The NAIOP Market Share blog sat down with 2024 NAIOP Chair Brian Walker to ask him about his career path, NAIOP experience, and vision for the association this year.
Last week, hundreds of NAIOP members from the U.S. and Canada attended NAIOP’s Chapter Leadership and Legislative Retreat (CL&LR) in Washington, D.C., with the conference culminating in countless meetings with their elected representatives to advocate on behalf of the commercial real estate industry.
Commercial real estate developers and owners recognize the important role they must play in combating the effects of climate change. NAIOP New Jersey is resolving to be part of the solution by improving energy policies so they’re workable, achieve tangible improvements in energy efficiency, and lower the use of carbon-based power sources in the commercial real estate sector.
As 2023 comes to a close and we look ahead to the challenges facing commercial real estate in 2024, it is clear that persistent advocacy on the public policy front will be more important than ever to ensure that the interests of NAIOP members are protected. This is true of course at the state and local level, but it is at the federal level, where government gridlock has been most on display, that maintaining our strong advocacy will be critical.
NAIOP hosted a Texas summit meeting in Dallas last week for members of our Austin, Houston, and North Texas chapters to discuss the major issues facing the industry in the state. The summit provided members with the opportunity to engage in discussions on major trends and topics of importance to NAIOP and the commercial real estate industry.
Following three weeks of negotiations and squabbling, House Republicans elected Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson to serve as the 56th Speaker of the House. This was a difficult time for House Republicans, who struggled to find a new speaker after eight of their members joined all House Democrats to abruptly oust McCarthy on Oct. 3.
NAIOP’s 2023 chair talks about four topics that often arise during his visits to chapters across North America: community relations, e-commerce, EV trends and designing policies with communities.
While fighting in Congress over spending bills is nothing new, the heated politics surrounding this year’s federal government funding battle, and the resulting animosity if a government shutdown does materialize, could linger well beyond October and make reaching agreement on a tax bill all the more challenging.
There are only 11 days when both the House and the Senate are scheduled to be in session before the current federal funding authorization expires. In most years, the House and Senate leadership would simply agree to a continuing resolution (CR) that maintains existing federal policy and holds funding at current levels for a certain period to prevent a government shutdown before Oct. 1. This year, however, is not following Congress’ standard operating procedure, and is reminiscent of the years when congressional leaders were powerless to rein in the political forces that led to government shutdowns.
Earlier this year NAIOP Wisconsin was made aware that the City of Wauwatosa was looking to fast-track the adoption of a transportation utility user charge or fee (TUF) in order to generate additional revenue for local transportation and infrastructure needs. The transportation utility fee would apply to both residential and commercial properties based on the vehicle traffic generated by the property’s use, and not necessarily their valuations.
