Want To Use This Rural Road? That’ll Be $50K

In Lincoln County, South Dakota, a growing agriculture company is being charged $50,000 annually for wear and tear on township roads caused by the company's trucks and machinery.

Abby and Edward discuss the balancing act between infrastructure costs and municipal budgets, especially in rural areas with few taxpayers. They explore the public process behind this kind of decision and offer suggestions on how it could be improved.

• Click here for the transcript. (Lightly edited for readability.)

  Abby Newsham 0:04

  This is Abby, and you are listening to Upzoned.

  Abby Newsham 0:18

  Hey, everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of Upzoned, the show where we take a big story each week that touches the Strong Towns conversation and we upzone it. We talk about it in depth. We dive deeper into what it means for our towns and cities. So today, I am glad to be joined by my friend Edward Erfurt, who is the Chief Technical Advisor at Strong Towns. You've brought a pretty fun story today, so I'm excited to have you on. So yeah, thanks for joining me, Edward.

  Edward Erfurt 0:48

  Great. It's always a pleasure to be on the podcast with you, Abby. I'll tell you, all your listeners are amazing, because after these post, I have people that contact me that I haven't heard from in years, and they reach out like, "Wow, I heard you on Upzoned!"

  Abby Newsham 1:05

  Really?

  Edward Erfurt 1:06

  Yeah, you have some really great folks out there that I know enjoy listening to these stories you share.

  Abby Newsham 1:12

  Well, they're great stories, and I always appreciate when whoever's joining me has something unique to bring to the table. So this article that we are going to be covering was published in kiloland, and it is entitled "milk facility to pay $50,000 for road use." So the story is set in Lincoln County, South Dakota. For anyone who's not familiar with this part of the country, this is an area that's just south of of Sioux Falls, and it's kind of in that wedge where South Dakota touches Nebraska and Iowa. So it's the south eastern portion of the state, generally a pretty rural area. So this is a milk condensing facility where they process milk into dry forms so that it can be transported more easily. And the county is requiring this milk facility to pay a fee of $50,000 for wear and tear on township roads. So this is a payment agreement to reimburse local governments for damage caused by heavy trucking and machinery, and it's an example for how industrial operations intersect with public infrastructure, and I guess, unseen liabilities that are built into rural economies. I like the story because it feels kind of niche, but it hits on these very broad themes of who pays for the roads when private operations demand heavier uses than anticipated, and what happens when local infrastructure isn't designed to support industrial growth, and perhaps in a county that wants to see industrial growth but just doesn't quite have the infrastructure. And ultimately, how do we build places that are financially strong and accountable, particularly in these rural contexts? So Edward, let's let's upzone this story. What's the context that you'd like to add to this story that you think listeners should be aware of?

  Edward Erfurt 3:31

  Well, I think this is a really good example to go through and break apart our current conventional zoning and development practices. What's so unique with this is, unlike looking at a request for somebody to put a daycare in a neighborhood, or to take a lot that's low density residential and upzone it to higher density mixed use, this is a dairy with processing for a dairy in the middle of dairy agriculture land. There's no infrastructure around here. There's some things out there. The road is a gravel road. It's two miles from the state highway. So it's a place where the nearest neighbor is in the distance of miles and half miles. So for me, when I start to think about zoning, I would have never thought in this county that there would be something such as zoning there. It is, and they're going through this process. The process started out with the basic things we all would understand about zoning and planning. There's a comprehensive plan that's been established for this county. Within the county, it's broken down into townships, so the townships are deferring to the county to help with their land use decisions. The comprehensive plan says that this is an area that is intended for growth. I didn't read the comp plan, but when they talk about growth, I don't think the intent is growth of subdivisions. It's growth of these agricultural uses. And then there's zoning, and it's got agricultural zoning. Because of all the complexities that we add into our zoning codes, we can't really list all the allowable uses and professions out there. So in agriculture, I'm sure there's a difference between a mushroom plant and a dairy farm or a goat farm and poultry sheds. So you just can't do that. But in there, they've got this catch where it says that there are these conditional uses, where you can come forward and say, "Hey, we've got an idea that's unique here." You can kind of set your own way to do that. So here's a facility that they want to slightly expand that's triggering the conditional use. So I find it fascinating, because when they say "next door neighbors," they're quite a distance from this facility relative to what we might see in other zoning applications. This article comes out as part of an appeals process. So it went through public comment, it went through public hearings and community meetings, it went to the planning commission, and then went to the city council. And then in the typical process, it was appealed, and that means it has to go back through this process again. So now it's gone through more of these things. If you've ever been to a planning commission meeting, everything under the sun comes out during it, all of the ills. And that's been attached to this use. So I just find this completely fascinating, how it is going through, and then as it starts to become resolved. And that's what this article is about: the things that this facility has to accomplish as part of its development agreement. As part of the ability to achieve the conditional use, there are caveats and requirements that they have to do. And they're not the ones I would normally think about that, we would see in other types of development applications, like adding a bigger buffer or increasing a setback, or requiring, or not requiring, a certain amount of parking. There are actually two conditions that were put here that I found really fascinating. This article is first, that this agriculture facility is to pay $50,000 -- so it's $25,000 to each of the two townships in which their trucks drive through -- for the purposes of maintaining the gravel roads and culverts on the paved roads. And then there's another caveat, which I found fascinating. There is a requirement for an annual meeting with the sheriff's office, the district commissioner of the county, the neighbors, and the property owner to talk through the various transportation issues that have come up after the factory has been completed. And when I think about it, that seems really well intentioned, but that's forever. That's annually. And the most serious part of it is, what happens if there's some issue that shows up? There's no trigger to say, "Oh yeah, by the way, we want more money," or "We want you to do this other action."

