Dermot Murphy Lecture Series on Applied Ethics
"We're in the midst of a loud, protracted and, to my mind, interesting debate over what is and is not a reasonable standard of moral conduct in business and public life." (Mark Wexler)
December 5, 1996, saw the conclusion of the Dermot Murphy Lecture Series on Applied Ethics, which comprised seven public presentations, four at Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre, and one each in Penticton, Victoria, and kelowna. Sponsored by the Real Estate Foundation, coordinated by Judy Oberlander, Director of SFU's City Program, and designed by Dr. Mark Wexler, Faculty of Business Administration, SFU, the series explired ethical issues of interest to Realtors, developers, government officials, planners, and the public. Each presentation attempted a comprehensive examination of a particular question.
The inspiration for the series was Dermot Murphy, who retired as Secretary of the Real Estate Council of B.C. in 1995. "He set an exceptionally high standard of conduct during his many years in the profession, and we felt some form of recognition would be appropriate," says Pat Moore, Governor of the Real Estate Foundation.
The Governors as a group believe that the entire real estate industry--brokers, developers, Realtors, planners, and the public--needs direction as to how to work together to solve what are extremely difficult problems in land use policy, development, and regulation.
The growing complexity of ethical/moral issues in the real estate industry, as in all other professions, leads to numerous and sensitive quandaries, both within the profession itself and between the profession and the public. "Increasingly, members in all fields are being held accountable by a public that expects them to adhere to moral standards," says Mark Wexler. "It's no longer enough to be competent and knowledgeable. Professionals can't simply rely on their expertise and status as they could in the past, because people are far less willing to accept the authority of a group or individual. People believe they should have greater access to information. They ask more questions about whether or not professionals acted competently, or whether there was a conflict of interest. These questions are no longer posed in the abstract but in courts where the costs can be quite high."
In the case of the real estate industry, specifically, Wexler points out that clients, advocacy groups, and governments are becoming more and more interested in how the profession conducts itself and how it represents its clients. "We must remember," he says, "that the need for applied ethics increases when public trust decreases. All professionals must learn to answer questions in such a way as to regain the public's trust."
For Wexler, applied ethics is a way of helping practitioners develop their profession so that it can address ethical dilemmas. "Applied ethics is the effort to work through standards of morality," he says. "Among other things, a grasp of the concepts sets in motion an understanding of what ethical codes are and how they can be modified, and also provides a means of socializing new members to the profession so they can anticipate problems. Today, ethical quandaries abound. The challenge is to educate professionals and the public and to give both groups the tools to deal with delicate, troubling situations."
And what are some of those quandaries? Two brief examples should suffice to suggest the scope and complexity of land use issues that can raise perplexing ethical questions.
Professor Michael M'Gonigle, Eco-Research Chair of Environmental Law and Policy, University of Victoria, organizer and moderator of "Greater Victoria's Land Use Future: Victoria the Good?" addressed the ethical quandaries involved in zoning and public participation. In essence, the issue examined at the Victoria forum was the nature of public participation. "Re-zoning is a contentious issue and leads to all kinds of tensions," says M'Gonigle. "We asked whether there is a better process and how we should go about designing it. I was surprised to learn that anziety about public participation is widely felt, not only by developers, but by politicians, planners, and the public.
In the Victoria forum, the ethical question had to do with fairness. For example, how fair is the public process to developers who have to jump through numerous hoops to get re-zoning and pay high costs, yet may still face uncertainty even when they have met the requirements? "We looked at how to design a public process that would be inherently fair to developers but would also lead to sustainable community development," says M'Gonigle. "Unquestionably, many innovative decisions regarding development come from public pressure, for example changes in forestry practices and protection of farmlands. The difficulty is to encourage this kind of thinking without ending up with a process in which we stew in procedural juices."
M'Gonigle stresses that although developers have many concerns about the process, so, too, do social movement advocates and the public. "People who value quality of life want to engage in an efficient and effective public process. Just as developers sense they sometimes have no effect on the process, so, too, do social movement advocates," he says.
For Tim Pringle, Executive Director, Real Estate Foundation, one of the distinctive aspects of the Victoria presentation was that it reflected some public unease with professional expertise in relation to land use. "I got the sense that several audience members believed that developers and planners handle land use situations inappropriately," he says.
Ken Henderson, a presenter at the Victoria forum, Chair of the Real Estate Council of B.C., and President of Henderson Realty, sees the public participation process as uneven. "In my experience, the majority of people interested in the process don't show up. The 10 percent who are in favour of re-zoning don't attend, but the 10 percent who are opposed do. Special interest groups can delay or modify proposed development, but not in a necessarily beneficial way," he says.
"The public process needs to be improved. Local governments have to set reasonable time lines and stick to them," Henderson argues. "Developers are frustrated with time frames. Also, many jurisdictions are heaping costs on new development such as development cost charges and application fees. These can be quite high and the costs are passed on either to the seller of the land or the purchaser of the house."
In one of his lectures, "Techniques for Working Through Ethical Quandaries," Wexler stated that churches in certain jurisdictions face unique land use predicaments. "In that presentation, I pointed out that for numerous reasons, many churches are land rich and cash poor. Frequently, they are left with land their congregations would like to develop, often with the desire to fulfill some kind of social purpose such as social housing," he says.
In the generic case given by Wexler, the church partnered with a non-profit agency to form a society. The church was to provide a lengthy lease of its land in exchange for which the non-profit agency would build social housing. The church faced three problems. First, it had been listed as a heritage building. Second, re-zoning was required. Third, an issue arose over a tree on the site. A citizen secured names on a petition to save the tree, claiming historical importance as his authority. An expert deemed the tree unsafe and recommended replacement. Plans were made to replace the tree with a specimen tree in an appropriate location on the site. The city arborist disagreed with the expert, and the mayor supported the arborist--a complex situation by anyone's standards, resulting in substantial costs.
Wexler posed the following question: Should we develop land with a social good as our goal, when we have created a lock-step bureaucratic procedure that frequently increases costs and decreases the ability of organizations to act on their vision?
Wexler believes that everyone can learn from such a case study--Realtors, government officials, city planners, community groups, arborists, mayors, property owners, and so on. "At times people, no matter what their position on land use, defend their views by claiming authority by some means such as by-laws, regulations, membership in a profession or social group, or simply being a landowner," he says. "Yet, there is always the chance that in doing so they might mistake self-interest for the common good. All those engaged in the land use debate, for example, should question on what basis they claim authority and be responsible for what they do."
These efforts by Wexler and M'Gonigle are attempts to establish a common language, one that all stakeholders can use to share and to examine not only their views but also the arguments of others in a fair debate about land use.
However, there are numerous obstacles that make the task a challenging one. As one example, Wexler points to the diversity of the audience. "Applied ethics is a subject that is much broader than any one profession or group," he says. "People come at ethics from different positions. So if you speak in abstract terms about codes in general, for instance, everyone understands you. But if you move into specific codes, you lose part of the audience. Still, the effort was very worthwhile."
Foundation Governors agree. Though pleased with the overall result of the series, they recognize that far more work in this area is needed. "Ideally, we would like to see some guidelines, but the issues are varied and difficult. At least the Dermot Murphy Lecture Series on Applied Ethics has raised participants' awareness of the need for ethical behaviour and offered some concrete suggestions on how to attain it," concludes Govenor Pat Moore.