About

Company

Selva Partners is a land planning and real estate development resource for landowners, developers and investors who seek the best possible strategy and design for challenging lands.

Selva Partners works with individuals or entities who own or are thinking of purchasing challenging lands— the kind with high potential and high risk, built or unbuilt. We can also be your investment partner.

Our clients come to us with two key questions: “Is my project worth doing?” And, “How do I maximize the potential and balance risk?”

We arrive at the best answers and outcomes with colleagues who are ethical, collaborative and open-minded.

The Selva niche is defined by a challenging regulatory ecosystem—environmental regulations and building codes, activists, climate change, sea level rise, energy and water use.

If your lands are environmentally, socially or politically challenging, you need a special kind of expertise at your side to avoid having your project derailed.

Selva Partners knows how development can be compatible with ecosystems—natural and manmade, environmental, and financial—and profitable to investors and landowners.

About Gregory Vail

Greg Vail with North Sumatra governor and national ministry officials in Lake Toba, Indonesia

Greg Vail is a seasoned real estate development professional in land use planning, project management, and government and stakeholder liaison in the United States and internationally.

Greg has developed design and strategic planning skills, honed by a diverse educational background and years of professional practice, with an emphasis on sustainable development.

Greg has been Director of Planning and Design for a California-based real estate investment company with holdings throughout the United States. He assembled and led interdisciplinary design, engineering, economic, financial and political consulting teams for redevelopment of undervalued or underperforming inner city and coastal area projects. He measurably created actual and latent real estate value in excess of $30,000,000 in less than two years.

Greg recently played a leading project management role in the design and entitlement of a San Diego area coastal property including resolution of key biological resources and coastal development permitting issues. With WATG Architects and a multi-disciplinary team, he provided the vision and design direction for a 175-key boutique lodge and residential community on a property in the City of Huntington Beach.

In 2015, he completed master planning and entitlement for a 310-residence transit-oriented development near Los Angeles International Airport and the new NFL stadium currently under construction in the City of Inglewood.

Over many years, Greg has directed strategy, planning and design for California coastal zone projects where visitor accommodations, sea level rise, public access and environmental justice are key planning criteria. Project experience includes oversight of procurement of local and Coastal Commission entitlements for the Montage Resort and Spa/Treasure Island Park in Laguna Beach and Monarch Beach Resort (St. Regis) in Dana Point, California.

Greg has worked closely with an array of stakeholders including government regulators, elected and appointed officials at local, state and federal levels, and community activists. He has served as a planning commissioner and provided strategic advice to Shopoff Realty Investments’ public policy committee.

Greg’s planning work has been published Design for Human Ecosystems, by John T. Lyle and in Japan Landscape. He is an expert in urban design adjacent to sensitive habitat such as coastal wetlands and riparian areas.

He has lectured on land planning in Italy, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. At Stanford University, he studied arms control and international diplomacy, and Renaissance and modern European history at the University’s Florence campus.

Partners

Top Talent for Challenging Lands

For Selva Partners, all projects are different and distinctive. For each project, we assemble a customized, collaborative team with the most critical experience, finely-honed technical skills, and balance of creative and pragmatic minds.

Selva teams are built to:
 

• Strategize, plan, and guide the design
• Get plan approvals so the project can be developed
• Bring clarity and the best possible outcomes to the project even if you’ve previously been unable to meet your goals because of unfulfilled strategies, planning, or design
• Provide project management from early due diligence through final permitting
• Recognize opportunities posing as constraints, constraints posing as opportunities, and know the difference
• Communicate to stakeholders in a way that’s clear, respectful, and authentic
• Keep calm when the going gets hot
• Build trust with communities and regulatory agencies
• Align your financial targets with your integrity and ethics