  Abby Newsham 8:58

  Yeah, this is a really interesting example of an impact fee that's being established through this process. And that's something that's relatively common. It's something that legally, you have to have a rational nexus for. So you have to establish a relationship between the fee that's imposed and the public purpose of the fee. And this happens in cities all the time for development, but I think in this context, in a county context, it's kind of an interesting case study. It's $25,000 a year for two years, and then these ongoing meetings where I suppose they they can't continue to charge them fees if there's additional issues. One thing that came to mind immediately is that $50,000 -- while it's probably a lot of money to the applicant who is looking to establish this use and expand the use -- it really doesn't feel like much of a drop in the bucket for the cost of infrastructure. Actually maintaining roads is so much more than $50,000 and it doesn't seem like there is a clear picture of how these fees are supporting a broader strategy for updating the streets. For example, if this is a growth area where other industrial users will be coming in, and everyone's paying $50,000, and they expect it to eventually be millions of dollars into a fund, and that creates a maintenance fund. But it just seems like it's this one user. $50,000 doesn't really get you very far, and it makes it kind of difficult to say that this is going to make a huge impact. So that was one of the first things that came to my mind, just looking at this as like, is it really helping at the end of the day?

  Edward Erfurt 11:18

  It really points out something that I see in cities of all scales, not just small agriculture communities, but even the big cities. We really have very little understanding of what it actually costs to maintain and upkeep our existing roads. So during this meeting, you could see like, "How much is it going to cost to fix? What should the number be?" And I'm assuming that this business is somethingwhere these are people that live in the community, they love the community, they too want to make sure that their trucks can get in and out safely. I mean, there's lots of antidotes that were shared during the public hearing, where citizens were concerned about the dangers of the road, all of those types of things. So of course, a good corporate business partner would want to maintain that. So there's a cost to it, and they apparently are already maintaining other roads to get to their fields and other facilities. But at the local township level and even the county level, I don't think they really even understood what it costs to maintain these. So in the meeting, it was like back of the napkin calculation, some numbers were thrown out, and then it was, "We're going to compromise here." They all agreed that nobody would be happy with this, but it's a movement forward. When I'm in lots of cities, the reason cities don't know what it costs to do stuff is because we have really talented Public Works departments that just do their job. They don't calculate how many hours it takes to do stuff. They have a budget. If they're given a $10,000 budget to do a project, they're going to try to do it under $9,000. This week, they may have gotten a better deal on gravel or asphalt. So they just do what they can within their means. So yeah, this community highlighted to me that they didn't understand what it really costs. The numbers they were running is what it was going to cost to cost to put gravel on the roads, not even to upgrade.

