Friday, March 22, 2013 — 12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.

Closing General Session and Luncheon

Panel: Setting Goals for Housing Opportunity — Lessons from Massachusetts
Recognizing the importance that housing plays in the long-term success and competitiveness of Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick announced a statewide housing production goal of 10,000 multifamily housing units per year between 2012 and 2020. Learn how this goal will help Massachusetts achieve and sustain a positive net-migration; the role the goal plays in communications and partnership building; the commitment needed by local communities, business; and developers; and best practices when considering a goal like this in your community, region, or state.

Watch the Session
Below is a YouTube playlist of seven short videos recorded during the session. Watch all seven videos or advance using the Playlist feature.

Session Resources

• Presentation

Speaker Biographies

EMCEE

Hal Ferris, Spectrum Development Solutions
Hal Ferris has more than 30 years of real estate development, management, and construction experience. As a principal of Spectrum Development Solutions and previously Lorig Associates LLC, a regional real estate development and management firm, he has led the development of urban mixed-use, mixed-income projects; historic renovations; affordable housing; and collegiate services.

Previously, Ferris was a partner at WG Clark Construction Company, a regional commercial general contractor. He is chair of ULI Seattle, vice chair of the Bellevue Planning Commission, a member of the PSRC Housing Technical Assistance Panel, a past chair of Common Ground, and a past vice chair of Saint Andrews Housing Group.

Ferris earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Washington, and a master’s in business administration from the University of Portland.

REMARKS (Video)
Secretary Shaun Donovan, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

PANEL: Setting Goals for Housing Opportunity — Lessons from Massachusetts

William Kohn Fleissig, Communitas Development (moderator)
Will Fleissig is a developer who partners with institutional property owners, equity funds, transit agencies, and local governments to execute projects that realize maximal value for investors and maximal benefits for the community.

Fleissig is advising the Presidio Trust in San Francisco on a 300,000-square-foot gateway development located at the Presidio’s new entrance off Doyle Drive. The Thornburgh − West Letterman development will repurpose 13 historic structures as part of a mixed-use retail town center, along with 150,000 square feet of new residential and commercial uses adjacent to the Letterman Digital Arts Center (home of the Lucasfilm/Disney complex). He is also advising Madison Marquette on the development for the 27-acre, 3.2 million-square-foot Wharf District project located near two Metrorail stations along the southwest waterfront in Washington, D.C.

From 2005 to 2009, Fleissig was one of two full-time partners for West Village Community Partnership managing the development of 130-acre West Village at the University of California at Davis. The first two phases, now occupied, comprise student, faculty, and staff housing, and a mixed-use square located immediately adjacent to the core campus. When completed in 2015, the privately financed village supporting 3,500 people will become the largest “net zero energy” community in the United States. The project received two 2012 Student Housing Business Innovation Awards for Sustainability and Creative Financing.

Until 2005, Fleissig was a cofounder of Continuum Partners LLC, where he was the partner responsible for coordinating the firm’s planning, design, and entitlement activities on all projects. The firm developed 16 Market Square, a 380,000-square-foot mixed-use building in Denver’s LoDo district; Bradburn, a 120-acre village with four neighborhoods in Westminster, Colorado; and Belmar, a 23-block downtown district on the 100-acre site of the former Villa Italia shopping mall in Lakewood, Colorado, which received the 2006 ULI Award of Excellence, the 2005 EPA Smart Growth Award, and the 2005 CNU Charter Award.

Fleissig has also served in the public sector as the director of planning and development for the city of Boulder, Colorado, and as the director of downtown planning and development for Mayor Federico Peña in Denver.

Fleissig is a board member for Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. He received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, a BArch in urban design from the City College of New York, and an MPA with an emphasis in public finance from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Lisa B. Alberghini, Planning Office for Urban Affairs
Lisa Alberghini, president of the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, has 30 years’ experience developing affordable and mixed-income housing and has managed development efforts on nearly 2,500 units of housing. Alberghini joined the Planning Office in 2001. In her capacity as president, she is responsible for the overall operations of the office, including its housing development and advocacy work, its social justice initiatives, and exploring the potential of developing surplus archdiocesan property into affordable housing.

In addition to directing the efforts of the office, Alberghini plays a significant role in the region in affordable housing policy. She is actively involved in creating innovative approaches to producing affordable housing in the context of mixed-income communities, in addressing the foreclosure and homelessness crises, in advocating for additional affordable housing resources at the state and federal levels, and in providing congressional and legislative testimony to encourage effective policies and tools for affordable housing production.

Prior to joining the Planning Office, Alberghini was the director of the Boston office of the Community Builders Inc., a nationally prominent nonprofit housing developer. As director of the office, she oversaw the work of the development, property management, human services, and legal departments in conjunction with department directors. Over her 18-year tenure with the Community Builders, Alberghini managed development efforts on nearly 1,600 units of housing in a wide variety of residential developments throughout the Boston metropolitan region.

Alberghini has extensive experience combining multiple financing resources to ensure project feasibility and to accomplish mission objectives. She has developed mixed-income, family, elderly, and special-needs housing, as well as housing for homeless and vulnerable populations. She has managed urban and suburban development efforts that have faced a wide variety of challenges, and has worked as a consultant for organizations in Massachusetts, Maine, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Michigan.

