Business View Civil & Municipal | Volume 2, Issue 11

21 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 11 ASSOC I AT ION OF FLOR IDA COMMUNI TY DEVELOPERS (AFCD) policies – whether insurance related or building code related – to make them resilient to hurricane winds but also dealing with sea level rise. The best way we handle those as developers is looking at how we can build communities in an environmentally responsible way to preserve our natural resources to the best of our ability, and in turn to do our part to help combat climate change and the things that go along with that.” BVM: How have you been communicating with members during COVID? Pierce: “We’re fortunate that we’re a smaller organization, so it’s been a bit easier. Our mission and our priorities are so narrowly focused to the specific industry of community development and we represent very narrow interests, so communication is very personal for us. Our developer company members are the only ones eligible to sit on our executive committees, so they are the face of our organization and the set the policy and the direction we’re going as an association. But everyone has a vote. “We do all the normal association outreach – we have quarterly Board of Directors meetings that move around the state – and our Board consists of every single member of the association. That means they’re basically full membership meetings. More recently, in 2020, we were able to conduct those meetings via Zoom or conference calls. So we had moved to a more virtual model, however, since December of 2020, we’ve moved back primarily to in-person