Social media and real estate development

There is a phenomenon that has been spreading through our Long Island communities which makes it even more difficult for developers to obtain approvals for real estate developments; it's the rapid expansion of social networking and blogging. Area residents and civic groups have been influencing real estate developments since the beginning of the rural-to-urban population shift of the 1920s, but now a handful of motivated community members can wreak havoc on a solid development plan with very little effort, time or expense. On these social networks you can post whatever you want; your post doesn't have to be accurate or even factual. It's free to get a social networking account and by not researching information or citing sources you really don't have to commit a lot of time either. Fear is the strongest human emotion, so as long as your posts instill fear, you will begin to have followers. Since people are accustomed to believing what they read in print, it adds misplaced credibility to what's being posted. There are multiple channels in which to post in your community that reach many different walks of people with varied interest, and you can easily influence all of them from the comfort and quiet of your computer and living room couch. You drop a manufactured crisis in their laps and rally them for support. I have observed that it's amazingly simple to create a snowball effect of negative information, which grows upon itself exponentially. On many blogs that are administered by many local and regional newspapers and online news services, you don't even need to use your own name when registering or posting. Think of what unconscionable comments get posted if the majority of the posters are posting anonymously. This is what happened with Avalon Bay and their proposed apartment development in the Huntington Station suburb of Long Island. It is located within walking distance of an Intermodal Hub, where a large selection of transportation alternative are available-train, bus, taxis, walk, car. We are talking about a $100 million development that will on the short term bring construction, legal, architectural and engineering jobs when we need them the most in this down economy, while providing a stimulus through the purchase of raw and pre-fabricated materials. On the longer term it would bring tax revenues, residents with new disposable income into the community that will use local services and products and it will also add permanent jobs to run and maintain the development going forward. It also provides for a broader range of living alternatives, other than single family home ownership, which helps our youth and retirees stay on Long Island. What exasperates this injustice is the developer's lack of man power and experience in dealing with yet another obstacle, this one spawned in the virtual world. Developers need to be more proactive than reactive on the social media front. Politicians and zoning officials read social networks too and the fear is that these politicians can view these very few vocal people in the minority, usually made up of less than 1% percent of the local population, as somehow representing the (entire or majority) of the area resident's needs and wishes as a whole. We need to educate our population to remember that social networking is still the Internet, and just like getting a suspicious email, you need to protect yourself from being infected on all fronts. Social Media is a significant channel for marketing, communicating and shaping public opinion. It is important for the real estate community to join the social media conversation with the benefit of a deliberate strategy which will maximize the impact of a social media campaign. There is a Hofstra Symposium to be held in November covering just this topic. The symposium is being produced by The Wilbur F. Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies and the Institute of Real Estate at Hofstra University and sponsored by the joint efforts of the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society (CIBS), Association for a Better Long Island (ABLI), Long Island Builders Institute (LIBI) and Long Island Board of Realtors (LIBOR). David Pennetta is the vice president of the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society and the principal and executive vice president of Oxford and Simpson Realty, Jericho, N.Y.