Florida Business Forum Podcast

District Planning Group with Kara Wood on Growth and Planning Episode 02

February 04, 2023 Sam Yates, Yates & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing Season 1 Episode 14
Florida Business Forum Podcast
District Planning Group with Kara Wood on Growth and Planning Episode 02
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Show Notes Transcript

The District Planning Group is fast gaining a reputation as being the Go To company for businesses wishing to either relocate or expand or develop new projects in the Treasure Coast Region.  A major factor in that reputation is the integrity and leadership of the company's founders.

Kara Wood, a founding partner, and formerly the Saint Lucie County Planning Manager together with Leslie Olson, another name synonymous with growth and planning for Saint Lucie  County and Fort Pierce, Florida have found the perfect combination of public and private coexistence to help developers develop while helping county leaders maintain a high standard of just how that development happens.

The Florida Business Forum Podcast business guru and anchorman Sam Yates recently sat down for an exclusive podcast interview with Olson and Wood. 

In this episode, Kara Wood shares how personal philosophies, professional growth and small town charm are intertwined to make a visionary company even greater. 

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Sam Yates:

Hello, everyone and welcome to another informative episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Let's open the Florida Business Forum floodgates and let the information begin to flow. Here's your Florida Business Forum information guru and Anchorman Sam Yates. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another information edition of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Now we're the only podcast in the entire state of Florida that focuses on businesses and not for profits. And we're very proud of that. And the business information floodgates, as we like to say, are open. So in a previous episode, we heard from Leslie Olson and Leslie is a member of the American Institute of Certified planners district planning group, her business partner, Kara wood is with us today. And these two entrepreneurs are back for another episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. And we're gonna start with Cara today. But first off, ladies, welcome back to the program. Thank you. Thanks. I find it remarkable that we have two lady entrepreneurs. And that in itself is a big yay. Where do we start? Tell us more about you?

Kara Wood:

Well, do you want to know something personal? You want me to sort of zip through professional credentials? Or what is it? What is your area of interest?

Sam Yates:

I always loved to start with the personal side.

Kara Wood:

Well, I grew up in this general region, I was actually born in Palm Beach County. And then my father actually moved our family to the Bahamas for a couple of years. He was he was quite an entrepreneur and adventurer. So it was interesting to grow up around the water with very little resources on a very small boat. People think of that experience as being idyllic and luxurious. I promise you it was nothing like that it was idyllic. But, you know, when you're living on a small boat with very little fresh water, and only electricity in the morning, and in the evening, it really has you focus on what's important in life. So I just I love telling that story. It was an incredible way to start started life really focusing on you know, what, what family connection is about, I learned to read at a very young age, because you know, there's just not much else to do on a boat. And so my my brother and I grew up mostly in Martin County, and then I left to go to college in the northeast, I went to Boston University, and then later went to University of Miami for a master's degree of architecture. And I eventually landed in Fort Pierce, because I wanted to be closer to my family who was in Palm city in Port St. Lucie. And I wanted to be in a smaller town I didn't want to be in the traffic of Miami anymore. I wanted to you know, a you know, a small town feeling with with a with a proper downtown or I could watch a restaurants and so that really attracted me to Fort Pierce. So that's a just a brief snippet of me on a personal level

Sam Yates:

as a Ford peers native I can relate to that. And I've lived in many different locations around the nation and there is just something about coming to Fort Pierce and and it has to do more with I think just getting sand in my shoes. Here's the sandy shoes festival. But, you know, that is a great foundation for looking ahead from a planning perspective and has that impacted what you have done and how you have an outlook on where we are going.

Kara Wood:

It has when I settled in Fort Pierce, my husband at the time and I bought a house in one of the historic neighborhoods. I have had a longtime love for historic architecture, which is one of the reasons I landed at University of Miami for my master's degree there have a focus on traditional architecture and town planning and, and growing and spending some time in that area. Fort Pierce really developed my my heart for the downtown areas, the proximity of those historic single family neighborhoods to the downtown and the importance of having a thriving downtown Fort Pierce for the larger growth of the city and St. Lucie County.

