With over 30 years experience in the building industry, Gary Garczynski, president of the National Association of Home Builders, wants to achieve the goal of providing decent home and suitable living environments for every American family.
Garczynski is president of National Capital Land and Development Company in Woodbridge, Va., which develops about 300 finished lots each year for some of the Northern Virginia area’s largest builders. He is also a principal in Urban Dimensions, Inc., which rehabs residential properties and builds homes on infill sites in Washington D.C., and its close suburbs. Realty/Builder Connection staff writer Michele Newbern Gillis met recently with Garczynski during a recent visit to Jacksonville to discuss his year as president.
Question: What issues are facing home builders today and what is NAHB doing about it?
Answer: Right now, we have the issue of how we are going to grow as a country and the growth challenge. Who is going to pay for infrastructure? Who is going to make sure the roads and the schools are built? Who is going to make sure that it all comes together? Another internal issue that is probably the most serious that we face is the insurance challenge. Since Sept. 11, builder’s risk and liability insurance has just gone through the roof in terms of people just not writing policies, making exceptions or quadrupling premiums. That is a big issue for our members right now. We have a task force that is supposed to deliver a report at our September board meeting on what direction we are going try and take on that, but we have been in dialogue with the administration on that issue. Contingent to that is the whole issue of mold. The legal community is now looking at it like cigarette smoking and asbestos. Mold may be the next big bonanza on lawsuits. We are spending quite a bit of money and research to find good science to see if there is relationship between mold and disease. That is all part of that insurance crisis that is happening right now. From a builder’s standpoint, construction defect legislation is very important. Especially on multi-family units, lawyers are suing right after the homeowners association takes over, without notice to the builders. This is a state-by-state case, but we are pushing construction defect legislation that would give a notice to cure before you can sue a builder so he is aware of the problem and has a right to fix it before it gets out of hand.
Q: What does President Bush’s administration need to do to make NAHB happy?
A: We are really trying to make inroads with the administration. Right now, George Bush is pushing a home ownership tax credit that we are very much in support of. It is for single family new home construction or remodeled homes and it would give a tax credit to those builders and developers who get involved in the “Renewing the Dream” initiative. He is also going to convene a White House conference on affordability in the fall and we look forward to being a major player in that.
Q: How about Congress?
A: It’s tough to say. There are so many things on the books that are being debated right now. Certainly, we like the Housing Opportunity Act that I mentioned. There is an energy bill that gives tax credit for energy efficient components that you can put into the houses that we like. We do hope that housing and urban development gets its wish list of appropriations. We are certainly supportive of keeping a lid on taxes in the general tax policy.
Q: And the courts?
A: We always look to the courts as our last resort to defend our rights. We are currently engaged in 22 Federal suits on a myriad of issues. It’s hard to judge whether the court is doing something good or bad for us. You are always at risk because you are at the will of the court.
Q: Is there anything going on in the administration, Congress or courts that you do not like?
A: There is one bill that we have staunchly opposed called the Community Character Act. It advocates giving Federal grants to states to do statewide planning. We are against statewide planning, we are proponents of local and regional planning. In Florida, you already have growth management. We think it is better for the counties in the Jacksonville area to be planning their future than somebody in Tallahassee.
Q: What is NAHB’s stand on affordable housing?
A: If you talk about the challenges to our country and to our business today, affordability of housing is probably right up on the forefront. The people who are the heroes on our front pages of the newspapers including fireman, policeman, teachers, emergency workers and nurses are the same people who can’t afford the median priced home in the area they are living in. Dual income families are spending 50 percent of their income to try to own a home. Home ownership is at an all-time high, 76 percent, which is great. Seventy percent of white America has homes. When you go to people of color, that drops to a little over 50 percent. We have to do better. That is one of President Bush’s big initiative on his home ownership tax credit. That is why we are pushing it. The Millennium Housing Commission just delivered a report to Congress on a number of issues and suggestions about affordable housing. We have a five-individual task force working on that report to analyze it so, with the real estate agents, non-profits and bankers, we can get together behind that Millennium Housing Commission and be supportive of other ways to promote affordability.