Alberghini has been a teaching assistant in housing policy at Tufts University; a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Boston College, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Urban Land Institute, and numerous national conferences and events; and an instructor of creative financing strategies for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation’s National Training Institute.

Alberghini serves on the board of directors of the Housing Partnership Network, a national network of the nation’s top-performing nonprofit development organizations; on the board of trustees of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Boston (CCAB) and as chair of CCAB’s Real Estate Committee; on the board of advisers of Families United in Educational Leadership (FUEL); as a governor’s appointee on the MassHousing Multi-Family Advisory Committee; and as a mayoral appointee on Mayor Menino’s Leading the Way III Housing Panel and the Fairmount Indigo Upham’s Corner Working Advisory Group. 

Secretary Gregory Bialecki, Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development
Secretary Gregory Bialecki oversees 14 agencies and focuses on the governor’s top priorities in business development, housing and community development, consumer affairs, and business regulation agencies. His secretariat’s mission is the creation of homes and jobs in the commonwealth. His agencies accomplish this by aligning the state’s housing and economic development agencies to better coordinate policies and programs that ensure Massachusetts will maintain its global competitive edge.

Working in collaboration with 34 members of the private and public sectors, Secretary Bialecki is the leader of the development and implementation of “Choosing to Compete in the 21st Century,” the economic development plan for the commonwealth. The plan identified five areas of focus and 55 action items to improve economic development and job creation in the state, and thus make Massachusetts more competitive. To learn more, go to www.Mass.gov/compete.

Before joining the Patrick-Murray administration, Secretary Bialecki had a 20-year career as a real estate development and environmental lawyer at the law firms of Hill & Barlow and DLA Piper Rudnick. His work focused on major urban redevelopment projects in the greater Boston area.

Secretary Bialecki graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law.

Barry Bluestone, the Bluestone Group
Barry Bluestone is the founding director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and the founding dean of the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Before assuming these posts, Bluestone spent 12 years at the University of Massachusetts at Boston (UMass Boston) as the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Political Economy and as a senior fellow at the university’s John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs. He was the founding director of UMass Boston’s PhD program in public policy. Before coming to UMass in the fall of 1986, he taught economics at Boston College for 15 years and was director of the university’s Social Welfare Research Institute.

Bluestone was raised in Detroit, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan, where he received his BA and MA degrees and a PhD in economics in 1974.

Amy A. Cotter, Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC)
Amy Cotter manages the implementation of greater Boston’s regional plan, “MetroFuture: Making a Greater Boston Region,” including its Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant and the MAPC’s work as a member of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance. In her role as director of regional plan implementation for the MAPC, she uses public engagement, research, analysis, and advocacy to explore policy and planning options, develop best practices, and inform decision making from the local level to the national level.

Cotter brings to the effort more than 15 years of leadership in planning and policy making for smart growth and sustainable development, and has held positions at the Tellus Institute and ICF Consulting. She obtained master’s degrees in regional planning and environmental policy from the University of Michigan, and received her bachelor of arts from Tufts University.

CLOSING REMARKS

J. Ronald Terwilliger
J. Ronald Terwilliger is chairman emeritus of Trammell Crow Residential, which he joined in 1979. Trammell Crow Residential is a national residential real estate company and was the largest developer of multifamily housing in the United States during his tenure as CEO. Terwilliger is past chairman of the Urban Land Institute and remains a trustee. In addition, he is chairman emeritus of the Wharton Real Estate Center, past chairman of the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, and chairman of the board of directors for the I Have a Dream Foundation. Terwilliger is the immediate past chairman of the international board of directors of Habitat for Humanity, is an ex-officio member of the board, and chairs Habitat’s $4 billion Global Capital Campaign.

An honor graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Terwilliger served five years in the navy. He received his MBA degree with high distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he was elected a Baker Scholar. He is a past chairman of the National Association of Home Builders Multifamily Leadership Board.

Philanthropically, Terwilliger made a $5 million gift in 2007 to establish the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing, where he serves as chairman of the center’s National Advisory Board. Terwilliger is chairman of the board of trustees for Enterprise Community Partners and vice chairman of the board of directors of Enterprise Community Investment. His $5 million gift to Enterprise to create the Enterprise Terwilliger Fund is expected to create 2,000 affordable homes annually. Terwilliger also serves as chairman of the board for Habitat for Humanity International, where his $100 million legacy gift will help 60,000 families access improved housing conditions.

Terwilliger has been recognized with the ULI Atlanta Community Achievement Award and the ORT Award, bestowed for his support and efforts to improve the world through his good deeds. He received the Hearthstone Builder Humanity Award in 2006 for his commitment to housing-related charities, and in 2008 was elected to the National Association of Home Builders Hall of Fame in recognition of his efforts to advance housing opportunities for all Americans.

In 2009, Terwilliger was honored by the National Housing Conference with the Person of the Year Award for his commitment and contributions to the affordable housing community. In addition, he has been honored by the United States Naval Academy with a 2009 Distinguished Graduate Award for his lifetime commitment to service, personal character, and distinguished contributions to the nation. In 2012, Terwilliger was honored with the National Patriotism Award by the National Foundation of Patriotism.