Sam Yates:

My grandfather had an office in the old arcade building second floor third window in from the solid section. And during lunchtime, we would walk from the arcade building to downtown Fort Pierce and Bloodsworth pharmacy, where I would have a root beer coke float. And it was it was just the charm of Fort Pierce. We haven't lost that yet here.

Kara Wood:

No not at all. And it's continuing to slowly blossom over the decades. It's interesting. I'm sure at some point we'll get we'll get around to talking about my my family business high tide boat lifts that my father started in the late 1970s. And when we were living in Stuart when I was growing up in the Stuart area. I would sometimes when I was in high school and I could drive I would sometimes come up to Fort Pierce to have lunch with my dad. And I really didn't know that there was a downtown because at that time, it wasn't it wasn't flourishing like it is today, there weren't a number of choices for shops and restaurants to go to. And so we went to other areas of St. Lucie County for lunch. And it was interesting coming back here years later, and realizing what a you know, what kind of a blossoming gem the downtown was, because when I moved here in 2005, it was it was just starting to unfold.

Sam Yates:

And I think that's happening with a lot of municipalities within our region. And I do want to get into that. But you touched upon the marine industry with memory recalled, Florida is second only to Louisiana, as far as the marine impact, and your family does have that heritage with high tide.

Kara Wood:

Indeed. So my father started high tide actually, as a marine construction company in the late 1970s. It was, you know, building docks and boat lifts Nepalis with sea walls, restoring sea walls. And over time, his experience with building docks had him understand that, at that time, the only way to lift your boat out of the water was was with a debit that you would mount on the dock. And it would have cables that would attach to the you know, the the bow and the stern of the boat and lifted out of the water, there was minimal lifting capacity with that type of lift. And the company that was making and selling those lifts, wasn't very customer service friendly. So he really saw the opportunity for a better more diverse product with better customer service. So he actually developed what has become the staple of our product line, which is a for post cable left in the first floor of our house. At the time he just hired a welder did some drawings, because that was the entrepreneur that my father was, and, and eventually patented a gear drive. That is that is the staple of our product that other companies have copied over time. And, you know, so we're flattered by you know, by the mimicry. But primarily, what high tide lifts does is manufacturer lifts for the residential market. So for people who don't live on the water, that's if you live on the Indian River, for example, you have a beautiful dock, you know, outside your front yard, you can install pilings in the water with aluminum, I beams attached to cables and you can lift your boat out of the water. So it keeps the boat safe, it's harder to steal a boat when it's on IBM's hovered above the water. And it also provides for much easier maintenance, you don't have to scrub it and maintain it as much. And we lift everything from lifts as small as things that lift kayaks and jet skis to our record is 90 tons.

Sam Yates:

That's incredible, 90 Tons 90 tons. Wow, that has to take quite a powerful lift. But you guys have made it happen. We did, and Spoken like a true marketing person to and I understand that that was one of the roles that you played, that you carried out diligently for high tide,

Kara Wood:

yes, for a brief time. So so my father owned the company up until up until 2012. And when he decided to hand it over to my brother and I, my brother is Craig wood. He was actually a marine contractor who installed this product for many years. And so he knows, he knows the practical sides of the business. And my brother invited me to join him in running the company in 2012. Because I came from a very different background, I was at that time well versed in management and sort of, you know, higher level decision making. So so when we joined the company, we just, we changed some of the some of the marketing schemes we I worked with, with other contractors to to rebrand the company, you know, changing the look of our printed materials, changing our website, just modernizing all of that a bit.

Sam Yates:

And I think that's important for us to know. And by the way, I want to have the okay from you and your brother to come back and let spotlight high tide on the Florida Business Forum. Because as you say, there's nothing else like it. Can we do that?

Kara Wood:

Well, he would love to do that. He's much better at talking about it than I am. And he's really articulate and articulate and passionate. So yes, I'll rope him in, I'll find time in his schedule.