  Abby Newsham 13:27

  Well in long term, $50,000 worth of gravel. I mean, presumably this use will be operating for years, decades to come. And so it just doesn't really get to a very long term strategy. I think the long term strategy is, "Is this area intended to support other users that can sustain the needs of the infrastructure, or is this going to be one high impact user that creates an impact on infrastructure and doesn't really create the revenue needed to support that infrastructure?" From the counties or townships perspective. I've worked in a community where they've identified the primary area where they are going to have these industrial users. They know it will have an impact on the infrastructure. The primary user is creating some kind of benefits district where they could pay up front for some of these infrastructure costs. And then as other users come into the picture, they pay into that. And so it creates a system for managing the maintenance and paying off like a bond or the loan that established the infrastructure or the improvements. But to me, just making someone pay $50,000 is going to go so quickly, and what's really the long term plan here? Because this will surely be an issue in a couple of years, when that money is gone, or maybe in a year.

  Edward Erfurt 15:18

  Yeah. I mean, what happens if the road washes out, or there's a sinkhole, like a catastrophic event? That money will go very fast. When we look at these things -- and it did come up in the meeting. The county commission recognized that these uses are not generating enough revenue to support that adjacent infrastructure. And it just kind of casually came out of their mouths in the discussion. That's why they were extracting these funds for this work. But alsowhen I hear these things from these township folks, they really do want to have high quality roads, but they're really only serving one or two residents per mile. This is an unsustainable pattern. I have always found that these larger corporations have figured out how to make this work. So they have figured it out in their business model. It seemed pretty easy for them to come up with $50,000 to cut a check for the expansion of this facility. It seemed pretty easy for them to agree to whatever the State Department of Highway said they would have to do to upgrade intersections and do all that type of stuff. All of that seemed to be kind of agreed to, because this is a large corporation. They know that that's the cost of doing business. That's not something a single property owner, like a homeowner, would have the ability to do. And in these areas, one of the approaches is making higher and better uses. So you go and you put more stuff in, it generates more revenue. Another way is to extract more revenue. So we're going to increase the tax rates. We're going to use fees to do that. But the other thing that we don't think about doing, and the other thing that we should be really exploring in these places, is maybe the township simply says "We will not maintain these roads. We will lower our level of service and expectation so they will be passable. But we have to be honest that we do not have a funding source to fund the upkeep of 36 miles of gravel and paved roads in a township of only a couple 100 people." And I think that if that statement was made, there'd be a different review of development. One, development would be controlled because they would have to figure out the level of service they were willing to pay to maintain in the long term of their businesses. And I think, instead of asking for $50,000 from a single use at one time, where there are other uses on these roads, they would have to come together as a group to figure out how to generate the revenue for the level of service of roads. They'd be way more creative in this and the township would would be unburdened from that impossible obligation. I mean, they basically have made a promise that there's no way they could actually keep, for the long term maintenance of these roadways. And you see that when lots of projects come in, because requirements come in on these types of township controlled or locally controlled roads, or utilities have to be outside the right of way. There's a lot of gymnastics you have to do if you want to put a culvert under a road. There's all these layers that get put on to prevent anybody from using that public right of way, except for moving cars, because it's just so expensive to maintain a thoroughfare in any community, regardless of its size.

  Abby Newsham 19:23

  Exactly. And this is that ultimate balancing act of, people want low taxes, people want stable services. And I think in a rural county setting, a lot of people probably want low levels of activity. You know, agricultural activities. And so when you start to introduce these more intense sorts of activities and users, it requires an increase in the services that are being provided. And it makes it difficult to maintain the same level of taxes unless you have some other strategy for paying for it. And that's probably the conversation that needs to be had in these contexts. "If we're going to be directing these kinds of uses, this kind of growth in this setting, are we willing to pay for it? How are we going to pay for it?" And that's an important big picture discussion and a frank discussion to have about taxes. In a county setting, especially. What's the role of the county, and is this something that that the county wants to do, or is this not the right place for it?

  Edward Erfurt 20:42

  And this county is probably like my county, that they have zero obligations of roadway maintenance. They probably control no roads. It is a very easy give. Like, "If we compromise something, we're not going to compromise our county tax base. We're not going to compromise our impact fees for our next Civic Center. But hey, we don't have a road maintenance crew because we don't maintain that and we just assume townships and cities do it really well because they're willing to do these things. So we'll kind of handcuff them in that process."

  Abby Newsham 21:16

  Well, that's a difficult dynamic, where you have that detachment between the development zoning process and the public realm maintenance process, right? I mean, that is a key part of this. When you have entities that hopefully are coordinating, but I would imagine in a lot of cases, there's not as much coordination as there could be between townships and counties. And yeah, this is left to the county zoning and the county processes, and they may not be fully thinking about maintenance and who's going to pay for this for the next 10, 15, 20 years, and how much it really costs to make that happen, certainly more than 50,000.

