. Pandemic did not help them.
Couple of accidents.
[01:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Talk about Fairfax county comparing it to the other jurisdictions that you've worked in. And, I mean, it started as a suburban place, and there really wasn't an urban center in Fairfax county ever, really. Tyson's corner was the only one, but it was built at a crossroads with the regional shopping center being the first real impetus to the whole area there. And then, of course, the west group and Jerry Halpin. So Ted Lerner and Jerry Halpin were really the pioneers of Fairfax county, along with a guy named Till Hazel, who was the attorney that kind of designed everything, and they were really the architects. But what's interesting, when I was doing enough of these podcasts, I interviewed Brian Folger. His father, Sid Folger, actually owned the land underneath Tyson's corner shopping center. So he was assembling land before even Ted Lerner was there, which was fascinating to me.
And his father also built the Mormon temple in Kensington. So, yes, so it's interesting that Folger, they were doing land development even before Ted Lerner had control of that site for the mall. So there was activity even before that as far as land assembly before the mall, which is interesting.
[01:23:43] Speaker C: Totally. So Fairfax is huge. It's 400 sq. Mi, 1.2 million people. Population wise, we are bigger than eight states in the country.
[01:23:54] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:23:54] Speaker C: Like North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and DC. DC is 800,000. So we're bigger.
[01:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:24:00] Speaker C: They used to be the biggest. And you look at maps of, you know, where the population growth was.
There was a lot of land. It was cheap land, relatively speaking. There was a lot of government investment in the roads. So the beltway was a big move, 66 expansion over time, the dullest toll road.
So you started to get these major moves that allowed access to land. It's not a coincidence that Tyson's is where it is, because it's where the Beltway and six and also the toll road all come together. And I would say, you know, people from California would say, well, how do you like Fairfax? I say it's wealthy and healthy. I mean, we really are a prosperous, healthy place where our poverty rate is very low. It's only 6%, much lower than the national and state average.
We have a very high educational level, on average, throughout the county.
Our Ami area, median income is high. It's in, you know, the six digits. I think it's 124, last I checked. I have to confirm that.
And so we have great prosperity, great diversity. Interestingly, Fairfax is 20% asian now, and we think of Asian often people, the Chinese or Korean. That also includes Indonesia and Pakistanis, 20% there, 15% Latinx, and 10% African American. So we're coming up to almost half people.
[01:25:41] Speaker B: I thought I saw the stats, that it is now a majority minority county. Okay, so maybe we just saw the stats recently.
[01:25:48] Speaker C: Maybe we just crossed over. Yeah. Fascinating. And I think that brings a unique flavor and interest. You know, a third of the people in Fairfax are foreign born. And I think what we forget about immigrants is when they come here, they can't believe the opportunities. They just can't believe it. You can start a business and actually prosper. I mean, there just aren't those opportunities in many countries. I can buy this land, this property. I can go to the government for assistance. I mean, our country works, at least for today, so let's hope we keep it going. Like you think about the infrastructure bill and the inflation Reduction act, these are major moves that are really helping all Americans. And so, like many places, we're doing well and we don't have to deal with the stresses and strains of high poverty, high crime. We're one of the safest places in America for a locality our size. I think we're number one in safety. Our police chief said this. He came from Baltimore, our police chief, and he said, this is remarkable. I mean, it's just. It just functions so well. And so when you don't have those stresses, you can move on to the other work at hand. And so our biggest problem is we were built, as you said, john, on the car. And at that time, people thought, great, what's wrong with that? You know, get out of the, you know, to heck with streetcars. All that, you know, got pulled up mostly post World War two.
We'll just drive everywhere, and a thing called traffic really wasn't an issue. And then we found out, oh, there is a downside to this. Basically, if everyone's traveling this way, you think about a pedestrian and the size of a pedestrian, and then you think about a cardinal car, and the size of a car takes up a lot of room. That is a lot of money to build the infrastructure for. And so we don't have endless money, and we don't have the type of federal investment that we had in the sixties and seventies. It's just a different day. So we are now trying to shift from this very auto dominant county to more mixed use, concentrated development, particularly with metro. So we have about 14 metro stops now and to concentrate the development there. But it doesn't just have to be there. Like, you look at Fairfax Corner, and that is working. And I think the key is place making people know where they're wanted.
[01:28:23] Speaker B: Mosaic is a good example.
[01:28:25] Speaker C: Totally right. That's about a mile from the metro, which is so a mile is basically a 20 minutes walk. Right. But most people will go five to ten minutes. Still. It's within shooting distance. So you, what was I going to say about that one?
[01:28:45] Speaker B: Well, you were at Fairfax corner, and then you went to mosaic.
[01:28:48] Speaker C: Yeah. And so they can.
They can get there from there, but the focus of it was to really create a there there. And even as they're geniuses when it comes to having that magic formula, like, you think about here where we are in union market, and you think about how they just get the bones right, the grid of streets, the right size, the right speed, good public spaces, and the right mix with that, and they've just got a winning formula, so we want more of that. In fact, I went to Eden's when we had a launch for the autonomous vehicle. We had the first publicly owned autonomous vehicle in Virginia. It was called relay. Yeah. And it went around mosaic. It went up to this. Metro had done luring, and then I would come to mosaic, and it was there maybe two years. It was really fun. And so I met one of the developers, Steve Boyle, and I said, why aren't you expanding this? This is a gold mine, and we need more of this. And he said, yeah, we own the land. There's a golds gym. It's south of mosaic. And we worked really hard to develop that plan with him. Look at the zoning, the far, how much he could build. And they were about ready to pull the trigger. And then there's an owner right in the middle. There's like an iron mountain kind of building. It's a big storage building right on gallows. And that company sold, and so they almost had to deal with the prior owner to buy it because each has to get approval from the other. They share the parking lot, and now it's owned by Kite. And now they've had to start all over. So I keep bugging them, and hopefully Jody McLean and that group will figure out a way to buy that property and kite will sell. So same thing with Fairfax corner. They continue to infill. You've been there.
[01:30:46] Speaker B: That's Peterson.
[01:30:47] Speaker C: Yep, that's right. It was just a brilliant job. And they hired a design firm. I always forget the name, but I think they're out of Baltimore. And they did the same thing as well. You gotta get that grid right. The streets, the design of the streets, the public spaces in the right location, the parking, you know, on the periphery. And they, too, are really hitting it out of the ballpark. So we know we can do this. And then you look at what Boston properties is doing and Ray Ritchie and how he was able to keep vw here and then get Fannie Mae from DC.
[01:31:21] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:31:22] Speaker C: These were big wins. That was huge.
[01:31:24] Speaker B: Reston town center is a special place.
[01:31:26] Speaker C: It really is. And with the opening of that a year and a half ago, that stopped.
