Many people say they are opposed to real estate development, especially in their own neighborhoods. But just how strongly they are against it may surprise you. It did Patrick Fox, who heads a company which specializes in the politics of contested projects.

In his company's first-ever nationwide poll on land-use issues, Fox found that Americans are twice as likely to oppose new development as they are to support it. And they say they will use the political process to stop it.

"If all politics is local'," says the president of the Hingham, Mass.-based Saint Consulting Group, the survey of 1,000 people in the fall "confirms that all land use has become political."

Says Fox: "Our survey shows that the American public is far more sophisticated about planning and zoning than we thought. The most staggering number to me is that one if five families has actively opposed a project."

The study confirmed that people are most worried about traffic and quality-of-life issues, and found they are most likely to fight quarries, casinos, land-fills and big-box retail. But housing mostly got a green light.

Supporters of single-family housing -- not apartments -- outnumber opponents three-to-one. And grocery stores were favored by 63 percent of the respondents.

A Wal-Mart is okay, too, as long is it is someone else's backyard, pollsters found. While most people are happy to shop at Wal-Mart, they don't want to be directly impacted by it.

Practically everything else is verboten, though.

"Rather than seeing growth and development as a stimulus to local and regional economies, the 21st century issue is about who controls growth and development," Fox said. "Eighty three percent of citizens like their neighborhoods exactly as they are."

As the consultant sees it, the approval system has become adversarial, and even politicos who traditionally lean toward business interests "may no longer favor all development projects."

Conducted for Saint Consulting by the Center for Economic and Civic Opinion at the University of Massachusetts' Lowell campus, the survey found that 73 percent of those asked said their communities were just fine they way they are. And nearly 83 percent said they don't want new development where the live.

What's more, they are educating themselves about how planning and zoning decisions are made, and how they can impact those decisions.

One in five, "A significant number," says Fox, has actually had a hand in forming neighborhood groups to either alter proposed development or stop it altogether, raising funds to support their causes, calling and writing elected officials, signing or gathering petitions and speaking out at hearings. Some have even hired their own attorneys and engineering experts.

The approval process "has become an adversarial system," says Fox, who suggests that ever more fever-pitched battles are on the horizon. "By inference," he says of the survey findings, "competitive opposition to other developers' projects will be contested in far more sophisticated ways in the future."

Why? Because people believe the planning system is failing them. More than 60 percent think their elected leaders do only a "fair-to-poor job" on planning and zoning issues, and 70 percent believe the relationship between elected officials and developers has become too cozy and made the approval process unfair.

Survey respondents are particularly incensed about the Supreme Court's now infamous Kelo decision which allowed the city of New London, Conn., to take the homes of 15 families and hand them over to a private developer in the name of public works. More than one out of five said they now oppose taking private property by eminent domain.

Fox, who specializes in winning zoning and land use cases, says the survey's findings should send a clear message to both the development and political communities. Not only will the landscape be strewn with "omnipresent business battles," he warns, "but candidates for office and those already in office" will be judged largely on their positions regarding new development.

Published: January 11, 2006

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When Lew Sichelman first started writing about housing in 1969, he was the youngest real estate writer in the country. Now, 37 years later, he's one of the oldest -- and most decorated. He has been rated the top housing columnist in the country by the National Association of Realtors as well as by his peers in the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Indeed, NAREE has recognized his work on numerous occasions. One year - due to his advancing age, he can't recall which one - he earned top honors in the annual NAREE Journalism Contest in three out of the four major writing categories. It was the first time one writer has won so many NAREE awards in a single year. Known for his ability to make even the most difficult topics understandable, Sichelman also has been honored by the National Association of Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He began providing in-depth coverage of and consumer-oriented information about housing and housing finance at the Washington Daily News, where he was real estate editor. He held that same position for nine more years at the Washington Star, which purchased the News in 1972. The Star, a so-called "writer's newspaper" which also had the misfortune of being an evening paper, was put out of its misery in 1981, and Sichelman, who had begun self-syndicating his column in 1978, decided to become a full-time columnist. Today, his column, "The Housing Scene," is distributed by United Media to newspapers throughout the country. He also is on the staff of National Mortgage News, an independent newspaper which is considered the bible of the mortgage business. And he writes for numerous other publications, including MarketWatch.com, where he answers readers questions once a week, Sports Illustrated (don't ask), RealtyTimes.com, BigBuilder and others. Sichelman is married, the father of five and grandfather of eleven.