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Ep. 41: Innovation in Architectural Control: Insights from APR Founder
In this episode of the Alosant Innovator Series
We sit down with A’Lisa Ozment, Founder and CEO of Architectural Plan Review (APR). With over 25 years of experience, A’Lisa shares how her fascination with homebuilding led to entrepreneurship. She founded APR, a company that manages architectural control for master-planned residential communities.
A’Lisa highlights APR’s role as a liaison between developers and builders, ensuring the developer's vision is maintained throughout the building process. She underscores the importance of approaching architectural control as collaborative rather than punitive, to create beautiful and valuable communities for homeowners.
We dive into her passion for technology and innovation, including the development of APRTrac — an interactive dashboard that keeps developers and builders aligned while tracking crucial elements, such as homeowner modification requests. Looking ahead, APR continues to evolve, with APRTrac 3.0 promising enhanced builder reporting and interactive mapping features.
A’Lisa also offers advice from her career about embracing opportunities and the importance of jumping into new endeavors. Join us for an inspiring conversation about innovation, technology, and building communities with value.
About A’Lisa:
A'Lisa Ozment is the founder and CEO of Architectural Plan Review (APR), where her team ensures high-end, master-planned communities maintain their architectural and aesthetic vision throughout development. Partnering with top developers and builders across the US, the APR team provides all aspects of architectural control management including the creation of Design Guidelines, detailed plan reviews, and inspection of completed homes. APR is the leader in leveraging technology to streamline the architectural control processes and enhance transparency with their in-house platform, APRTrac.
Starting as a customer service admin for an Austin homebuilder and later serving on the architectural board for Steiner Ranch, A'Lisa gained invaluable experience that inspired her to launch APR in 2000. APR has since grown to 17 team members with clients in four states. APR's latest innovation, APRTrac 3.0, will provide an even cleaner dashboard experience along with enhanced features. Coming in 2025!
"I’m passionate about using architectural control to maintain the vision and value for residential communities while driving innovation and excellence in our field through the use of technology."
Connect with A’Lisa:
Episode Transcript:
April LaMon Hello and welcome to the Alosant Innovators series. I'm April LaMon, the CEO of Alosant. And today I'm just so delighted to welcome A'Lisa Ozment onto the podcast. She is the founder and CEO of Architectural Plan Review, more lovingly known as APR. A'Lisa, would you start by just introducing yourself, telling us a little bit about your background and how you found yourself where you are today?
A'Lisa Ozment First of all, thanks so much April for having me on your podcast. I'm very honored to be here. So I started APR 25 years ago. And you know, I was very young. I was a mom to two kids. And I was trying to decide what I could do that I was capable of doing as a stay at home mom. I had worked for developers and builders in the Austin area. I had also worked at Dell Computer as a sales admin.
So I'd done some different kind of work, but I was really intrigued with home building. I had spent a lot of time with the developers of Steiner Ranch out in Austin and had worked for a premier builder in Austin. So that was a big interest for me. And I was mulling this over trying to figure out what I was going to do and the phone rang. It was the folks at Newland and they were looking for somebody that could review plans and they didn't want it to be an in-house job. They wanted me to be a 1099.
So that's really how I got started. And that was a difficult transition for me. We can talk about that, but going out on your own and doing something as a consultant or a contract person, it's a shift from being a W-2. So there were some bumps along the way. I had to kind of shift my mindset, change a little paradigm shift, but it's worked out.
April LaMon And so that was really the shift to being an entrepreneur.
A'Lisa Ozment It really was and I have to say that, you know, we're celebrating our 25th year this year. We're gonna be pushing out a lot of pieces about that and blogging about that. But we've grown to 17 team members that include plan reviewers, inspectors, got a strong leadership team with a design guidelines director, an HOA services director. So we have grown and I had become an entrepreneur in the process. I guess I always was and didn't know it. But you know, when I started, there was no roadmap. I didn't have a background as a business owner. I just basically jumped in the unknown. And at that point, you're relying on determination. And well, I had a great group of leaders at Newland, Bill Meyer, Rainer Ficken, Vaike O'Grady. I couldn't have been in better company. So I listened and I learned everything about development and about architectural control and that helped fill in the gaps to bring me to where I am today.
