New Haven, CT The Connecticut/Western Massachusetts chapter of SIOR hosted a technology educational panel and discussion on March 22nd.   Fifty-five real estate professionals attended the event, including SIOR chapter members, other commercial brokers, lenders, and attorneys from around Connecticut.  

The event featured SIOR Global president Geoff Kasselman, who provided a futuristic keynote presentation and then moderated a panel to comment on their diverse technology perspectives.  The panelists included John Glascock, professor &  director of Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, University of Connecticut; Robert Sante, president & CEO of the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, a public and utility partnership which provides demographic and related data along with real estate site information; Wayne D’Amico of Xcelligent/CommercialSearch, an emerging commercial real estate data base service; and David Genovese founder of Baywater Properties a developer based in Darien, who recently used social media promoting a project undergoing zoning approvals.

One of the emergent trends of the presentation was land use regulations, present and future.  Kasselman discussed the growing importance of air rights in the age of drones, municipal planning initiatives (if at all) for driverless vehicles, and the coming age of Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. Sante discussed the disparity in zoning regulations from town to town within the State of Connecticut, while Genovese discussed crowd sourcing public opinion through social media to develop a forum for discussion and eventual approval of a given development project.  

According to Glascock, land use regulations are the single biggest challenge to real estate development world-wide, given the rapid socio-economic changes occurring due to advances in technology.

Lively discussion also surrounded data and data-driven decision making and the goals of XCelligent to be a meaningful real estate data base and competitor for CoStar.  From driverless cars and trucks, to the availability of more and more data and information, to future hyper-loops, growing artificial intelligence, and increasing automation in all facets of society; everyone in attendance agreed these will have significant impacts on all classes of real estate requiring a need for forward thinking town and urban planners as well as private and public developers.  The panel session was followed by a networking hour with cocktails, and appetizers.