Sam Yates:

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, rest assured we're going to do that. But a lot of what you just said, is very, very key to being in the planning, division, the planning of what is going on and not just the planning of it, but the overall management of that and that's something that you did very, very well and I don't mean that past tense, it's the what you did. Previous to what you're doing now you're still doing that, but it's a big picture. It's more than just egg We're going to do this it's an implementation plan. Could you give a little explanation on that?

Kara Wood:

Sure. Yeah, a lot of the role of the planning manager at St. Lucie County, and that's a, that's a role that still exists today is, is very much orchestrating the process of development. So, so when someone wants to build something, it can be a variety of things. It can be a housing community, it can be a large industrial development. There's an extensive process that runs through what's called in the public's sphere, the Development Review Committee, which includes all of the different disciplines that oversee land management, so that is engineering, public works, you know, where stormwater are, where your water goes, Do you have enough water retention on your site, there's the Environmental Resources Department, who oversees the protection of wetlands and species. And we have a lot of that in our county, we have a lot of beautiful environmentally sensitive lands. So they try to balance that that tricky equality between allowing development to occur and making sure that our beautiful lands are protected to the degree that's feasible. And then there's the planning staff that not only oversees the process, but make sure that the land development regulations are implemented appropriately. So really, a lot of that process is, is managing all of the different interests, because sometimes the land development regulations will drive one thing from a planning side or an engineering side, but a different thing from an environmental side. So ideally, the planning manager role, which is a lot of what I focused on was was navigating those different interests between the developer and the staff and the elected officials and trying to hurt a project through the process as quickly as possible.

Sam Yates:

Being the public relations marketing guy on the outside, I really had a unique and still do want him involved in it, a unique view of how all of those pieces come together. And I have to compliment you, that is just something that has to keep you awake, sometimes at night thinking of like if A then B, what's the permutation for this if this happens, but you made it happen.

Kara Wood:

Indeed, and sometimes the most frustrating part is simply that the regulations as they're written don't necessarily allow for the best outcome. Sometimes the regulations are good at protecting the public interest. And sometimes, they're just, they're just not very, they're just not very developed in protecting the public interest while allowing good development to occur in the most efficient way possible. So sometimes it's sort of working around the regulations to get good results, despite, you know, despite what are sometimes handcuffs, quite frankly, and the regulatory process, how far

Sam Yates:

out realistically, do we need to be planning today in our changing economic and everything is changing? How far out? Do we need to be planning and forecasting? What is going to happen to not get behind the curb?

Kara Wood:

That's a really good question. And sometimes sometimes I think that there's some natural tension in the development review process with with the county staff, trying to trying to shoehorn a current development project that just wants to just wants to get built into what is a very long term vision that may or may not happen, you know, quite frankly, even you know, even professional planners, we can, you know, we can predict to the best of our ability, but we don't, none of us has the crystal ball. So we don't know all of the factors that are going to drive politics and economics and environment and all of those things that start to shape what the community is going to be in 1020 or 30 years. But to answer your question, there are different aspects of visionary planning. Like for example, the transportation planning organization, which coordinates you know, road building for the entire county, I believe their long range transportation plan is at something like 30 years, 25 years, as Lesley is prompting me on the side. And so in, those are things that are very statistically based, right, they're just there's traffic modeling based on predictions about how many people might live here in the future. So numbers are easier. Sometimes, you know, something is as esoteric as like Navy sea level rise. That's less that's less easy to predict. Over the course of time.

Sam Yates:

I'll come back to sea level rise in a moment. But I'm also involved heavily in the the Gold Coast Builders Association, to the south of us. And in many of the conferences and planning sessions that I go to in connection with that organization. And some of the other builders organizations around the state. They're all built out, for example, for all practical purposes to our south, and they're saying, by the way, in your planning process builders, just skip over Martin County because Martin County has Martin County, but all of a sudden we're looking at it permits on the horizon for St. Lucie County 30 40,000 permits that are in the pipeline. And that's got to be a very unique position for you to be a now that you're on the private sector.

