hi guys,
relieved? yes
proud? not yet
tired? very!
What have I learned dealing with the anti-development brigade? Not too much to be totally honest, except that councillors just care about their re-election prospects. We were just dealing with human nature.
No-one at all anticipated the uprising that occurred.
You see, the problem is if you talk to people before you start doing anything, you're giving them the opportunity to tell you how THEY want things, which may not necessarily align with your objectives, and then there is an obligation to keep the communication ongoing, and on top of that you'll give them more time to get themselves organised if they want to object.
If you don't talk to them, then they'll get their backs up and who knows what they will do, or why they'll do it.
It is a bit of a catch 22.
I guess the most important thing is to ascertain at the outset the potential reasons why someone may object...and this includes researching the position of the current occupants of the properties you're purchasing.
We knew they were all on expired leases when we agreed to purchase the properties. What we didn't know at the time was the rentals they were paying.
When they started their little bruhaha they masked it behind a heritage argument. This stunned us as we knew the properties held no heritage significance.
Then when we dug a little deeper (and sent spies into their Save East Crown Street Collective meetings) we discovered that they were all paying very little rents on very easy terms with the landlords, and that was the reason they were really objecting.
And to top it off, they didn't want to engage in discussion with us at all, so that was difficult for us to manage. Unfortunately, because they came from left field we were being re-active rather than pro-active.
So, I guess to overcome what we did, you need to study the art of human nature, and take preventative measures at the outset, whatever that may mean.