Our first project with a client is generally close to home - Brevard, Indian River, Orlando. But once they see the quality of our work and the speed at which we respond to their needs, it isn’t long before they are asking us to provide services elsewhere. And I do mean elsewhere. We’ve completed civil engineering projects as far away as Gulf Breeze and have been asked to consider expanding into Georgia.

Successful developers understand that once you have a quality development team of solid players, it isn’t worth the few dollars in potential savings to switch team members. In fact saving those few dollars can be downright expensive if you end up with a player on your team that isn’t up to par.

Now you might be thinking, “But local engineers know the in and outs of their area. Doesn’t it make sense to hire local civil engineering?”

Well, first you might be surprised how many areas in Florida where we have first hand local knowlege. Our offices may be in Melbourne, but we know the players and have been through the process in many a city and county.

Second, there are times when NOT being local is an asset. It can be easier to get an outside engineer to ruffle a few feathers and push a little harder, because they want be doing business there everyday.

But we do understand there are cases where a local engineer would really be the best way to go. And in those cases, we are more than happy to either team with a local engineer to gain that advantage or even step completely out of the project. (We’ll even go as far as helping you find the best local engineer to work with instead of us!)

Why would we do something like that? Because we know a quality client is worth keeping. And if that means passing up short term dollars in exchange for a long term business relationship - we will do that every time. (We are looking to build a solid development team as much as you are.)

Give us a call (321.757.7950) and let’s talk about your development goals.

You will be glad you did.

Bart Pair

Project Manager

D.R.I. Regulations:

In the first part of this post, I discussed the bill’s impact on concurrency requirements.  This part looks at D.R.I. regulations.

D.R.I. or Development of Regional Impact is additional requirements that large developments must meet to get development approval.  The D.R.I. requirements include conducting extensive studies that estimate the development’s impact on a large variety of issues.  It also lays out the infrastructure that the development must build to mitigate these impacts.

These days, a D.R.I. study can cost a million dollars or more to produce.  It can take years to complete and the developer still has to pay for all the infrastructure improvements on top of that.

In my opinion, the D.R.I. requirements have gotten excessive and are an unreasonable burden on the developer.  S.B. 360 removes that burden for large developments in dense urban areas.

But the burdens of completing a  D.R.I. are the same for developers whether they are in dense urban areas or rural sparse areas.  One has to wonder,

“Why only eliminate this excessive regulation in select portions of the state?”

I can only assume the political battle to remove the requirements completely would have killed the bill.

Now you may be thinking, “Requiring these large developments to define their impact on a community makes sense to me.”

And believe it or not, I agree.  And this is where I think the bill may have missed the mark.

Developers should be required to define their projects impact WHEN their project’s impact is in excess of what is expected under the comprehensive plan.

The size of the development is really not the issue.  A developer can purchase every vacant piece of property in a city and develop it according to the comprehensive plan.  The size and scope of development in that situation can easily exceed typical D.R.I. requirements.  But why should that developer have to spend an extra million dollars doing a study when they are simply following what the city has deemed acceptable and should already be preparing for?

It is when the development proposed requires considerable changes to the comprehensive plan that a study of some sort should be required.

S.B. 360 doesn’t allow for a D.R.I. in that instance for dense urban areas.

My question is this.  Does removing the D.R.I. tie the hands of cities and counties in this situation?

I am not sure. The municipalities still have control over the comprehensive plan amendment process.  Even though they can’t require a formal D.R.I., they still can require a developer justify their comp plan amendment.

What leverage they have in that situation remains to be seen.

Will it jumpstart the Florida economy as proponents claim?

Or will it plunge the entire state of Florida into traffic gridlock as opponents claim?

Well, I am just a civil engineer - not an attorney, but what I have gathered from reading the bill is it probably won’t do either.

First off, there are lots of different things in this bill - some good and some bad.  The bill includes establishment of dense urban areas, removal of traffic concurrency requirements, removal of D.R.I. requirements, modification of school concurrency requirements, implementation of a mobility fee on development, and significant changes to affordable housing incentives just to name a few.

To keep this post brief, I will only address a couple of the items in the bill and actually break these up into more than one post.

The governor and other supporters of the bill claim that in dense urban areas many streets are simply at capacity.  There is no traffic concurrency available and so developers have the choice of either finding property somewhere else or paying to improve the streets to increase capacity so their development can occur without negatively impacting the level of service expected in the community.

Most developers when faced with the extremely high additional costs of improving an entire road look elsewhere and this has lead to urban sprawl in rural areas and stagnant growths in urban areas.