Kara Wood:

It is, it's sometimes it's just it's hard to, because of course, it's one of the big shifts is going from representing the public sector to representing a client. And you know, what, I'm still navigating how best to do that, while completely respecting my colleagues on the public's in the public sector. And we've already found that in District planning group that we have to start explaining to our clients that we want to help them get through the process as quickly as possible. And everyone else who's flocking to Florida needs to get through the process as quickly as possible. So So while we are very customer service friendly to our clients, we have to make sure that they understand that, that they're, you know, they're facing, they're facing a lot of competition with other developers and builders that you might have gotten here first.

Sam Yates:

And I've got my own opinions on some of that, that I will go into, because I'm not the one being interviewed. I've been the process of interviewing you guys, I cut you asking me. But, you know, I look at some of the things that you have, from a planning perspective to deal with. You mentioned, a lot of people flocking to Florida, not just from the northeastern corridor, but from California from other states where taxes are high. But certainly the pandemic had its impact on our population. And I would feel safe to say the pandemic has had its impact on that future planning for communities and everything that goes into a community fair statement.

Kara Wood:

Indeed, yeah.

Sam Yates:

How do you address that?

Kara Wood:

It's difficult, it really has to be a community wide conversation, which it has become the Economic Development Council has done a great job shining a flashlight, on the challenge of affordable housing in our community, as we've been, as we've been fortunate to attract a lot of employers to this area, it has placed a lot of a lot of pressure on, on the ability of the housing market to keep up. And of course, you know, these things go in waves. When I first started my planning career in Fort Pierce, in 2005, there were there were just there were residential builders just beating down the door. And so that's, you know, so that's run its cycle. And we're kind of back in that cycle, but it just can't keep up with with the industrial and other workforce development that's, that's occurring. Ironically, I was actually living in Massachusetts, for the two years right before the pandemic started. And I just so happened to decide to move back to Fort Pierce. Right, right before the pandemic. And and so I actually moved in, like May of 2020. And so and I could see, I could see the trends of how the pandemic was starting to impact that Northeast Region. And and so it's not surprising that people have, you know, have wanted to come to Florida, you know, whether you agree or disagree with different pandemic related policies. The fact is that for many people, it's been it's been easier to have a life and keep a business open in Florida over the last couple of years. Indeed, it has. Yeah, it really and so so yeah, so we're seeing we're seeing the effects of that of trying to, again, just trying to keep up with, you know, with the demand of all sorts of developers coming here.

Sam Yates:

Other things are changing to autonomous vehicles 5g, we see the reports of the autonomous vehicles, the tractor trailers that are already in operation on the turnpike. We see the new LED lighting that's going in on many stretches of interstate that coincidentally are about every 500 feet, which is the range of a 5g transmitter for autonomous vehicles. Those have to be challenges immense challenges for our community and other communities as well, though,

Kara Wood:

I imagine they are, I will say that I have not I have not seen those kinds of of technological nuances come into the conversation for our clients. I think that there there are there are related conversations in terms of sort of the sociological predictors of how will people live post pandemic, obviously, a lot of people started working from home during the pandemic. And while while there's the benefit of being able to have that kind of flexibility, which I personally think is a wonderful thing for people. It's also highlighted the, the social detriment of that and you know, and now post pandemic people, you know, some people are realizing that that there is there's a downside to isolating oneself, so much. So so it kind of it will it's, it's still to be seen how that will shape. For example, housing typologies for major builders, and how that will shape workplace workplace development. It doesn't appear to have slowed down, obviously it can't slow down manufacturing, right manufacturing you, you have to be there, you can't remote weld that just doesn't work.

Sam Yates:

That doesn't work. I was speaking to a tool and die gentleman last evening, and he had moved here from Connecticut. And he was like, I can't deal with what's happening in Connecticut with all the taxes and the regulations applied and had like 10 different job opportunities within his his first week of looking in this area, which, you know, our Treasure Coast region has not really had that reputation in the past of being a manufacturing magnet, but it is now. Yeah, it's not just agriculture anymore. So we are we are definitely changing something else that's changing. And you briefly mentioned that earlier, climate change the if climate change, regardless of whether you believe it is are happening or not happening, we do see changes when it comes to coastal development. What does that mean for our Florida communities?