  Edward Erfurt 22:09

  Everywhere I've worked, there's always been in the zoning application process, like a development application, there's a sign off for the police chief or sign off for the fire department and school board. Every place I've been, we would require the applicant to go submit something to those groups and get it back. I never got anything back, other than, "Yeah, we reviewed it." One time, I got something where the police chief was concerned because it was the first time they'd ever seen apartments, and they were concerned apartments would lead to more crime. We've all heard that in places. It was the only feedback. The last community I was in, after our third or fourth development application, where we were talking about 500 to 600 new homes in our community, the police chief started to see the buildings come up. It then dawned on them that more rooftops would require more policing. The development application process wasn't the trigger for them, where they should be asking for that, or looking at the long range staffing of what they need to update, because additional police cars would result in higher impact fees. You can't just hire an officer in a police department today. You've got to bring them on board over time. Plus you have officers leaving. So to build your force up, that's an expensive position that may take several budget cycles to build up to in relationship to the development. So yeah, those long term obligations get somewhat overlooked in our zoning process. And of course, all the planners out there will say, "Of course we know rooftops and one police officer for X amount of homes because we read that in planning magazine last month." Or "Yeah, we know we need to have more fire trucks because we saw that at our conference." The fields that we work with, the other folks that aren't at the table with us in the room when we're signing the development agreements, even though they send you a letter, it says, "Yeah, we've looked at it." That's really all that they have done.

  Abby Newsham 24:29

  Yeah, they've looked at it. That's such a good point. Because especially in the world where a lot of cities are updating zoning codes and getting their regulations kind of reformed and modernized, there's this whole other aspect of the development processing codes that I think really comes down to applications outside of the zoning code itself. The applications both that the applicant is filling out and what you're actually asking of them, and also how you are creating these documents and applications for the reviewers. Because, let alone the planning department, you may have different levels of of staff that are actually reviewing these things, and their understanding of what they're reviewing may vary. But there's also people who are a police chief, they're a fire chief, and they may not know what questions they should be asking themselves. And the documents they're getting may not give them much context about what criteria they should be reviewing, what perspective we're looking for. And I feel like that's so common, and it creates a lot of confusion in the process, because not everybody knows what they don't know. There's so many things that could be considered. So I think that is such a good point, and it's something that really could be improved. Not just in county planning, but just in the development process generally. How we're directing different folks with different very niche levels of expertise to be looking at a development proposal. Why does it matter to them? Because I'm sure there is a lot of instances where they're they look at it and they're like, "Okay, it looks good. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking at here." And then that's it.

  Edward Erfurt 26:36

  And I found that it's not a scary thing to talk to these folks. There's always this battle with developers and firefighters and the building code and the fire codes and the need for turnarounds and wide streets and all of that. That is one thing that we need to tackle, but really understanding how those departments work in the operations of a city is also important. The fire department and the police department have always been really great allies of mine when I'm working with those developers that want to do the enclosed cul de sac community and refuse to connect to adjacent streets. When I've had these conversations with the police department and the fire department, all of our first responders, they immediately understand the idea of duplicate entry points, the interconnection of streets, so that if one street gets closed, there's a second way for people to get out, that if there's a connection of a street, they can actually get to a location faster and more conveniently. It's hard as a planner. Like when planner Ed would sit there, the developers would say, "Oh no, you're just the planner. You don't understand. You're not an engineer." But having the reinforcement of how this works as a city, and having somebody with a badge and instant credentials, you can use their skill sets. That may be a struggle in some parts of development processes, but you can actually use that. When everybody's working together, it results in projects that contribute positively to a community. It starts to add and contribute more than what it initially started on. So there have been a lot of roadway connections that were thought to be impossible and then the police chief or the fire chief thought it was a good idea.

  Abby Newsham 28:40

  Yeah, that's where different perspectives can more productively come into play, for sure. And that also tells me that planners need to start wearing badges. We need to have our own badge that we wear. The AICP badge, I guess.