He's been able to build what they call Reston next right at the metro. And you walk through that and it will have all these elements we were just talking about. It's got the housing, the hotel, the office, good public space, good bones, nice street grid. You cross over the Wnod trail and you get into the Reston, the historic Reston town center corps, which has, in my view, always done well. You know, all places have a little bit of up and down moments, but they're doing really well with their. Their blend of uses. The office, Deloitte, I believe, is there now really good restaurant choices and a variety of condos, townhomes, and apartment buildings. So it's the magic for me.
[01:32:21] Speaker B: At an exit earlier than that, your former employer has a big sign right on the Dulles toll road. Google.
[01:32:28] Speaker C: Yeah. So the next station over. Yeah. Where Comstock is. Chris Clemente. Yeah. Like Ray, I mean, these are very visionary thinkers, and they really take chances. I know developers are often thought of as the guys at the black hats, but, I mean, they really are my heroes because they take that financial risk. They have that vision. They slog through day to day details, having worked briefly as a developer with five point and then Google. Oh, wow, there's a lot to this. And they don't just sit around all day saying, hmm, how can I just make more money? Is really not what they do. They're really very focused on place, making success, helping a community. They want to make a buck, but of course they have to. We want them to. We need them to.
So that that's what we're focusing on. And so Reston station, Chris Clemente is now. They just topped off the hotel.
I believe it's a Marriott. They're building two spec office buildings, which is really interesting. Who's building spec office today? And I.
[01:33:33] Speaker B: And it's leasing. Yes, and it's leasing.
[01:33:35] Speaker C: Exactly. And what we hear is companies now can be a little choosier. And they want that new trophy space. Right. And right at Metro. Are you kidding me? And then they have a new residential building. So we've been working to try and improve the street design. Really? So you got Arreston station Boulevard where it's really been dominated by buses because there's a bus vault right in the middle and we're working to move it. It's like this street isn't working. They don't have room for on street parking, which is a killer for retail. Think about going back to Mosaic and Fairfax corner and others. You've got to have that so someone can just pull over and the retail just keeps failing. So we're working on moving that bus vault out. Chris says he wants to. Chris Clemente wants to take that space and turn it into like a bowling alley or a theater or something because it's all underground. Right.
[01:34:27] Speaker B: I think he has the largest underground parking lot in Fairfax county.
[01:34:30] Speaker C: We actually own it. I know, right?
[01:34:32] Speaker B: He told that story.
[01:34:34] Speaker C: Yeah. And we're talking about like 4000 spaces or something. And it was full at one time, but no more. No more. It's a different day.
[01:34:42] Speaker B: Well, it's because the pandemic, he said right? At the pandemic, everything.
[01:34:46] Speaker C: Totally, totally. It's a different day. So then we, you know, Gensler, you mentioned Gensler earlier. They have been designing parking garages that can be converted to office or Resi. And they get the floor to floor height. Right. They get the systems right where the core is so that, okay, this doesn't work. We're going to switch to that. I just thought that was brilliant. I wish we had known that. But what Chris did while Bob Simon was still alive, this was interesting, is Bob told him, do not put that garage above ground. Ground. You're going to kill this place. And that's what does the public sector need to do to help the private sector? We borrowed the money to build that thing. We can build infrastructure, and we're not out to make money, but it has to be financially feasible and prudent. And so that was how that got done. And then he did the rest. Now, you think about Vienna and two garages right there. Why hasn't Vienna worked? And a big transfer center at grade a place killer, right? So I heard a lecture recently. This guy said place making and place breaking, and that broke it. And so we've learned, learned the hard way. And so Ray Ritchie and that team has done it right as well. They're doing underground at their site. So back to what Fairfax needs. So we have what's called an sov rate, single occupant van vehicle use rate at 71%, and we really should be at 50 at the most. So we're really working on that. We have an active Fairfax plan going on, safe streets for all plan. And VDOT owns our roads. They maintain and operate them, and we have to work with them very closely. But we're really pushing to what I call not rewarding the through traveler as much. It was always, and that was the suburban model, right. You get from, a, your subdivision to, b, the Pentagon, downtown office buildings and everything in between was just throughput. We call them car sewers. So we've been treating streets like a water utility. Just get it through. And now we're saying, wait a minute, these are living, breathing places that really need to have a variety of uses on them. You know, not just Walmarts or an exit to an office park, but buildings right on the street. And you think about the Rosslyn Boston corridor. It's a miracle. It is so remarkable how that community came together and created that masterpiece. You know, just a phenomenal economic boost for that county. And we didn't get the, unfortunately, the metro below grade, but at least it's there. And now we're trying to build around.
[01:37:36] Speaker B: This corner is now envisioned to be similar to the Roslyn Boston quarter in some respects.
[01:37:41] Speaker C: In some respects, right. But with the above ground that Wilson.
[01:37:45] Speaker B: Boulevard has, for instance.
[01:37:48] Speaker C: Right. I think we're going to have to go to other portions. So neighborhoods are developing within Tyson. So you got the cap one area which is very walkable, mixed use, that's been a huge success. Across the street where city line is. That was Jerry Halpern's company originally.
[01:38:05] Speaker B: Shaffer's running.
[01:38:06] Speaker C: That's right, yeah. And remarkable team. And so they're developing their section called Scott's run. Then you've got the area where the mather just went in.
That's where you and I could live, John, when we're old.
[01:38:19] Speaker B: Well, that's also city line. City line assembled that, too.
[01:38:23] Speaker C: Yes, that's right. I. That's right. And so that's becoming its own neighborhood. Then you have the area at. So there's the spring Hill metro where the borough is, and Meridian built that. I know you know them and that's been a real success. Then you go further down the last stop, whose name is Spring? No, not spring. One's called Greensboro and one's called Spring Hill. That's right.
[01:38:49] Speaker B: Tyson's west, maybe it's called the station.
[01:38:51] Speaker C: And so that Greensboro Drive. Yeah, there was a plan to build like the tallest building in Fairfax there. I don't know that that will happen anymore, but there is very strong interest in that area. So we have this necklace of metro stops along the way. And it is happening now. The next part is to reweave the fabric of what was built as wide arterials for throughput. About a third of the traffic in Tysons is just throughput. We don't get their money, we don't get their investment. They don't live there. They don't work there, they don't shop there. So why reward them? They should really be taking the toll road or 66 or the Beltway. If they want to come through, that's fine. But they're going to, it's going to be slower. But I say humanize our streets going from these, you know, eight lane wide arterials.
[01:39:41] Speaker B: So you're going to start narrowing the streets in Tyson's corner.