Kara Wood:

Well, that's one of the things that district planning group is working through now, we've actually been engaged by St. Lucie County to to help their staff navigate a resiliency planning, effort and creation of a resiliency and adaptation plan. And so we're looking to the experts to guide how it's best to do that, you know, what, what are we seeing on a local level? Because you're right, this is, this is kind of a politically divisive issue, and we're not and we're really not focused on, you know, the larger global questions we're focused on, what are we seeing on the ground today? That's completely undeniable in terms of roadways that, you know, that have been underwater or much more frequently than they used to be? And how do we make sure that you know, that our infrastructure can withstand, you know, what are relatively predictable changes in you know, in king tides, and, you know, and flooding that, you know, that we can see coming forward, you know, how do we protect, protect environmentally sensitive lands, all of those kinds of things that the local experts, again, regardless of political affiliation know is happening.

Sam Yates:

And for our audience, we have spent quite a bit of time on the search side tragedy, for example, and the PhD geologist who did a lot of the this he called it a speculative study on the cause for surf side and well documented information about the rise in sea level, coupled with the rise in the underground aquifer that abuts to salt water. And he has certainly put forward some suggestions that I think the state and many other organizations are taking a look at. But that that is something real that's happening now for those of us that are living on a peninsula. So it is something that you're involved in that this point that

Kara Wood:

it's Yeah, and those and those kinds of questions are really, they're like retrofitting questions and sustainability questions. On a personal side, I, I happen to live in a five storey condo building, and I'm the president of my condo association. So I can see and of course, the, you know, the majority of the residents of my building are retired. And so when the Surfside building collapsed, it was, you know, as a source of, of, of some panic in our building. And so it's, it's raised some useful questions about long term planning for individual structures. And when those kinds of structural assessments need to occur, which is what our building is doing now, we've hired a wonderful firm out of Cocoa Beach to come in and really take a look at how you know, what's going on with the structural integrity of the building. And at the same time, it's important to put that event into context, what were the particular conditions of when that building was built, where it's cited relative to the ocean to, you know, to greater levels of salinity than some of you know, then some other condos, it's not like we have to panic that every, every building more than three storeys is going to suddenly end up in the ground.

Sam Yates:

But it is something that, we're glad to hear that you are for your condo association, in particular, keeping a close eye on that. One of the things that I'm tasked with is keeping a close eye on the time, and I tried to keep all of our episodes around 15 to 20 minutes. So we are fast running out of time for this particular episode. And as I'm looking at my notes, we were joking prior to recording and some of my bullet points, you're like, oh, that's an entire episode right there. So yeah, there's a lot of other things that I would like to come back and talk about and with your permission, we'll schedule that at some point in the future.

Kara Wood:

That sounds great. Thank you so much for having me. Before we go,

Sam Yates:

how can people get in touch with your care?

Kara Wood:

Yes, I know we were just talking about that before the episode started. We our district planning group is I'm is officially, officially nine months old now. And so because we've been so lucky to to start this business and a very busy time we are flooded with work. And so embarrassingly, our website is still under construction. But we're making great headway so. So it's pretty phonetically easy. It's district planning group.com. And then you can reach myself or Lesley at Kara at district planning group.com or Lesley Le s li e at district planning group.com.

Sam Yates:

Perfect. Ladies, thank you for being here. And of course, we had more to hear from Leslie In our previous episode and another episode we're going to have both of you back so we look forward to that and fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you. So another awesome episode of the Florida Business Forum is in the books and I want to thank everyone who is listening and continues to listen, don't forget to please share the program because we continue to grow across the entire state of Florida. So make sure you tell your friends and business associates about us because we all know that business news opportunities to be in the media seem to be shrinking. We on the other hand, are expanding. I'm Sam Yates thanks for joining us. The Florida Business Forum is dedicated to showcasing Florida businesses and CEOs of all sorts to promote their business or not for profit in the only business forum of its type in Florida. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, the Florida Business Forum is now accepting guest applications. Have a great day everyone and stay tuned for more business