When a new office, apartment or retail project is proposed or about to go up in the Valley, chances are Brad Rosenheim knows before you do. For the last 16 years, the Agoura Hills resident has run his own firm, Rosenheim & Associates Inc., which handles entitlements and community and political outreach for real estate projects of every size and scope. Rosenheim helps companies, developers and homeowners wind through what sometimes seems to be a never-ending maze to get their projects approved. Over the years, the company has handled nearly 1,000 projects. Last year, Rosenheim & Associates released numbers for its 15-year anniversary: 9,000 residential units, 2.6 million square feet of office space, 2.7 million square feet of industrial and warehouse space and 1.75 million square feet of retail space. The past few years have been a struggle as development grinded to a halt during the downturn and the firm had to lay off several employees. But business is turning around. Rosenheim says the firm will turn a “slight profit” this year. He also sees more companies looking to entitle projects, which he says is a precursor to developers jumping back in the game. He should know. A Valley resident since 1979, Rosenheim once worked for Councilman Marvin Braude, including a seven-year stint as the councilman’s Valley deputy. He co-founded the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley in January 1995 and sits on numerous local boards. For decades, he’s been active in both the public and private sectors. He has seen the area and the nature of development change. And he quickly recalls the days when angry constituents would call about new development projects that appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Many developers could go to the city, get a building permit and put up a sign one day saying, ‘We are building a 22-story building.’ That led to the slow-growth movement in the mid-80s. More projects were thrown into the realm of discretion and communities gained more leverage with developers to shape projects, Rosenheim said. “While my type of business existed before that…it created more of a need and an opportunity for it,” he said. Rosenheim says fashioning an agreement between all affected parties to create a good project is one of the best parts of the job. Question: Some people would look at your job and say handling entitlements is a very boring way to make a living. Is that the case? Answer: No. Cities have a couple primary responsibilities. Public safety is number one. I actually went through the process to become a police officer and was very highly ranked, except for the fact that I had a back injury. So I sort of put that aside and proceeded on. Another key element of local government is land use planning. It has a way of creating community, if it is done correctly. I really enjoyed the interaction between the community and the developers and the elected officials and the city staff. There was just so many moving pieces, and it was very challenging and very interesting to me. Q: How is it challenging? A: The council offices and the planning department tend to get involved with planning projects that have some sort of level of discretionary approval, which puts it into the realm of a bit of uncertainty. I really find it challenging and interesting to create a project that requires discretionary approval but that can also get the backing of the community and the political forces in the hopes that the project is actually a benefit to the community. Q: How has your business been affected by the economic downturn and the still challenging real estate market? A: As with most of my colleagues in the real estate business, our business went down dramatically over the last few years. At our peak, we had 11 staff, including myself. Now we are at seven (employees) and a part-time person. There is a slight profit at the end of this year. I feel fortunate that we have survived. People are beginning to look at opportunities to entitle property or re-entitle property. Financing is still very tough. But what we are seeing is more (activity) on the user side— folks who want to expand space for their business or purchase space or move their business into a new location, which I think is the precursor to development opportunities. Q: Have you had to change the way you do business? A: We are not seeing the entitlements for the speculative development. It’s beginning to come around, but more business is build-to-suit for a business. We do work for institutions — schools and hospitals and religious facilities. We have seen that (type of business) has been much more steady than the developers who are building buildings in the hopes people will move in. Q: How is the process here in the city of Los Angeles compared with nearby municipalities? A: It is certainly cumbersome. You have a mayor, you have council people, you have department heads — who very sincerely, I think, want to make the process more straightforward for everybody — but you have individuals who haven’t bought into that philosophy, who still think their role is being the gatekeeper and an enforcer. The challenge is to bring that down through the ranks. It is very tough. Q: How do the other cities in the Valley-area stack up? A: Burbank, where we have done some work, has generally had a reputation of facilitating business development. Calabasas has had a general reputation of being very particular. In the effort to be very particular, their process is pretty cumbersome. Q: How has the Valley changed since you moved here, and where do you see development going in the future? A: The macro issues have not changed. They may have become more cumbersome, but traffic is traffic, for example. The best vision is to create the opportunity for intense urban centers in the right spots in order to help preserve the single-family neighborhoods. We need to create places for people to work. We need to create places for people to live. The ideal scenario is to bring them as close together, so people can choose if they want to live and work in the same neighborhood, rather than drive across town and spend time and money on gas and all that stuff. You are not going to force people to do that. That’s what planning is about. It’s not about forcing people. It’s about giving them the opportunity. Q: Do you see the Valley and the rest of Los Angeles becoming more connected in the future? A: One and a half million plus people live in the San Fernando Valley or more, but it’s a small town in a lot of ways. The more city hall does to try to make sure the Valley is part of the dialogue and an equal participant in that dialogue — and frankly, an equal participant in sharing the resources as opposed to a donor — I think that helps bridge the … difference. But I think the Valley will, for the foreseeable future, have its identity because it is different. And I don’t think that is a bad thing. Q: Having worked in government previously, what have you learned running your own business? A: I am very conservative about making sure there is a rainy day fund. It’s really not that complicated; it’s a small business. It’s taken me many years to understand how to hire. And I still would not consider myself an expert, but I am fortunate I have a good team. Over the years, I had great people and not so great people. Q: What are you most proud of in your career? A: I’d say being involved in this latest round of the Warner Center specific plan. I think it is a great effort, and I think it is a very good plan. The planning department and the city have worked as partners with the community instead of being dictatorial about it. The general concept is that Warner Center should — by its access to the Orange Line and proximity to the freeway— be an urban center. The last specific plan was done in the midst of this slow growth movement. It really inhibited Warner Center fulfilling that objective. Q: Tell me about the sign behind you, which reads “Friends Don’t Let Architects Do Entitlements!” A: We work a lot with architects. And we don’t try to draw buildings. But sometimes architects try to do entitlements. And we have been called in on several occasions to help resolve issues that architects have gotten themselves into. And we do have good friends who are architects. We work with them all day. (Laughs).
Entitled to Success
