Affordable 
     Housing
  Development        Competition
    2003

The Judge

Clark Ziegler is executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. He served as a judge in the 2002 and 2003 competitions.

We evaluate proposals against criteria that were laid out by the sponsors of the competition. We then try to form our own judgments about how well each team meets the criteria.

In judging the proposals, I think I was looking for a couple of things. Obviously technical quality is important. Although the projects are put together within a relatively tight timeframe, we're still looking for high professional standards and attention to detail — just good solid work.

What was even more interesting to us was how creatively the students defined the project and the tasks they were trying to accomplish. It's not just how they carry out the proposals but what they have decided to do. Having seen the competition through a couple of cycles now, I've just been blown away by the thoughtfulness of the teams as they try to define their missions and carry them out.

What stood out for me about the winning project in the 2003 competition was its focus on a neighborhood rather than a single project. I think both aspects are important, and obviously one of the building blocks of any neighborhood strategy is sound real estate, design, and finance decisions. But what really struck the judges about this year's winner was how ambitious the team's neighborhood strategy was and how the team tried to understand the land-use issues and history and what would be needed to attract additional private investment into the neighborhood. This kind of approach was really striking to us.

I think a combination of factors led to the Norfolk Corners team being chosen the winner. A lot of pieces fell together for them. Given the obvious time constraints, no proposal can be or should be expected to be perfect. But I think it was a combination of their having a very ambitious and noble strategy and a lot of strong elements to bring it to fruition.

The Strengths of Other Proposals
From my perspective, there were very positive aspects to all of the entries. For example, one of the policies and planning concerns on everyone's short list now is smart growth and design. I think a number of the other projects, from a design perspective, really tried to focus on rebuilding the core of an urban area. From my perspective, I think every proposal had unique strengths.

I think the East Boston proposal really resonated in terms of design features and its approach to increasing density in an urban area. It was located right at a transit node and there was a lot of very thoughtful design work that went into the project.

Coordinating the competition were, from the left, Harvard University students (and participants in the 2002 competition) Alastair Smith and Sharifa Anderson, and Theo Noell, senior community investment manager at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston.

It's a shame we can't acknowledge the accomplishments of each project. The proposals tend to address different things in different ways. I could imagine having a smart-growth award and a neighborhood-strategy award and a project-feasibility award. There are so many different levels at which these matters are important in the real world. I think all of the teams really hit on something and really showed some energy, creativity, and drive to get things done.

I thought that the caliber was just terrific across the board, and I think all of the students involved in this year's competition really benefited from the people who went before them. I've noticed that the teams are trying to learn from their predecessors.

I work for an organization that hires a fair number of people to do housing work and it's exhilarating to see so many good people out there interested in the field and enthusiastic about affordable housing.

One of the judges commented that the competition proposals were as good as most of the outside consulting work that we see and that clients must pay for.

I work for a public agency funded by the banking industry to support affordable housing and neighborhood development across Massachusetts. We act as a long-term lender. Incidentally, the funding that comes to us from banks actually comes through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, so there's a very strong relationship there. We also provide technical assistance and outreach to communities and administer a first-time home buyer program through participating banks.

Judging the Competition
The judges wanted to be true to the criteria laid out by the competition. Frankly, I think the hardest thing was trying to stick to the letter of the scoring when we were seeing real positives that maybe weren't anticipated when the competition was laid out originally. I think in the end we were all in agreement on the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal. I was struck by how similar our reactions were to the various proposals. That gave me a lot of confidence that the judging was fair and that we were giving good consideration to each proposal.

One of the interesting dilemmas we ran into was how much to reward technical quality in each category as opposed to the ambitiousness of each proposal. We didn't want to penalize an ambitious proposal that would be difficult to achieve technically, given the limited amount of time available for the competition. A less ambitious proposal, for example, would probably be easier to achieve technically. So those were some of the questions we grappled with. Because of the work many of us do, we're drawn to proposals that try to achieve broader results while still being feasible and complete.

The biggest single tip I would give to the 2004 participants is that they should find and talk to folks who have participated in past competitions. Figure out what their frustrations were and what added the most value to the process for them.

Given the limited time available, a critical issue becomes where to focus energy and how to make the best use of each member's time to develop a product that holds together well. I think communication with folks who have done it before is probably the single most important thing for participants to keep in mind.

It's also important to realize that there's a lot of free advice and guidance out there on how programs work and what kinds of projects are feasible. I would just encourage folks to take advantage of as much of that free advice as possible.