ForeSight Consulting LLC Founder and Principal Todd Bauer recently participated in the two-day “Land Development Breakthroughs Best Practices Conference” hosted by Land Development Today magazine in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

“This was an important and extremely informative conference that touched upon a great number of topics concerning current and emerging trends in land development,” Bauer says. “Two topics of particular interest to me were the obstacles facing developers in a changing real estate market and the rise of design philosophies that are both people friendly and environmentally friendly.”

Bauer says in today’s soft real estate market developers must be prepared to bring more to the table in the way of amenities, value, and fresh ideas. “The market is more sophisticated and more demanding. People are looking for more value, and many people are interested in new design and building techniques and philosophies.”

Interrelated concepts such as green building, sustainable design, conservation design, and the land-first philosophy were among the newer concepts covered at the conference.

“All of these concepts have a common thread,” Bauer says. “The idea is to create aesthetically pleasing, vibrant communities that meet real human needs while being easy on the environment.

“The land-first philosophy promotes development using the land’s natural features to drive design, rather than making the land fit the design, or what’s often called ‘scrape and rape.’ The sustainable-design and conservation-design concepts both recognize that people are an integral part of the natural world, and if we’re to sustain that world, we need to use land-development techniques that minimize any negative impact on the environment. Green building is the practice of using alternative designs and technologies to create communities that are environmentally friendly, use fewer resources, and, in many cases, are more cost-efficient.

“For the last 50 years, development design has centered around the automobile,” Bauer adds. “Now, however, a growing number of people want more of a people-oriented design. Cars don’t live in homes—people do.”

These new ways of thinking about land development will eventually take root in our area, Bauer says. “Here in the Midwest, we’re always a little slow to react to trends that start on the East and West coasts, but I think we’re going to see more people asking about alternatives to traditional building techniques and philosophies in the near future.”