  Edward Erfurt 28:58

  And there's something else with this application I kind of want to walk through. Abby, you do this way more than I do. So in this application, as they went through, the council members at the end and even the planning commissioners identified that within the regulations, if they met all the codes, then they're compelled to approve. So when we look at these planning processes, this is where that public engagement and public comment come in. The way that their planning processes work here in this county, it's kind of a quasi judicial type piece in their appeals process. But when you go through and you look at development application, if the comprehensive plan says growth, the next logical thing would be rules that would go and lead to growth. When we go to the zoning, if you meet all of the checkpoints of the zoning, it should be approved. People can protest it. Maybe you don't like this, maybe we misunderstood it, but really, the Planning Commission and the ultimate deciding body have to approve it, even if it may not be what we had envisioned. It met the rules. And I see this all the time, where I meet with citizens after the application has been submitted, and it's public and it's out there. It's like, "Oh my god, I had no idea x could be approved here." And as planners, we all look at this and say, "Well, of course, it could. That was orange. It's the c2 with this use table. Remember, we had 12 public meetings. We had the consultant that did the comprehensive plan. We had the renderings on the wall. It's been on the books since 1960, didn't you know?" And residents don't, because they look out, they see an empty field. So going through the process, trying to explain to folks in the development process that our rules have set us up to make decisions that may not be the decisions we want to make, but we have some legal obligations to it. And if we don't like results coming out of it, there's a different process that we need to go through that we may not be able to win on this development, but we can on the next.

  Abby Newsham 31:35

  Yeah, that's a really interesting point. It's something that comes up even through a planning commission process. As as a staff planner, it's really important to have a structure where you are helping to inform them of what they're deciding on. Because when a planning commission or even a city council are reviewing something, there's probably very specific things that they need to be asked to review, and it's not a debate over things that are allowed by right. And a lot of the times there are processes where public hearings or public meetings are set up into the process, even for projects where everything aligns with the code, what they're doing is by right, but they still have that process. And people, I think rightfully, get very confused about why they're being asked to come to a meeting or why this meeting is occurring.

  Edward Erfurt 32:41

  They're being empowered to participate, or their participation has zero value.

  Abby Newsham 32:48

  Exactly. And I think that's something that also comes up a lot in cities thatmight have good neighbor meeting rules. In some cities -- regardless of if developers are just going through an administrative site plan review process or they're actually asking for a special use permit or a variance or change of zoning or whatever -- developers are required to go have a meeting with neighborhoods. In theory, that's a good idea, but if everything they're doing is by right, and they're coming to a meeting with a fully fleshed out plan and saying, "Hey, I'm submitting this. It's going in front of planning commission next week for approval, what do you think?" I think that that creates a very toxic environment where it very much upsets people. One of the worst things you can do, I think, at a public or community meeting, is to show up with some fully done design. But that's how the process has been put together. When you're ready to go, you need to go talk to the neighbors, and the neighbors don't really understand if they even have influence in the process. Which they may not, particularly if the developer is not asking for a special use permit or variance or change of zoning or anything that requires discretion. If it's not a discretionary process, it just creates confusion and angst and anger amongst people who are not working in this process every day.

  Edward Erfurt 34:32

  I meet with lots and lots of planners, and they all feel it's the right thing to go out and do these public meetings and engagement and all of that because if we have more people in the room, we're going to get better product. All of them, as soon as the door closes and we're at the bar, they all say that the public engagement process is the worst part of their job, because it puts them in a position that is very uncomfortable. Because there's nothing they can do about that. It's not a constructive process. Their default on everything is,"Whether it's required or not in the code, we're going to take it out to do that." because they think it builds some sort of political cover when it goes to the planning commission or city council.

  Abby Newsham 35:21

  Yes. "What did the neighborhood say? Why didn't you talk to the neighborhood?"

  Edward Erfurt 35:25

  And when they do, the neighborhood says, "We don't want anything."

  Abby Newsham 35:28

  Yeah, exactly.

  Edward Erfurt 35:30

  Or we have a neighborhood of 200 people, and on the Tuesday night at 7pm at City Hall, three showed up. And they're the ones that show up for everything, and they don't like anything. They don't like their own home, let alone their neighbors. So they're going to tell us that opinion.

  Abby Newsham 35:49

  And I think that's unfair to the planners, because, whatever city you work in, they've established these processes. I would agree a lot of the times it is political cover, and it's not a process to engagement that's been thought out and is intentional and constructive. And I think that's something that a lot of cities could really create some smart improvements around and ask, "How do we engage with people on these development projects in a way that is timed in a in a constructive way?" So the process is not "Hey, the developer's ready to go, now go meet with the neighborhood. Good luck."