[01:39:43] Speaker C: So I would love to. That's going to take a while. But I'll tell you where we are starting is Reston station. So Wheelie Ave, parts of it are up to nine lanes. It's wider than Connecticut Avenue or, you know, Pennsylvania Avenue. It's way over capacity. So we're starting to challenge some of the assumptions and the modeling they use. And that's something I learned from California. They did away with level of service los and switched to what they call vehicle miles traveled. So you think more holistically about how that street is used. So they're bringing, so we're bringing that thinking to Wheelie and I think it's going to be our first bona fide road diet and to bring it down from nine to six and make it more like Connecticut Avenue on street parking.
[01:40:31] Speaker B: What's the northern terminus of that? Of Wheely Avenue?
[01:40:36] Speaker C: It's sunset.
[01:40:38] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:40:39] Speaker C: Okay. So from sunrise, which is south of the toll road, to sunset, we're starting with the northern part where Comstock's development is, but they're going to be doing the south part as well. So, yeah, eventually assembled all that land.
[01:40:55] Speaker B: They have 13 million density there. I mean, it's just incredible.
Yeah. So in essence, they can build their own city.
In essence, yeah.
[01:41:06] Speaker C: Like Boston properties has done.
And they're a great partner. They really want to get it right. I'm like, well, what? Why are you doing that? Why don't you try this? And Chris says, okay, we can look at that. It's really nice. You know, it has a very forward thinking approach.
[01:41:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I also interviewed Jim Davis of Davis Construction.
[01:41:24] Speaker C: Such a delightful person.
[01:41:25] Speaker B: Jim built the garage.
[01:41:27] Speaker C: That's right.
[01:41:28] Speaker B: All that. And he talks about the relationship between Fairfax county and them and Chris. And he said it's been a very, very good relationship.
[01:41:37] Speaker C: I agree. I agree. Yep.
[01:41:39] Speaker B: Which is.
I want to step back just for a moment about that. And I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, and you grew up there.
It just, it's such a contrast. And we talked about this on the phone as well. And I'm not going to get into my historical perspective that you and I talked about a little bit. But let's just say, for instance, Montgomery county approached you and said, so, Rachel, would you come here and do what you did for Fairfax county?
If you were looking at Montgomery county since, you know, it grew up there, what advice would you give Montgomery county today if you were thinking about all what you've learned over the last 2030 years of your planning career?
[01:42:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Some of the similar issues with Fairfax where the streets are more for throughput, not all of them, but there are a lot, you know, New Hampshire Avenue fears, mill, those roads that are coming back to me now. And I think they're actually working on like, brts on those roads.
[01:42:48] Speaker B: Yes, they are.
[01:42:48] Speaker C: And to really create that they're there, much like they did in Bethesda, Bethesda Rowe. And I think that's been a real success. And corporations have stayed and invested like Marriott, like Clark and others.
So I would go down that road and I think they are very interested in that and are already again looking at it. But I would have boost that even more to create the real value. I think we leave a lot of value on the table when we don't get the bones right of the transportation systems and then the actual design of the street, because new, I tell my staff, the three legged stool. So the transportation network and street designs, then the land use and then the economic development, and the three always have to be working together. You need to think, okay, if you're going to design the street that way, what does the street want to be? It depends on what, you know, the land use. Is it an industrial park, you know, or Amazon distribution center? Okay. I could tell you what kind of street you need there and where you should be, you know, near those major highways. Right. But if you want it to be a real place like. Like here, union Market, or the others we've talked about, then your street needs to come down to size. You got to slow that speed. You need to help pedestrians come out. Pedestrians know where they're wanted, and they avoid higher speed, more dangerous places. So, like a 29, we have sidewalks along it. But are people going to walk it if they have a choice? Now there are people who walk who often don't have a choice. Right. And so how do we then shift that? And route one is an example. So we are putting BRT there, and it's a $1.3 billion project. So this is a major investment.
[01:44:40] Speaker B: Is this from the beltway all the way down to Mount Vernon? Basically?
[01:44:43] Speaker C: Pretty much, yep. From the Huntington metro, which is just below the Beltway, down to Fort Belmore. And it's about 7 miles, and it will go parts of route one or five lanes or seven. There's a suicide lane in the middle, but instead. So this will be ten lanes, and it'll have BRT in the middle and then turn lanes and then the three lane throughput. So working with staff now to make sure we create place along, like, where the nodes are for the stops, for the BRT, so that this ten lanes doesn't become a divider, but it unites. And you think about Pennsylvania Avenue. It's pretty wide, but I. Because of the architecture and the slower speed of the. Of the road, people feel comfortable crossing. That's what I want for route one. That's what I want for route 29, for route 50, for these major corridors, for Braddock Road.
[01:45:38] Speaker B: How about Leesburg pike and Tyson?
[01:45:40] Speaker C: That's right. Route 7123, all of these. And we're starting to challenge the models and the formulas that have been applied in the past by saying, you're rewarding the driver and the throughput driver. Where does the pedestrian come in? Where does the cyclist come in? Where does the transit rider come in? Another policy that the board passed is called one Fairfax. And they're very concerned about equity and Dei, like we were talking about. Well, if you look at certain parts of Fairfax, car ownership rate is lower in the higher minority areas. Those people don't have a choice. And like Mayor Riley said, they deserve the best street, you know, not just what's left over, and they have to use it. We've all seen them. You know, they're walking on the edge or parents with little kids, and, you know, we, we really need to take care of them, ensure their safety, number one. But also that it's a beautiful and nice place to be. That's why so many people go to mosaic. So many people go to Fairfax county. You know, I don't know if you've been there on a Friday or Saturday night filled with families. Filled with families.
And so it's really nice to see, and I wish we had that kind of activity on our major street. So we're starting to work on that and get VDOT to kind of come around and see that we need to think of all users. So where you have level of service for cars, we're working to create an Los for pedestrians, an Los for cyclists, and Los for transit riders, and VDOT is part of that. And I think they're learning a lot, too, because engineers were taught a certain way, do this formula, and now we're saying, no, no, we have to expand the pie here. That's a huge part of.
[01:47:24] Speaker B: So are you overseeing Fairfax county transportation, then? You are. Okay. So you have the transportation, the planning.
[01:47:31] Speaker C: And the economic development and public works. So we have sewer of water, solid waste capital facilities.
[01:47:39] Speaker B: Right. So you're, you know, almost everything physical in the county you manage.
That's. That's exciting. It's a powerful role.
[01:47:49] Speaker C: It is. Yeah.
[01:47:50] Speaker B: The county sec doesn't have time to do all that.
[01:47:52] Speaker C: No, he can't. No. Just like he can't run the police department and fire. You know, he has a deputy county executive for that, and then he has one for HHS who oversees, you know, all the health and human service programs. So, yeah, that's interesting.
[01:48:10] Speaker B: So since you have a multidisciplinary background with architecture, public planning, land use development, private sector technology, and international experiences, it seems that you understand cooperation and the win win considerations in implementing change.
