Making Waves

>>Business as usual just doesn't cut it for Dan DeLisi.

"It's time to change the way that the developers approach the Southwest Florida community, and vice versa," says DeLisi. The 33-year-old is co-owner and principal planner for DeLisi Fitzgerald Inc., an engineering, planning and consulting group based in Fort Myers.

"Typically you have a developer trying to push plans through the process and going to battle with the community. I don't want to do that," he explains. Instead, DeLisi emphasizes working with community groups and local governments to make the process more transparent and less contentious.

Prior to the formation of DeLisi Fitzgerald, DeLisi served until this past July as the director of planning for The Bonita Bay Group. Through a public-private partnership, he focused heavily on permitting for a 1,000-acre site with development potential on Burnt Store Road in Charlotte County. He built a partnership with homeowners there, giving presentations and holding workshops to gather input.

"At the first public meeting there were 200 people. I was sweating bullets, thinking we were going to get skewered. But no one spoke in opposition; everyone spoke in favor of it, based on our approach," he says.

That approach began to take shape from 1998 to 2000, when he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He took courses there with Larry Susskind, well known for his teachings in dispute resolution. After MIT, DeLisi and his wife, Koko, spent two years in China, where he led a management-training center. Upon moving back to the United States, the couple decided on a tropical venue. They ended up in Estero, where DeLisi has made an impact by helping put together the Estero Community Plan, which is sort of a blueprint for development.

"It's been fun working with people and maintaining consensus between the community, businesses and developers," he says. "It goes to my whole mantra-if we change our approach on how we work together, we can get a whole lot more done on the development side, and the community will be happier with what we do."

-Lauren Bernaldo