Q: What is your education goal this year?
A: In education, one of my goals was to establish the University of Housing, which is a one source stop for any of the educational opportunities that we have for personal growth or on the issues we are faced with. The second component of education was the education of tomorrow’s home buyers. We are going to launch an effort in September called “Building Homes Of Our Own” which is going to be an interactive CD ROM game where middle and high school students will actually purchase a lot, get a construction loan, build a house and sell a house for scoring points while competing against each other. We are really excited about that. We have already had 1,600 schools throughout the country request the CD ROM and teacher’s guide. It will teach them about our industry, so hopefully it will be a recruiting tool. And it will educate them as to what the process is that we go through as home builders and developers to get a roof over America’s families heads. Maybe it will give them a better appreciation when they are elected officials of what we have to go through.
Q: What is integrated advocacy?
A: Integrated advocacy is how we interrelate with our various departments to represent the association in the sectors of government that we deal with. For example, on Capitol Hill we deal with the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. When dealing with the executive branch, we need to look at how we interact with the White House, the administration and the regulatory agencies as well. We deal with judicial branch of the government when we have to enact lawsuits to self-protect the industry and our rights to pursue business and profit. That is very important. If you focused on one reason why anyone would belong to the association, it is to interact at any level of government with our industry.
Q: What type of planning?
A: By planning, I mean specifically long-term strategic planning to know where we’ve been, where we are, where we are going and to find a game plan to get us there.
Q: Your year as president is about half over. Will you achieve your goals?
A: No one president accomplishes everything in a year. It has to be a team effort from the people who were in front of me and the people who come behind me. They all have to have a shared vision. That is why we need to have a long-term strategic plan to follow. Integrated advocacy is ongoing. There is always something brewing on Capitol Hill, the administration or with the regulatory agencies. Right now, some of the top priorities for us have to do with affordable housing. There is a key housing bill on the floor that is getting debated, the Housing Opportunity Act, that will help our cause. As far as communication, we are working on how we can best communicate with our members what we are doing on a Federal level so they are getting bang for their buck. Also, we want to be sort of transmitter and coordinator of all the good ideas on a myriad of housing challenges that are around the country that a local chapter could be doing right. For example, we can say we like Builders Care program of the Northeast Florida Builders Association and what you are doing here in Jacksonville. Why can’t that be a model or a pilot program that could be transported to California or Oregon?
As far as education, the University of Housing is a reality. It is online on our website and is growing. Also, the “Building Homes of Our Own” program will be a reality when it goes into the schools in September. As far as planning, we just adopted a new long-term strategic plan at our last meeting, so I feel we have made great strides towards those goals.
Q: How much of your time is spent on NAHB business?
A: I’d say it was about 60 percent of my time. That doesn’t mean three business days a week because a lot of the NAHB business transpires on weekends.
Q: How much time do you spend on the road?
A: 10 days out of 30. It’s structured because we have a built-in meeting schedule. We have three big meetings a year: the NAHB Convention and the Fall and Spring board meetings. Then we have three other executive committee meetings and in between those we have senior officer meetings. So, I have about one meeting a month to attend. We also have the big regional conferences to attend and each senior officer is responsible for a region of the country. I have a commitment to visit each one of my nine states at least once during the year at either their convention or their installation banquet. We also have a number of councils who have their own individual conferences that they expect the president to attend. You kind of have to be flexible.
Q: Has it been everything you thought it would be?
A: It has been. It is certainly an opportunity to be in places and meet people that we wouldn’t meet in our ordinary walk of life. So, that’s really been the fun part. It has been a little easier for me because I do live and work in Northern Virginia and have quick access to the Capitol.
Q: So you are juggling your job with your presidency?
A: Oh, yes. I still have to put a paycheck on the table and run a business. That is the real challenge, scheduling my time so that when I am either doing NAHB business or my own business, so no time is wasted. You can’t afford to waste time.
Q: How many presidents have you met?
A: In the last 10 years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet or have a conversation with Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.