Well, I have worked with a great many developers and I tend to agree with this argument.  The way the system was designed prior to the bill made it much cheaper to develop land in locations where concurrency was ample and cost prohibitive in locations where it isn’t.

The system failed to equally split the costs of infrastructure between users.  You paid much less if you were early to the party and much much more if you came later.

As a developer, if you happen to come along just as the capacity of the road was reached, you had to pay to improve the road in order to develop your property.  You paid the majority of costs for improvements to the road that would benefit all the users not just you.

State Bill 360 recognizes this problem and tries to rectify it by stating that in dense urban areas, development can not be denied due to municipalities failure to provide traffic concurrency.

I think this is a good thing.

Granted the municipalities do not have an easy job predicting growth and paying for the infrastructure to meet that growth as it is needed.   But let’s not forget that is what they are required to do by law.  It is one of the primary reasons for creating comprehensive plans - so infrastructure needs can be planned for and met as they evolve.

Opponents of this portion of the bill argue that eliminating traffic concurrency requirements will cause unchecked growth in undeveloped areas.

I disagree.  Zoning restrictions, future land use and the comprehensive plan are the primary controls on what can and can not be developed - not traffic concurrency.  The elimination of the traffic concurrency check does nothing to inhibit the control of growth in an area.

(In the second part of this post, I discuss the changes to D.R.I. regulations.)

The downturn in the economy isn’t the only thing affecting developers and civil engineers in Florida.  Increased regulation and requirements are making land development more difficult and costly - essentially kicking us when we are down.

And the primary one doing the kicking is FDEP, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  They are pushing through sweeping changes to stormwater treatment requirements for new land development.

The changes are complicated but basically your stormwater systems are going to need to remove phosphorus and nitrogen as well as control flooding.

What this means for you is that more and more of your property is going to be needed to meet the stricter stormwater regulations and less is going to be available for building space, parking, roads and other amenities.

Depending on your type of development your next stormwater pond is either going to be larger, or you will need to add a dry pond, or both (it depends on the type of land use and other factors).

And be warned, this only the start of what is coming as more and more talk of TMDL regulations are being thrown about.

So, if you are evaluating property for purchase, development, or sale, it is important that you understand how these changes impact the development potential and dollar value of your property.

A civil engineering firm that is up to date on the complex rule changes can help you complete an accurate real estate due diligence and site feasibility study.

You need to know what you are really dealing with before you negotiate or close on any property in this environment.  Alacri Inc is a Florida Civil Engineering firm that can help you do just that.

Often properties can add parking or move signage to modernize their developments and make them more attractive.  Many real estate developers are already putting facelifts on their vertical infrastructure, and it just makes sense to look at possible horizontal infrastructure improvements as well.

If you are a commercial real estate owner, or if you are evaluating the purchase of commerical real estate, Alacri Inc. can help you get the most out of site.

Unfortunately, many changes during construction are often the result of difficult to read or confusing plans.

Alacri Inc. prides itself on the readability of our plans.  We know what happens to plan sets on job sites - they get abused.

So we make a point of not overloading our sheets with too much information.  A few extra dollars in printing costs can avoid thousands of dollars lost out on the project site.

Legible plans is one step we take to save our client’s money and is part of the Value Added Civil Engineering we provide.

Legible plans also allow contractors, architects and other team members to spot potential problems or conflicts early.  This can prevent delays as solutions can be found before the conflict impacts the critical path of the project timeline.

Our plans are just one of the things we do to cut costs and create value for the developer.

Conducting due diligence and determining a sites development potential and its feasibility is a passion of ours at Alacri Inc.  In our opinion, it is the most important part of our civil engineering services that we provide.  Why?

Because the financial disaster of a nightmare property can put a developer out of business.  Eliminating that risk as much as possible is job number one, and we do that by conducting thorough due diligence.

The real estate feasibility studies we put together for our clients are based on years and years of land development experience and a thorough understanding of the issues and obstacles unique to Florida.

Alacri Inc. prides itself on delivering high quality, cost effective site designs in the shortest possible time.

Our engineers have worked on projects in nearly every city and beach town from South Brevard County to the North. We know the reviewers, the permit processes, and most importantly the pitfalls to avoid, so we can get your project to construction fast.

Responsiveness is how we got our name.
Alacri is short for alacrity and it is the corner stone of how we run our civil engineering firm in Brevard.

You see, we limit our project engineers to only a small number of projects at a time. That way they are able to give their utmost attention to each project and complete the task at hand in a quicker more efficient manner.

Fewer Projects means Few Distractions and Faster Completion.
And it has worked. The majority of our business is from repeat clients who understand and appreciate why we do things differently at Alacri Inc.

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