  Abby Newsham 36:34

  "You spent $200,000 engineering this.You've already got the approval. But the three neighbors on the street, you've got to get them to agree to this."

  Abby Newsham 36:45

  Yeah, it's like, why isn't it "Hey, we will help you construct a visioning workshop for your site with the neighborhood that documents high level interests. And we're not coming with a design. Don't even bring a pallet of materials. Don't bring anything." I think it actually would be a better use of a city planning staff's time and effort to act as that facilitator from a visioning perspective, and then allow them to invest their money and plans after that session. And then, if they are asking for things, maybe there is another meeting with the neighborhood that says, "Hey, here's everything that's by right, that they're going to do. Here is specifically what they're asking for that is not by right." And that's the negotiation or the conversation. And it's not just one point where you have a fully fleshed out plan, and then you're asking them if they're not mad about it.

  Edward Erfurt 37:56

  The city planners have very little control as to what a developer will bring to the table. But the city planners have lots of control of the process, and they know a lot about the zoning codes and the approval and what is required in development application. I think if I was back in local government and I was managing a planning department, I would host monthly public workshops on the process. Because that's what I could speak to as a planner. I've been interviewing lots of municipalities across North America that are interested in inviting incremental developers to become housing ready. And a couple of municipalities are doing this. They're doing it on a kind of a quarterly basis. They kind of accidentally come into it. But I think we need to be more deliberate with it. Imagine you had a evening public meeting, or an afternoon public meeting, or morning coffee, and you brought up the development application, and you just said, "Here is our 25 page development application for you to build an accessory dwelling unit. What do you think?" My hope would be the public would say, "My God, 25 pages for a little two car garage you could put apartment above seems a little excessive. Oh, why do you need to have a traffic study for this?" Like asking those questions to help assert the planner that maybe it's a more streamlined development application. Or going through and talking about setbacks and use tables. These aren't exciting things, and you have to kind of make it aware. But I have found that if I could train folks or educate folks in the community on the process, they could advocate, not only for the projects that they wanted, but they could navigate the process to get those approved.

  Abby Newsham 40:05

  Yeah, and it's very empowering for people to understand the process. It's not something that most people understand, even sometimes planners and developers. These things are complex, they're not consistent in every place you go to, and I think it is worthwhile to build more awareness around it and to just do your best to empower people with that information.

  Edward Erfurt 40:33

  And you would go through it. I mean, we would go through stuff. And if somebody was really shocked about an allowable use or a zoning category or a definition, as a city planner, you could then tackle that. You could head things off at the pass of the process. And I think that would also build trust. I mean, everywhere I go, planners get picked on. They're easy whipping posts of all these things. But if you actually work in the things you're most comfortable in, the things that you've been trained and most knowledgeable in, I think that's where these professionals could really shine. So I think like this crazy dairy story, if the neighbors understood the process, they'd know what they could do to demand more to make this a better project. They also would know when to mobilize for various meetings, what would be required. And who knows, there may be something unique to this community that needs to be observed that a planner wouldn't be aware of, but local residents on the ground would say, "Hey, we would like for you to verify this one thing." I will tell you, every development applicant will do that if they know at the very beginning it is a requirement and part of the process. It'll be adversarial if it's midway through or at the end. "Oh, so now we need to do a lighting study or some noise study that we didn't know we needed to do. We don't know what the results are going to be, and we're on the cusp of an approval."

  Abby Newsham 42:15

  Yeah, totally. Well, this has been a really interesting conversation, Edward and I appreciate you coming on today to to have this one with me. Before we finish, I want to do the downzone, which is the part of the show where we have been sharing anything that we've been up to these days, anything we've been reading, or activities, anything any music we've been listening to. Edward, do you have a downzone for me?

  Edward Erfurt 42:45

  I do. I just finished reading "Unreasonable Hospitality." This is by Will Guerra. I can't even remember the name of the restaurant, but it is an inside look at the restaurant industry, and thinking about going above and beyond and hospitality. Will's story in New York is this idea, it may seem familiar to us now, but the idea that the front of house, the waitstaff, the hostesses in a restaurant would be at an equal level as the chefs in the kitchen. And Will is a front of house person that wanted to elevate the experience of restaurant dining, fine dining, and bringing equal level for the chef and also the hospitality dining room. It's a fascinating book. Many of the stories from his restaurant experience are within the bear, if you've if you've seen that show, things with all the fine dining and going above and beyond. So I found that to be just a really fascinating read that's out there now.