Talk about your planning philosophy and how you negotiate fairness among all district parties. We've talked a little bit about this, but talk a little bit more philosophically here.
[01:48:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, we work for the people of Fairfax or, you know, name the place where I've worked in the past and have to think about what they need. Right. Where can they live? Have a variety of housing types. Where can they work? How do we make it as easy as possible to get from a to b be? Where do they shop? So think about all that. Ask them what they want. Those public spaces. We talked about the riverfronts here. I mean, we do have a riverfront, but more important, within the county, you know, how do we give them those great spaces and get the private sector to then invest in those places? So getting back to the vision and asking the people, what do you want? And it's interesting, you know, we were talking about street design, and it sounds so boring, but it just has such an impact. So a new development will be proposed and the people who already live there say, we don't want it. You've heard of NIMBY?
[01:49:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:49:38] Speaker C: Not in my backyard.
And it's in some ways, it's like, I got mine now. Go down the road. Well, there's not much road to go down anymore. We just widened 66 to twelve lanes. That's it. We're not going to be able to widen anymore unless we're going to start taking houses, and that's not going to happen. So you can only go out so far without creating horrendous traffic. So how do we build within these areas? So a big part of our job is to educate people and to talk to them about how these systems work. So they'll say, I do not want any more traffic in my neighborhood. It's like, all right, what if we made the street so that we induce more pedestrian cycle and transit use? We're not adding to the volume. And what if we get existing drivers to now get out of their cars? So shift the behavior? So rather than assume that everyone's just going to keep traveling the same way, we just got to keep winding and winding, winding. We're doing then damage to the very kind of people we want to have come there.
What if we rethought it and some people just don't want to hear, but most people really do listen and they say, oh, well, I hadn't thought about it that way. And I was at a meeting the other night for Wheelie Ave at Reston station. It was a public meeting to show them the road diet. And there were some who said, no, no, no, you're going to delay my time to get to the early bird special, wherever they're going. And there was a young woman there who looked over at me, and I just reached out to her and said, hi, I'm Rachel. I know. I heard you speak about the planning of Fairfax, and that's why I'm here tonight. I was so compelled by what you said, and I want to be part of it. Can I hug you? This is exactly why we do what we do, is to reach out to people, share our knowledge. This isn't what they do for a living. It's what we do. How can we help them? You know, you don't go to a doctor and say, well, here's my symptom. And the doctor says, well, what do you think I should do? You know, they tell you, they educate you. Here are your options. We can do surgery, we can do treatment. We can.
[01:51:48] Speaker B: Sure.
[01:51:48] Speaker C: And so the same thing with our line of business, like, okay, here's how it's going to work, you guys. We can wind the road, but you're never going to get those pedestrians you want. And guess what? You just took up space for cars. You don't want cars. But we just added more. There was a great planner who founded the project for public places, and he said, if you design your communities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. You design your communities for people and places. You got people in places. That's what we're seeing right around us here, all these places. And they're money makers. If they didn't make money, that might be another thing, but they're very successful. So when people hear that and a lot more young people are coming out, they actually have bearings. So there's a new group starting in California, of course, because so many things start there called, yes, in my backyard, the YImbys. Right? And I was talking to a woman from the Coalition for Smarter Growth, which has really been a Yimby organization.
Stuart Schwartz handles that. I knew him well in Richmond, and then Sonya Brihe is his local person. And I said, sonia, you guys should start a Yimby group. She goes, oh, there is one in northern Virginia. It's like, two people. So I reached out to them and said, it'd be great if you guys would get more involved in the planning process and come to public meetings. Well, darned if they didn't take that advice and come out. And they came to the parking reimagined meeting, and we were rethinking.
One of the advantages that we built these huge parking lots is now we have land where you can put those townhouses, like Eya is putting them, or rethink a whole area. Right. Because you got land right in prime spots. So they came out. There must have been, I would say, 25 people. It was great. And the board was pleasantly surprised. Like, young people are coming out and speaking, and this is their future, you know, often older white people.
And it's just not as blended as we had hoped. So I think it is working. People are getting educated, they're rethinking, and they need places to live.
That is a big challenge besides traffic. And we have a certain set of bones, and we need to change the bones while the patient's still alive. But the other thing is now the housing crisis in America, not just here, but I think NIMBYs were a big part of that. We just have not built enough.
[01:54:20] Speaker B: Well, there's, you know, the no zoning movement going around the country with regard to single family zoning.
[01:54:27] Speaker C: Missing middle, like Arlington. Yeah.
[01:54:29] Speaker B: Well, just in Montgomery county, there's a big, strong movement right now to eliminate single family zoning altogether, which, you know, has caused angst in older communities.
[01:54:42] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[01:54:43] Speaker B: So they're worried about high rises, or not as high rises, but multifamily being built next door to them and things like that.
[01:54:50] Speaker C: But you look at, like we were talking about the Roslyn Boston corridor. Same thing, and look at what happened. Those property values, people's, the biggest investment they made in life just doubled, quadrupled, whatnot. So it's interesting hearing people complain about their home value going up. It's like. But this is your greatest investment. Life, it just doubled, right?
[01:55:13] Speaker B: Exactly. In 2007, I participated in reality check, which was a regional planning exercises where leaders in both the public and private sectors, from all disciplines, came together in small groups with a regional map and boxes of legos to plan density and uses for the region. The results of that were quite interesting, yet not too much has really changed since then, unfortunately. Certainly awareness was raised, but not only when distress, metro funding or opportunity hq two, or the Olympics was apparent did collaboration occur to reallocate densities and opportunities appropriately. Do you think this thought process could be resurrected?
The pandemic may have. May have qualified as distressful event, and its repercussions are still being felt. Your thoughts?
[01:56:11] Speaker C: Oh, yes.
First of all, we have a strong economy now. So in zero seven, the timing was unfortunate because then we had the zero eight downturn, and people just weren't building for a while. It took, well, you would know, three to five, if not more years to really start building up again. So now we're in a good economy. I know interest rates have gone up and that is putting a slight pause, but nothing like zero eight. And it will come back. You know, the feds are going to make their adjustments and then it'll start increasing more. So I think those are the times when you step back and you think, what do we want to be? How do we want to grow? And we have been doing that with. So we have a process going on now called plan forward, and we're revisiting our policy plans. And I think this is the very thing that will come up. And we're actually advertising for a new dot director. And I'm hoping we get that person who really understands, like, you know, maybe Pete Buttigieg will apply. What do you think?
Or Jeanette Sadak Khan, who ran dot for Bloomberg in New York City. I want that real forward thinking, visionary person who motivates people, gets excited. I think if we don't deal with transportation, and I know it's a boring subject with how we design our streets, I think that will affect the land use. And then because people go, why can't this work here? It's like because of the three legged stool, you have to think of all three. So I think the timing is really good to be looking at all three. And one of the plans, policy plans, we're looking at is transportation and looking at the complete streets model, which Alexandria has done.
