Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet Bob Atack, of Atack Properties, as he was scheduled to speak in a class of mine. I've had a preconceived opinion of Mr. Atack for many years. I witnessed a few of his developments sprout up around my old neighborhood, Totopotomy, in central Hanover County.
At the very beginning of his lecture, Mr. Atack stated how people tend to dislike developers,
People hate developers, but really, what I think they are afraid of is change...
As much as I agree that some people do not like change, especially in Richmond, and would resist any development of any type, I don't think that is the sole reason that Mr. Atack and other developers have a bad reputation with the common citizen. However, it also wasn't surprising to me that a developer of cookie-cutter homes would have those beliefs.
That being said, I don't necessarily fault Bob Atack, or any other suburban developer; they have worked within the rules of Euclidian zoning procedures, adopted by almost every municipality in the Country. Honestly, he's an incredibly smart man and knows how to work the system, which is part of a free-market economy. I also can't ignore the fact that people buy those cookie-cutter homes in sprawling developments. My family moved from Totopotomy to Ashcreek, one of Atack's developments, soon after it was built. That's another story I'll tell one day.
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