Commercial property professional Minja Yan has seen how urban sprawl can affect cities and regions seeking to grow in a logical fashion. The Las Vegas-based Millennium Commercial Properties director said she's learned much about the issue through her job at the development firm and industry real estate associations and wants to share her lessons with counterparts across the country.
Yan grew up in southwest Las Vegas and has witnessed the city and Clark County rapidly expand as single-family homebuilders developed lots, many in sprawling master-planned communities. As a member of the Urban Land Institute's national Sustainable Development Council, she's studied and traveled to see how other cities are growing in smart and not-so-smart ways.
For cities across the U.S. to evolve more strategically, they need to enhance and expand public transportation systems, rein in sprawl and figure out ways to limit water use, she said.
Yan earned her bachelor's degree in finance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she served a stint as an adjunct professor at its Lied Center for Real Estate. She earned her master's in real estate at New York University, and that set Yan on her career path.
We caught up with Yan this week in Las Vegas just as the ICSC Las Vegas retail real estate conference got underway. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How does Las Vegas measure up to competition when it comes to disciplined growth?
We are at least 20 years behind our peer regions, including Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Denver, and we are losing our economic competitiveness. If we don't have a connected region with great transportation infrastructure that will have mobility to move people so they can get to work, get to school, and go to the airport and shopping, we'll fall further behind because we haven't been investing ... as the competition has.
How does housing impact a region's growth?
Housing and transportation are two sides of the same coin, because where you live ... determines how far and how much you spend on transportation from your home to go to work, to go pick up your kids from school, to go to doctor's appointments. Historically, Las Vegas has grown in a horizontal, sprawling, low-density development pattern, where the majority of the land in the county is zoned for single-family use only. And we have a lot of master planned communities here. Because of zoning constraints — and the lack of public transit infrastructure and the lack of smart growth, land use policy and a vision — we haven't been able to encourage infill development and redevelopment.
In the West, water determines how some regions grow. What can states do to conserve the resource?
We are in negotiations right now, along with the states along the Colorado River, to come up with a solution or a compromise on how we can continue to grow with less of the river's water needed. There was news last week that Arizona, Nevada and California agreed to cut back 3 million acre-feet of water [enough to supply water for one year to approximately 6 million to 9 million households], but we have to see which states cap their use and by how much.
How can municipalities improve their traffic congestion?
Build light-rail systems. Phoenix started building their light-rail about 20 years ago. Now they're seeing a 7-to-1 return on that investment, not only from the transportation infrastructure but from the jobs it's helped create, the developments, the housing, the growth that they saw next to the light-rail system.
You're running for a seat on the Clark County, Nevada, Commission this year. How can other real estate professionals get involved in their communities?
Attend public meetings, community meetings. Because of my professional position, I was able to participate in stakeholder committees on issues regarding regional growth and land-use policies. So, when there was a federal effort to sell off and privatize the mass amount of 65,000 acres of public land in Clark County in the Las Vegas Valley, I provided my expertise as a commercial real estate professional. I also spread the word through social media about smart land-use policies and why selling off mass amounts of public lands for development on the outskirts of the city is not going to help us to achieve the goal of responsible growth.