So that, and then that density. Now that Metro is basically done one day, maybe it'll extend along 66 or even go down route one one day. But I think we're putting those pieces in place to then allow that type of land use. We want an investment and it affects job creation and what kind of companies want to be here.
[01:58:15] Speaker B: Pivoting is social issues that affect this thing.
How do we change the mindsets to accentuate differences among people, highlighting their strengths as contributing people both in business and society.
[01:58:30] Speaker C: Wow.
I think we need to respect all views and there's not like a bad guy, a good guy or a gal, and to think about what they need. You know, the business owner needs to make money and we want them to make money. We don't have to see that developer as the enemy, but a real partner. And again, bring people together, listen to each other, hear what they can do for a community. I mean, I've seen Chris Clementi do this, I've seen Taylor chess do this, I've seen Ray Ritchie do this. When they talk to the community about, help me understand, tell me what you want and how I can make your life better. What kind of housing? And it's often now I just want affordable housing. It's like, okay, well, there are certain types that are going to be more affordable than others, and that's where that density comes in. Then you can address people who are, quote, anti density to get them to understand this need and how we're creating these other problems and bring them aboard. And I think it is changing this thing called the accessory dwelling unit ordinance. Yeah. And we have, we have a little ways to go, but at least now you can put a unit in your, your attic or your basement. So within your house, if you want it to be a separate structure, you need two acres. But at least we got started. The camel's nose is in the tent, right? And this is what happened in Montgomery county. Then a few years later, they said, okay, maybe just an acre. Okay, now half an acre. So people get used to the idea. And then people can live in a community that otherwise they never could have lived in. People can buy a house knowing they can get rental income, so now they can afford to buy that house.
And it builds community. So little moves like that, and we come together and look at the social aspect, the business aspect, and we can work together on this. And with Fairfax's great wealth, and that makes a big difference.
[02:00:31] Speaker B: That's great.
In our call recently, I referred to Uali's urban plan, which is a planning exercise that started with high school students and now expanded to college students and public sector officials.
It seems that good planning comes from education and seeing the give and take between public officials and private sector. This model orients people to think about what it takes financially, socially and emotionally to plan and develop communities.
I'm suggesting I hope you take the time to learn about it. As from what I've read about you, this would resonate totally.
[02:01:15] Speaker C: And it gets back to my hero, Mayor Riley, who founded the mayor's Institute on City Design. And it was exactly this. And teaching politicians about planning design because they have so much power and they go into, they have to bring a case study. So it's like, say it was mosaic before Mosaic was there when it was just a movie theater. And they would take that and say, here's what we're thinking of doing. And they bring national experts in from transportation, economics, planning, whatnot, even developers. And they say, okay, here's what you need to think about. And the mayors, there's no press allowed, no staff allowed. The mayor has to know that project and explain it. And we did one for Richmond, the riverfront, that project where they were going to build that massive development. And I think it really helped educate the mayor. So absolutely. Those kind of things, however you can hit it. You go into high schools, go talk to college students at VCU. I spoke a lot there because they were right downtown, and they always came in to have internships as a result, and have now gone on to be planning directors. Wherever, but wherever and whenever you can reach somebody, whenever I get an invite to talk, I don't care if three people are there. You never know who will be in that audience. Like the woman who came up to me and said, I'm here tonight because I heard you speak. And this is part of what we got to do. Get out there, educate. Inform them. No judgment. People feel judged or berated. Forget it. You've lost them. Just educate and say, here's why this works. Here's why this doesn't. And a lot of times, people go, I never really thought about that. I knew it didn't, but I didn't have the language. I didn't have the knowledge to know why that's successful and that's not. Or that street works and this doesn't, why I wouldn't walk there, why I would walk here. And so it's so rewarding, you know, just to teach people well, it's that.
[02:03:22] Speaker B: And it's also to understand different perspectives and the multidisciplinary approach you have. I mean, you've seen. You've seen six ways of seeing the same thing.
[02:03:34] Speaker C: Yeah. That's a good way of saying it, right? Totally.
[02:03:36] Speaker B: So you could look at the same thing, and a different part of you says, this is the way we should look at it. And another part of you says, no, no, we should look at it this way. So you have to. Within yourself, you're debating what is the right situation for what's at hand here, right?
[02:03:52] Speaker C: I am a bit of an x ray machine.
[02:03:56] Speaker B: But it's an internal thing, because what does this experience tell me that this does? And then another experience hits you. Oh, wait a minute. You know, it isn't always other people. It's within yourself, right?
[02:04:10] Speaker C: Like, where should that public space be? I think this is gonna work.
[02:04:14] Speaker B: It's your own head.
[02:04:15] Speaker C: That's why I just steal from people. You know, I'm a big copycat. Like the wharf. I think the wharf's a masterpiece.
[02:04:22] Speaker B: I love the phenomenal.
[02:04:23] Speaker C: And I'm like, okay, let me break this down. Like, let me do an x ray of this. How did this work? Where did they place this and. Yeah.
[02:04:31] Speaker B: Right.
[02:04:31] Speaker C: Just learn from others.
[02:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah. You don't have this much waterfront in Fairfax county unless you were to go down near Mount Vernon and do something down there, which would be an interesting situation.
[02:04:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Because our land is so high.
[02:04:45] Speaker B: Right.
[02:04:46] Speaker C: You know, we don't have the old town. Yeah. Yeah. I don't. We have very few park. And then we got Fort Belvoir, which we can't touch. You know, that's the us military. So most of the land that touches the river is not accessible to us, or we don't have it.
[02:05:01] Speaker B: Right, right.
[02:05:03] Speaker A: So, Rachel, I understand you moved now to Greeley, Colorado, with a new position.
[02:05:11] Speaker B: So could you tell us a little bit about that and why you left.
[02:05:15] Speaker A: Fairfax county.
[02:05:19] Speaker B: And, you know, kind of.
[02:05:20] Speaker A: What this opportunity, how it presented itself, and I. How it's playing out now.
[02:05:26] Speaker B: Thank you.
[02:05:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:05:29] Speaker D: Well, as you could see from my life experience, I have worked in many places and many cities, and often at the five year mark, when I'm at a place, I reevaluate, see if it's working for both of us and if there's another opportunity I want to pursue. And while I really enjoyed my work in Fairfax and felt we were making progress, I am 65, and so I figure I'll work another five years or so, and was thinking, what would I want to do in those last five years? Stay where I am, look at other opportunities.
And right about that time, right after we spoke initially, a headhunter reached out, and he said, would you ever consider Greeley, Colorado? And I said, where?
