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What happens to a master planned community after the last house is sold, the last commercial building leased? Even with Homeowners Associations in place, and a set of CC&R’s (Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions) how much can one expect a community to evolve and change over time? Talking with David Nelson, Senior Vice President Land Development, of A.G. Spanos Companies, The Real Story got some insight about the time horizon for his community-in-the-planning, The Preserve.

In today’s podcast, David talks about time to entitle a project (he is projecting about 18 months), the time to bring it to market (about five years) and the length of time for the sales of all of the residential, commercial and retail offerings to be completed, which he sees at about 20 years from today. He is candid about the opportunities and the challenges of planning for a future that most of us can’t imagine. . . and then adds to the equation the fact that the community doesn’t stand still on the date that it is sold out; indeed, another life cycle of about 50 years begins then, as organic changes, driven by human need and desire, continue the process of community evolution.

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The Real Story recently met up with David Nelson, Senior Vice President of Land Development for the A.G. Spanos Companies in Stockton. David is in the process of bringing a concept called One Planet Living into the planning and design of a new master planned community called The Preserve.

Today, David talks about the opportunity of working with a team of experts in such disparate fields as transportation, stormwater management, water treatment, and habitat creation, as well as land planning, architecture and landscape design. The size of the task—of envisioning a community unlike any other in the Central Valley—demanded the creative discipline of the charrette process, during which the team—and its leader—learned much about each other while working side by side to put ideas into action. More on the process and the people behind it in tomorrow’s post. New podcasts will be added to the interview every day this week.

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David Nelson, Senior Vice President of Land Development for the A.G. Spanos Companies, led a panel about master planning at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference in San Francisco last June. His approach, and that of his team, is to counter the habits of consumption by empowering people to change their behaviors to use fewer resources. Good, big decisions are being made that have a fundamentally different point of view of master planning—in David’s words, one that considers the impacts of one project on its neighbors, on the local economy and the whole region.

In today’s The Real Story, David talks about how the vision for The Preserve became interwoven with the Spanos family’s sense of legacy; further how the City of Stockton’s expressed desire to be seen as a progressive, sustainable community proved that congruous ideas and good timing can help make the impossible come to life.

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How difficult would it be to set aside months—or even years—of planning and design work to try to come up with a completely new model for master-planned development? We asked David Nelson, Senior Vice President of Land Development for the A.G.Spanos Companies, who did exactly that when he tabled an 1800-acre project in North Stockton—because, as he says, “its time had come and gone” because it was just the next step, the next incremental progression in community planning, and not a breakthrough.

Today, working with a world-class team, including BioRegional from the UK, David is in the process of putting together a revolutionary approach to development and building, in the new model of One Planet Living, which espouses people living within the resource constraints of a single planet—not the five planets’ worth of resources that we so freely consume currently.

More on the principles of One Planet Living in tomorrow’s podcast, available here or downloadable on iTunes.

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The Real Story often connects with some of the most innovative thinkers in the homebuilding industry. Among them: Sacramento-based architect Jeffrey DeMure, with his point of view on the “new” seniors and what they want from their communities.

The Baby Boomers, now heading into retirement age, have defied categorization throughout every stage of their lives. What should we expect from them as retirement grows near for so many Americans? Jeff tells us that these newest members in the active adult category think of themselves as being 13 years younger than they actually are (which explains A LOT of bad wardrobe decisions). As a group, they are interested in health and wellness, because they feel that they have some control over the quality of their lives as they age.

Architecture? Jeff says that the Boomers are as interested in the “cultural infrastructure” of the community as their own homes, and that the ways that the community allows them to connect with each other and with the world are all a part of their idea of retiring, without ever getting irrelevant.