MENLO PARK, CA—Frank Petrilli is an attorney in the San Francisco office of law firm, Arent Fox, who focuses on all aspects of land use. Petrilli advises clients on key issues, projects and policies impacting the Bay Area related to development, land use, housing and transportation.

Petrilli has represented clients such as Facebook, Bohannon Development Company and LinkedIn on a variety of projects throughout the Bay Area. He obtained approvals for Facebook's new headquarters expansion in Menlo Park, including a 200-room hotel and approximately 1 million square feet of office buildings. Petrilli also represented LinkedIn in a beauty contest in Mountain View, in which the city council awarded LinkedIn with the lion's share of available development rights in the North Bayshore area.

Petrilli recently discussed land use and zoning, approvals processes, housing and transportation solutions, and local government in part one of this exclusive.

GlobeSt.com: What are the most challenging issues facing tech companies in obtaining approvals for large campus projects?

Petrilli: Housing and traffic are the biggest substantive challenges in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's true for almost any large project, but the situation is especially difficult for tech companies since they are so highly visible and are consequently blamed for creating the housing shortage and the traffic congestion that affects the region.

The more fundamental challenge, though, is human psychology. Highly visible companies that are part of most people's everyday lives are familiar and it's easy to make them targets of blame. The reality, of course, is that these problems are far more complex and arise from all sorts of factors. And complexity is challenging. It's much easier for folks to embrace a simple narrative about “us vs. them” where tech companies are held responsible for causing problems like rising housing prices, displacement and increased traffic, when the real culprits include decades of insufficient housing development (largely due to NIMBY-ism), poor land use planning and inadequate regional coordination around transit infrastructure.

Yet tech companies are generally willing to do far more in terms of public benefits than any traditional developer could. They understand (or at least our clients do) that we live in an ecosystem that depends on shared mutual benefits and cooperation. Facebook, for example, has taken the extraordinary step of introducing housing and community-serving retail into its latest project, including bringing a full-service grocer into what is effectively a food desert. That represents a paradigm shift in Silicon Valley.

Lastly, the process is set up such that a handful of vocal opponents can carry substantial political weight, since elected officials naturally feel more beholden to those who show up at hearings and express their views; that is the problem of the silent majority. When we conduct polling, it's clear that a majority of the voting population supports our projects, but of course, most of those people have busy lives and are not politically engaged so their perspectives aren't adequately accounted for.

GlobeSt.com: What are the biggest differences between clients such as Facebook or LinkedIn and traditional real estate developers? Does local government treat large tech projects differently?

Petrilli: One key difference comes down to values. Larger tech companies like Facebook and LinkedIn have shown a real willingness to embrace long-term thinking about how to improve the region and work with their neighbors to address their needs. That kind of responsiveness certainly happens with traditional developers, or for larger master-planned developments like Forest City's Pier 70 project. But tech companies appear to be at the leading edge in terms of investing in their local communities because it is the right thing to do, and not as a result of transactional or opportunistic thinking. We see that in the board rooms and in the decision-making processes, and it's really a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of teams that are progressive and driven by a broader ethical worldview.

As to how they're treated by local government, there is a real irony. The bar is significantly higher for tech companies in terms of exactions, sustainability, impact fees and public benefits, which often translates into demands for revenue that goes straight into a city's general fund. A lot of public officials are more forward thinking and we have succeeded in integrating more principled benefits into our development agreements that focus specifically on housing and transportation issues. But it's certainly an uphill battle. Cities have been hit hard by the shift away from manufacturing uses and of course Prop 13 has been a major factor too.

Instant Insights /

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