So he said, it's becoming a bedroom community of Denver. It's north about 50 minutes, and it's a fast growing community. It's about 120,000 now, and they expect to be about 240,000 in 2025 years.
And when I asked, well, why are they growing and not the other places like Boulder and Fort Collins along that route 25 corridor? He said, because they have the water, and they secured that water over a century ago, and then the decades after, which tells me they're good planners and really thinking of the future that the city was named after Horace Greeley, who was the founder and editor of the Herald Tribune in New York City. You probably read his works when he was giving Abraham Lincoln grief throughout the Civil War, and he's the one who coined the phrase go west, young Mandy, and experienced the growth of the country.
He didn't come out here to found it. His right hand man, the editor of the agriculture section of the paper, came out and laid out a grid, planted the trees. All the trees died. They started again. They dug the ditches for the water.
But it was first called Union Colony, and it was planned as this utopian city where people would be educated, moral, believe in religion. It was a dry town and there was a group of 200 and some who came with them to be a part of this experiment. And as you can see, it worked. And Meeker was the man's name, I think it was John Meeker. And he asked Horace Greeley if he could name the town after him.
They do have drinking now, which is really nice.
But I thought, you know, my age, thinking back to the cities, I really enjoyed, even though I intentionally wanted to go to the bigger cities or counties each time.
The smaller the city, the more engaged I could be in specific projects and policies and whatnot in the city.
[02:09:08] Speaker C: And I thought, huh, that might be.
[02:09:12] Speaker D: Nice to be that involved again. You know, being in Fairfax, as I mentioned, it's bigger than eight states in the country and DC. And so it was like running a state, you know, it's just enormous.
All the projects, all the initiatives underway and not to mention all the regional issues, you know, the council of governments, the metro, the MPO, everyone has an MPO, but everything is so large and expansive in Fairfax. And it was a different kind of job and how I would manage my seven departments. And so you really relied on your directors. You have to delegate a lot. And the smaller the city, the more you can be engaged in specific projects, like the downtown. So they have a historic downtown and they've made some progress, but I think they could go even further. And I really wanted to be part of that, like I did in Lynchburg, Richmond, and to some extent Oakland.
And also with the growth, Fairfax is pretty much flat with their population growth, slight increases each year. Interestingly, population went down during COVID in Fairfax, but now back up maybe a percent or so. But to plan a city that will double in size, they have extensive amount of land here, mostly agriculture. And I thought, boy, to be able to shape that and with all that I've learned through my education and experience and work, and to do it right, to make it as walkable and environmentally sensitive as possible, so that. And then they want to expand the airport, make it competitive with Fort Collins airport. So the city manager, Raymond Lee, he really has great vision for this city, and I loved hearing about it and was excited about it, and it's a good counsel. And so I thought, well, let me go out and talk to them. And the more I saw and the more I learned. I really liked the team he's put together.
I thought I would like to be a part of that. So it's been about six weeks. Been very enjoyable. It's a beautiful part of the country. You find yourself, you keep looking at the mountains, you just automatically just always there.
And it's actually only about 40 minutes from Cheyenne, Wyoming. So it's really interesting part of the country that I didn't know much about.
And then just learning about water, water rights.
[02:12:09] Speaker A: Are you closer to Wyoming than you are to Denver?
[02:12:13] Speaker D: It's about halfway in between.
Yeah, about a little. Little bit closer to Wyoming, actually.
[02:12:20] Speaker B: It's interesting.
[02:12:22] Speaker A: And, well, you said it's agriculture. I mean, that part of the state, I think it's pretty rocky there.
[02:12:31] Speaker B: Right.
[02:12:31] Speaker A: And it's not, it's more, isn't it? More grazing than. But crops.
[02:12:37] Speaker C: A lot of crops, yeah.
[02:12:39] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[02:12:41] Speaker D: Sugar beet was the big crop in the day when they founded this area.
[02:12:45] Speaker C: I'm not sure why, but.
[02:12:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[02:12:49] Speaker D: It's just prairie, prairie land. There are no trees. All the trees you see out here have been planted. They've had to figure out what kind of trees, how to plant them, plant them. That is a challenge. But there's a fair amount now.
And, you know, the vistas, they're so expansive. And I was telling my husband, I.
[02:13:09] Speaker C: Said you could just see so far.
[02:13:11] Speaker D: Yes, I think it's because there aren't as many trees. You can just see further.
[02:13:16] Speaker A: But my wife was born actually in eastern Colorado.
[02:13:21] Speaker C: Really?
[02:13:22] Speaker A: Right near the Kansas line.
[02:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:13:24] Speaker A: Small town in Kit Carson county.
And, but that is, you know, you wouldn't know whether you were in Kansas or Colorado there.
[02:13:35] Speaker B: It's virtually the same.
[02:13:37] Speaker A: It's flat and just, you know, all planes there, so.
But I got a sense north of Denver, I thought it was more mountainous, but I guess maybe not as much as it's west is where obviously the mountains start.
[02:13:53] Speaker D: Yeah, it's pretty flat. There's a great book that.
[02:13:58] Speaker C: Oh, gosh, what's his name?
[02:14:00] Speaker D: Because of the name, he writes all those, you know, thousand page novels.
[02:14:04] Speaker A: James Michener.
[02:14:06] Speaker D: Thank you.
[02:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I've read the book.
[02:14:11] Speaker D: Oh, you did?
[02:14:11] Speaker C: Centennial.
[02:14:12] Speaker D: Yeah, centennial, the name because Colorado became the state.
[02:14:17] Speaker A: That's right.
It's a great book.
[02:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[02:14:21] Speaker B: A good book for you if you haven't read it to.
[02:14:23] Speaker C: I just got it. Yeah.
[02:14:25] Speaker B: And there's a movie I assume you read.
[02:14:29] Speaker A: Chesapeake then, if you're not sure.
[02:14:31] Speaker C: I never did.
[02:14:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
[02:14:33] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[02:14:34] Speaker D: Always on my list, but I just never got around to it.
[02:14:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah.
[02:14:40] Speaker A: Well, I'm happy that you've, you know.
[02:14:43] Speaker B: Settled in there, and that's great to.
[02:14:47] Speaker A: Maybe the final leg of your career.
[02:14:49] Speaker B: It sounds like that's the way you're.
[02:14:51] Speaker A: You're glide pathing in. It sounds like at this point.
[02:14:54] Speaker D: Yeah, it's nice to wind down a little bit.
[02:14:56] Speaker A: And so do you think you and your husband would retire there, or would.
[02:15:01] Speaker B: You come back to the DC area or Virginia or whatever?
[02:15:05] Speaker C: I know, yeah.
[02:15:06] Speaker D: We'll always have a link there because that's where his boys are and his seven grandkids now, so will always have a foothold there. And then weather will, you know, end up in DC or that area because of my family remains to be seen. But, yeah, you never know. Maybe this could be a place and it's still very affordable, you know. So the average home price is about 400,000.