  Abby Newsham 44:02

  Interesting. Yeah, I've actually never heard of that book, and I used to work in the service industry, so it sounds right up my alley.

  Edward Erfurt 44:12

  Yeah, my kind of first job, my, the one through high school was at a weird store. Anybody that grew up in Ohio would be familiar. They're no longer existing today. It's called the Andersons. So imagine, in the kind of 80s and 90s and into 2000 a store where you walked in and it was something of a Whole Foods with s beautiful wine department, all the fancy Italian foods and groceries and all that, and then all the home goods you would get at like a Target. And then the back you could buy all the lumber and tools you could buy at Home Depot. Very Midwest, it was a family owned store, and they were all about customer service. That was their their main brand. So looking at that from their retail side, it's neat to see on the restaurant side, all the different things on the hospitality side in the restaurant, what they were doing was trying to understand their customer base and to do small things that are a little beyond what would have been expected. It may have been as simple as bringing out that dessert nobody wanted to order but they knew they'd like and comp that. Or bringing out a special gift, you know, a small ticket item that really meant a lot to the diners. So yeah, from that side, it really is interesting about going above and beyond and a completely different mindset. So it resonated with me a lot. And I think anybody that has a small business, or you're working with servicing individuals in a service industry. Really fascinating ideas there. I don't know if everything applies to everything we do, but there are a lot of really insightful ideas. And now it raises the bar when I go out to eat and I want that extra umph when I go someplace.

  Abby Newsham 46:19

  Yeah, totally. I love going to restaurants that have that extra experiential piece. Well, I'll just share. I actually just spent about a week in Texas. I went to Austin, Texas for a trip for my younger sister. And then I went to Dallas, Texas for work, for Charette. And in Austin, I had one almost whole free day to just explore Austin a little bit, and had the opportunity to actually go kayaking on their Lady Bird Lake, which runs through the downtown area. And I'd never been to Austin before, and I was pleasantly surprised by their downtown area. It's really cool that they have that river that runs right through it, and you can take boats out on it. There was so many people.

  Edward Erfurt 47:20

  Did you see the bats?

  Abby Newsham 47:21

  I did see bats. Yes, yes, the bats were super cool. Yes, that was so neat. And also, I visited some of the lakefront neighborhoods that have been developed, and they have boardwalks and trails. And, yeah, it was a really nice trail system that they've built, and kind of trail oriented development system that they've built along the river.

  Edward Erfurt 47:43

  Yeah, it's such an amazing city. I haven't been there in a couple of years, and every time I see pictures, it is amazing how transformative that city has been. And there have been lots of from planning and coding, lots of really smart people working in Austin. I'm glad you spent time there. There's a lot to learn from a place like that.

  Abby Newsham 48:11

  Yeah, and it definitely wasn't even enough time. There's so many other neighborhoods that, since I've been there, people said, "Oh, you should go here and there." So at some point I'll find my way back to Austin, and if anyone out there in the ether has recommendations, I'm definitely open to them. I will say I had some of the best tacos that I've ever had here. So that was fun. Good food. Well, thank you, Edward for joining me today. This was a fun story. And yeah, join me anytime. Anytime you have a niche story like this, I'm always happy to have a conversation about it. So yeah, thanks.

  Edward Erfurt 48:56

  Awesome. Thank you, Abby. It's always a pleasure to be here, and it's fun talking planning stuff. I hope interesting. But I struggle with planners and all of these things we put in our complicated systems, and it's so nice to talk to somebody about it. It's a little therapeutic to go and shine some light on some aspects that you deal with way more than I do, and I appreciate that input.

  Abby Newsham 49:24

  Well, when you go to planning school, they don't tell you that you're signing up for a lifelong existential crisis. So you're not alone. You're not alone. It's a tough gig. All right. Well, thanks again, and thank you everyone so much for listening to another episode of Upzoned. Catch you next time.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Milk facility to pay $50,000 for road use” by Rae Yost, KELOLAND (July 2025).

• Want to bring the conversation to your community? Book Edward as a speaker.

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

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