The Developer's Dream

It is a developer’s dream.
A large piece of land,
Vacant and available,
And you see a possibility
Of providing homes
In which people can live,
And if you are lucky
Making some money
In the process.

So you begin to do your homework,
Assessing the potential costs,
Making the most of the land,
Measuring the impacts,
Predicting how long it will take,
Estimating the cost per home,
And designing a place
That a family would want to live
And proudly call their home.

You carefully evaluate the feasibility,
Determining what you can afford to do
And what you can’t.
If the economics are good,
You will present your plan
For governmental review
In the hopes of getting
A Development Agreement
Establishing conditions under which you can build.

Then the project comes up for public review
And you discover a hornet’s nest
Of people with varied interests
Other than your own,
Sometimes with irrational fears,
But you have to deal with them
One by one,
Realizing that your dream
May not be accepted.

Once you have cleared that hurdle,
You can finally get your approval to build.
Then you get your financing arranged.
You may have spent years
In planning and preparation,
And now you are ready
For construction to begin.
You still have the challenge
Of keeping on schedule and under budget.

It is always a balancing act,
Trying to do the most
With the money you have,
Keeping the expenses down.
Only after the homes are sold
Is there income coming in.
Any further delay could affect
Whatever profit there might be
After all was said and done.

It is often a hard fought battle
To pursue a development dream,
And it is a part of the reason
That the cost of new homes
Keep going up and up.
After you are done
You sometimes wonder
If it is really worth it,
But some people relish that challenge.