Municipal Advisory

Development & Capital Project Advisory

DL Smith Company advises cities, successor agencies, school and community college districts, and special districts on the real estate and financial questions that determine whether a project gets built - feasibility, deal structure, land disposition, and approval risk. We bring a private-side practitioner's perspective to public work. When a developer tells a city a project doesn't pencil, we know how that number was built.

City-Owned Property & Disposition

  • Highest and best use analysis - What the site actually supports under current market conditions, not what the general plan designation says.
  • Surplus Land Act strategy - Surplus versus exempt-surplus determination, notice and negotiation sequencing, HCD reporting, and where the affordability trigger changes project economics.
  • Disposition structuring - Sale, ground lease, or participation structures, and which one fits the agency's objective.
  • Developer solicitation design - Drafting an RFP or RFQ, setting evaluation criteria that actually predict delivery, and structuring submittal requirements so responses are comparable.
  • Proposal evaluation and developer selection - Independent scoring, capitalization and track-record verification, and reference diligence.
  • ENA and DDA business terms - Negotiation support on price, schedule, performance milestones, and remedies, coordinated with agency counsel.
  • Split-ownership and assemblage strategy - Where the agency controls only part of a site and progress depends on aligning with a private owner.

Development Feasibility & Pro Forma Review

  • Independent pro forma review - Line-by-line examination of developer's sources and uses, cost assumptions, revenue assumptions, and return requirements.
  • Shadow underwriting - An independent model built before negotiations begin, so agency staff enter the room with their own number.
  • Testing the "it doesn't pencil" claim - Untrended against trended returns, yield on cost against exit cap spread, and a land basis against comparable transactions. These distinguish real infeasibility from a negotiating position.
  • Evaluating requested public participation - Whether the assistance sought matches the actual gap, and whether the project would proceed without it.
  • Incentive structuring - Performance-based assistance, reimbursement mechanisms, risk allocation, and clawbacks.
  • Fiscal and market context - Net new revenue against displacement, and whether demand supports the proposed program.

Entitlement Strategy & Approval Risk

  • California housing law - SB 79, SB 1123, AB 2011, density bonus, and by-right pathways, and what each means for agency-owned and agency-influenced sites.
  • Entitlement critical path - realistic approval timelines built from experience processing them, not from code-stated review periods.
  • Quantifying schedule risk - what approval uncertainty actually costs a developer in return terms, and where an agency can reduce it at a low cost.
  • Housing Element implementation - rezoning program support and site inventory feasibility testing.
  • Infrastructure obligations and project feasibility - how offsite and utility requirements affect whether a project pencils, and when cost allocation across benefiting properties is worth exploring with the agency's finance team.
  • Diagnosing stalled projects - identifying the binding constraint, determining whether the agency can move it, and saying plainly when it cannot.

Owner-Side Project Delivery

  • Owner's representation - Acting as the agency's technical counterpart to the design and construction team.
  • Project Controls - Budget, schedule, and change management with reporting built for public transparency and Council presentation.
  • Consultant selection and management - Scoping, procuring, and overseeing design and technical consultants.
  • Critical path development - Sequencing approvals, funding, and construction so dependencies surface early.
  • Executive and Council support - Staff reports, deal summaries, and risk-and-reward analysis written for public decision-makers.

Grant & Funding Advisory

Description: Senior-level funding strategy for cities, special districts, housing authorities, and public agencies pursuing infrastructure, economic-development, housing, parks, resilience, and community-facility projects.

  1. Who we serve: cities, water and wastewater districts, fire districts, community-services districts, housing authorities, and economic-development agencies.
  2. What we do: funding-readiness assessments, opportunity screening, capital funding strategies, grant calendars, application planning, selective application preparation, and post-award startup planning.
  3. Why DL Smith: more than 20 years of capital-project, entitlement, budgeting, scheduling, and public-agency coordination experience.
  4. How engagements begin: a fixed-fee Municipal Funding Readiness Diagnostic.
  5. Boundaries: no award guarantees, no contingent-fee promise, and application work accepted only after a readiness and capacity review.
DL Smith Company project