[02:15:31] Speaker C: Wow.
[02:15:32] Speaker A: There you go.
[02:15:34] Speaker D: Yeah.
[02:15:36] Speaker A: Nice place out there if you want that, too.
[02:15:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah.
[02:15:42] Speaker D: And Fairfax is probably getting up to 700,000 on average. But what's interesting, the eastern part of Greeley is agricultural, and the western part is suburban, basically, with the historic downtown in the core.
[02:15:58] Speaker C: And the University of Northern Colorado is here.
[02:16:01] Speaker D: So that would be the third biggest university. You got University of Colorado in Boulder. Then you got Colorado state, Fort Collins, and this one, University of northern Colorado. And they're all, like, along that 25 corridor.
[02:16:16] Speaker A: Sure.
[02:16:17] Speaker D: Yeah. You call it the Front range, which is the eastern side of the Rockies, though the other side is called the western slope, where a lot of the ski resorts are.
We're in the Front range and.
But, I mean, it is big Ag. So JBS is an enormous meat producer here. Yes, a lot about that was started locally. They're the company that shifted from grass fed to grain fed because there's just not enough grass in the world for meat consumption in America. And now it's spreading. And then a brazilian company bought them out called JBS. So they're an enormous food producer with other meats as well. And then one of the biggest cheese producers, believe it or not, if you eat pizza, you are eating cheese from Greece, luprino. They produce the most mozzarella in the country, maybe the world, who knows? But you keep hearing stories like that, like the pinto beans, the supplier of all of Taco Bell's pinto beans. And who knew I'd be learning about all these food products?
[02:17:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[02:17:32] Speaker D: Well, yeah, like Loudon was 25 years ago.
[02:17:36] Speaker B: Well, the meatpacking business has its own.
[02:17:38] Speaker A: Issues, and we talked about that briefly, as I recall early offline.
[02:17:45] Speaker B: And so that has impact on development there, I imagine.
[02:17:49] Speaker D: Yes.
[02:17:54] Speaker B: Affecting downwind activity.
[02:17:59] Speaker D: These are the things about agricultural communities.
[02:18:02] Speaker C: That I'm learning about. Yeah, I know.
[02:18:05] Speaker D: It makes me wonder. Fairfax had issues because it was a big dairy area, a lot of dairy farms, or till Hazel grew up on one.
[02:18:15] Speaker B: Right.
[02:18:17] Speaker D: I don't know if there were environmental associations with that.
[02:18:22] Speaker B: I just don't think of Fairfax county.
[02:18:24] Speaker A: Having that much agricultural land.
[02:18:28] Speaker B: Loudoun, all the counties around it do not. Arlington, obviously, but Prince William and Loudoun and Fauquier. Fauquier.
[02:18:40] Speaker A: All are pretty much agricultural, heavily.
[02:18:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:18:43] Speaker B: And then across the river in Montgomery.
[02:18:45] Speaker A: County is about half agricultural.
[02:18:47] Speaker B: So it's.
Yeah, so it's big, but where you are, it sounds like that's the predominant culture there.
[02:18:56] Speaker A: So that's interesting.
[02:18:58] Speaker D: It is dominant.
[02:18:59] Speaker C: Yeah, it's.
[02:18:59] Speaker D: I mean, it's shifting, you know, more health care, government, and other businesses.
[02:19:04] Speaker C: That's good.
[02:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:19:07] Speaker B: So that's great to hear. And thank you.
As a female leader, what challenges have you faced in your career? How have you been able to make your voice heard and achieve the success you've had in your career?
[02:19:22] Speaker C: You know, we started the conversation with my upbringing and family, and I was just very fortunate. My parents were very good people, just wanted to do what's right in the world. They're also successful, and they. My mom was a very strong feminist before there was real feminism, and she was really part of that movement in the seventies, and so was my dad, and he. I never. I don't think I ever heard a sexist word in our household. I was very lucky, and we were expected to go out in the world and succeed. You know, we were never told, don't know, about this or that.
And I remember in 76, I think it was, they made the Susan B. Anthony Coin, remember, didn't last long because people got it confused with the quarter.
[02:20:07] Speaker A: Right.
[02:20:07] Speaker C: But my dad made me and my three sisters a pendant, and I couldn't really appreciate it at the time, but I was going through my jewelry box recently, and I went, oh, yeah, dad got that made for me. It was so thoughtful. And you don't really think about these things until you're older, and you go, wow, I really had a great role model in both of them, and that they gave me these opportunities. So then when I was at Cannon in Boston and I wanted to do construction administration, there was a partner there who I really loved, great irish guy. And he said, yeah, absolutely, you can do it. And then there was another said, well, I don't know. Have you ever done it? I'm like, no, I'm 25. How could I have done this? So he kind of, all right, kind of tolerated it, and I did really, really well. And then even the construction company was like, she's totally got this covered. She's doing much better than the guy did. So sometimes I had to push, but I didn't experience, you know, terrible sexism. And part of me, you know, my irish side, I can go into denial when I need to. So if I see, you know, sexist behavior or someone who's just not there, I just tune it out. I focus on the people. What was it Mister Rogers said?
You want to be with the helpers, look for the helpers. So I would look to the men who most were great. They were fine. They were very supportive, and I would just focus on them and be with them. And the others, they could do their thing, but I knew where I wanted to be, and I think that makes a big difference. And now I try and pass it forward with younger women, and a lot of times they'll say, well, what would you suggest? And I say, have confidence. Just have confidence. Men often have confidence. I mean, they're often put out there a lot with sports. They got to get out there. They got to fail in public. They can succeed in public, but they're always putting themselves out there. I said, put yourself out there. Get in the game. You're going to fail. It's okay. Have that confidence and do what you love. That'll make a huge difference because you'll just be so much better at it and you'll enjoy it more.
[02:22:17] Speaker B: You mentioned Jerry Falwell early on.
Was that experience thicken your skin a little bit or not? Just out of curiosity.
[02:22:28] Speaker C: He was such a controversial character in Lynchburg, and a lot of people just hated him, and so they loved me. So I had great support, and they're like, yeah, take on Jerry. I'm like, well, I'm not doing it just to take on Jerry. But. But I just had this big support team behind me, and the stuff he was doing just, it wasn't right. And so I didn't feel threatened. I think he was hoping that would happen. But what we were asking for was, you know, it was the law, number one, and we. We just needed to carry it out. So I found it more humorous than anything.
Yeah, I was kind of flattered.
[02:23:11] Speaker B: So what were your biggest wins, losses, and most surprising events in your career?
[02:23:17] Speaker C: Wins. Being hired by Google, I never saw that coming. It was such an honor like we talked about, it wasn't quite what I wanted, but no regrets taking the job. None at all. And it was a tough call whether to go or not. I still think about that. But you got to move on and, you know.
[02:23:35] Speaker B: Sure.
[02:23:36] Speaker C: Um, so that was a big win. Um, a loss.
[02:23:43] Speaker B: You know, setback.
[02:23:45] Speaker C: Yeah, set back.
You know, I've been so fortunate. I just.
[02:23:57] Speaker B: You never had a situation where you just couldn't get something done and you just got frustrated and said, you know, this is just not worth pursuing, or I can't keep going here.
[02:24:07] Speaker C: None of that, I would say, around transportation, which as you obviously know by now and hearing me talk, is a big, big topic for me, and very important. And taking on VDOT and Caltran and all these, you know, big. It's like taking on the Pentagon. I mean, these are very established, powerful entities and you kind of. You got to scale the walls and just find out where you can get in and getting them to come around and really see that there's a whole different view of this situation.
Maybe I was hesitant to speak of it earlier because now we're starting to make that progress. Maybe if you had asked me this three years ago, I'd say, oh, definitely the dots, I just can't get in there. It's just old school. But it is definitely changing before our eyes. It's really, really rewarding. The pandemic had some impact, I think that did. And also, I think Buttigieg, I think nationally he is saying we need complete streets, we need safer streets, we need to humanize our streets. And when the national figure like him is saying that, I think it is definitely trickling down. So I keep trying to push up from here, from the ground up. They're coming from on high down, and our board totally gets it. When I talked to our board and we talked about that shift from Los to VMT, like, when can we start? I totally got it. I never thought I'd see that. I thought they'd go, what? Lo, what? And then. But they hear it all the time from their community and they know it's not working. It's a broken formula. So that was really rewarding. But yeah, that has been a challenge. I still think group one is a bit wide. I wish it could have been eight lanes, but I brought it up when I came and they said, you know, we've been at this ten years and if we start over, it might Jebadar is our funding and blah, blah, blah, and you gotta respect that. Like, I didn't come here to like, blow it up, you know, I just think we could save money and make it more tenable to unite the two sides. But it'll work out. We're going to work it out in other ways.
[02:26:20] Speaker B: So a surprising event might be also the Google call, right? Would you say that was your big surprising event or is there another surprise?
[02:26:28] Speaker C: Yeah, that was a surprise. To get a text from Google, like, would you like to be an executive? Yeah, that was really fun.
And then when I came home, I was working for Cannon and here in DC in the Georgetown office. I came home one day and there was this long message on my answering machine. Remember those? And you could tell how long the message was because the tape had to rewind. And I'm like, well, that's weird. And they said, hi, this is Harvard Kennedy School. We'd like to tell you you've been accepted.
Yes.
I never knew if I could get it in. I applied to three schools and I got in, but I had no idea. I hadn't been in school in like 15 years.
[02:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:27:05] Speaker C: So I went high, medium and low, and it worked out. It was such an honor.
[02:27:10] Speaker B: It's exciting.
[02:27:11] Speaker C: Such an honor. Yeah.
[02:27:14] Speaker B: So what are your life priorities among family work and giving back?
[02:27:19] Speaker C: So my siblings and I are very close, I think, you know, testament to my parents who really believed in family and staying together and hanging in there. And it was funny, my brother in law, he was at a retreat, some organization, and you had to stand in a certain part of the room. They'd ask questions and one question was about family.
And if you're quite close to them or something, certain people went over and he did too. And they said, okay, how many? Your family drives you crazy. And if they do, you know, you stay here and if not, you go there. And he went over and he was the only one. And he said, I love this family. I married into the best family in the world. And we're just all, we treat each other well, we work hard, we're successful, we've had. We're all very different. My oldest sister is lesbian, adopted a little girl of color. She runs a domestic violence shelter that she founded like 45 years ago in a little town called Concord, North Carolina, and still has it. I think she has six houses now. It's amazing. Another sister is a professor of economics. My twin brother is an artist and he used to be a contractor. And then my younger sister's a therapist, social worker. And then my younger brother has a business here in the DC area, Flynn Architectural Services. Done quite well for himself. So from social workers to business owners. And everyone just respects and loves that variety. And we're all pretty much aligned politically, which is nice. You know, I know a lot of families are having the MAGA problem. We don't have that.
And we believe, I mean, our parents said, you know, you are going to go out, you are going to get in the game and you are going to change the world.
[02:29:11] Speaker B: Well, your parents background tells me that you're very socially motivated, obviously.
[02:29:15] Speaker C: Totally.
[02:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah, clearly.
[02:29:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:29:20] Speaker B: And what about. And basically giving back is your work.
[02:29:24] Speaker C: Totally. Right. And it is why I picked Jim as a husband, public defender. I mean, you're protecting. Yeah, you protect the indigent. So Gideon versus Wainwright, it was a famous supreme court case. Gideon was arrested for something he didn't have, a lawyer. And he wrote, I think, to the supreme court and said, hey, you should give poor people lawyers if they can go to jail. And they said, okay. And that's how the public defender system was formed. And he's had four capital murder cases. No one's been murdered or executed. I mean, they all went away for life. But he and I are just so aligned. And then he was part of the progressive prosecutor movement that you heard about and about, I don't know, ten got elected five years ago. When he came in, there was a whole group of them, Arlington, Alexandria. So our values are very aligned. Now, his boys, very successful businessmen, identical twins and a younger one.
And when they got out of college, they started a tent company, involved things. So, you know, the big wedding tents, they just sold it to a hedge fund. Now they're multimillionaires. So that's something. Yeah, exactly like, good one, Jim. Now, their father, public defender and then prosecutor, they have no interest in that. They wanted to build a company, get wealthy, and they did good for them. They run on honest business. They create tons of jobs. They do a beautiful, beautiful job. So they have very high end clients and then your regular. And so I've been very fortunate, very supportive husband and great family.
[02:31:00] Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. What advice would you give your 25 year old self today, Rachel?
[02:31:07] Speaker C: Like I was saying, with younger women, have.
Have more confidence. And I've been pretty good, but I think there were times when I could have been.
[02:31:17] Speaker B: You think your mother gave you confidence?
[02:31:18] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. She was a very strong woman. Yeah.
[02:31:23] Speaker B: That's great. So if you could post a statement on the Capitol Beltway for millions to see, what would it say?
[02:31:33] Speaker C: Well, it kind of sounds cliche, but we're all in this together, basically. Can we take care of each other type of message. And I think our country would be a very different place if we would just respect one another and take care of each other and that we're all in this together.
[02:31:57] Speaker B: So, Rachel Flynn, thank you very much. Very insightful and fun interview.
[02:32:02] Speaker C: Thanks, John. Great questions. Really enjoyed this.