April LaMon That's exciting. And it is a shift and you've made it beautifully, I must say. I'm always struck by this big industry called home building, community development, by really how many people touch this process that ultimately culminates with a new homeowner just over the moon about their new home. I mean, there are so many facets to what it takes to ultimately deliver that to the buyer, to the consumer. I'd like to touch a little bit more into the part of the process that you touch today and your value proposition. So tell us a bit more about APR and what you do.
A'Lisa Ozment APR is positioned as the liaison between the developer and the builder. So we manage architectural control for master plan residential communities. And those can be small communities. Our largest one right now is 14,000 lots. I believe our smallest one is a thousand lots, but we're there for the life of the project. So what we do is we meet with the developer to understand their vision and come alongside them and partner with them to make sure that vision is maintained throughout the development process. And then we work with the builders to ensure that their plans are aligned with the vision through the design guidelines and we follow with them through that construction process.
The end goal really is to make sure besides the vision being maintained, that the value of the community is maintained. You want to make sure that your streetscapes are representative of what your vision was laid out to be because buyers actually want to know what your story is and what your vision is and then they expect to see that as they live in the community. So that helps maintain the value of the homes for future sales.
And also interest from premier builders. If you're building a beautiful community, the streetscapes are wonderful and you put in the right amenities, then those premier builders are going to want to buy your lots and build in your communities. So it's a win-win for everybody. Architectural control shouldn't be an afterthought and it really shouldn't be looked at as punitive. It's about all of us working together to make the most beautiful product for our buyers.
So that's really our goal, is the long-term value of the community.
April LaMon So it sounds like you're really plugging into a multi-disciplined team between that developer, the planners, the builders. I mean, it sounds like you're part of this sticky glue that kind of holds the whole things together. So it adds up to something bigger than the sum of its parts.
A'Lisa Ozment Absolutely. I mean we feel like we're part of that team We've had clients where developer clients where we come in early on the process one of those that I think back on was Rancho Sienna and the goal for Rancho Sienna was to have distinct architectural styles so we were brought in early in the process we set at the table with the builder and an outside architect that they brought in and the development team and we poured over preliminary plans for each builder individually to determine do their plans fit in with these architectural styles that we were looking for and help them define those. We also work with developers to come up with comprehensive design guidelines. So that's very early in the process. You you shouldn't wait until your builders are buying lots to have your design guidelines.
So we like to start very early and take the vision of the community and develop very comprehensive and clear guidelines because that speaks to everything that comes afterwards. To be clear is to be kind, we always say. It's not about putting down a bunch of rules. It's about getting the excitement built among the builders to capture your vision.
April LaMon That's a great point. And it sounds like you've taken a process that probably was pretty manual and really created a scalable way to manage this over not just multiple builders, but over the course of time. Is that the right way to think about it?
A'Lisa Ozment Yes, it is the right way to think about it. I look back when I started this work and we were, you know, I was a one woman shop. So I was reviewing the plans and then I would go out and inspect the final product for the builders. And I would keep all this information, you know, in an access database and I would mark up plats in the office to keep track of everybody's plans and colors. We are miles beyond that now. I think our industry has been slow to embrace technology because that topic is coming up a lot now at the conferences that I go to. In ULI and FuturePlaces there's a lot of talk about integrating technology with the development and home building process. So that's what we've done and technology is something that I'm very nerdy about.
And I'm always looking for better ways to do it and save time for everybody and be more transparent. So our value proposition around technology is APR track, which is what we created for all of our stakeholders to have a dashboard. So our builders, our developer, even the property manager can have access to a dashboard where they can follow the architectural control process all the way through the initial plan submittal through the inspection at the end. So we get the master plans that come in through our dashboard. We review them. We communicate all of that back to the builder in the dashboard. So everybody can see 24/7 real-time approval information.
And the fun part about APR Track is our interactive maps. So we take a map of the community and we break it up into the neighborhoods and then each lot is interactive. So anytime a sales agent is sitting at the table with a potential buyer, they can start looking at materials for that lot that won't conflict with anything that's around that lot.
There's a lot of communities that have two or three builders in a pod of lots and then something's been approved but there's no sticks on the ground yet. So you don't know what your partner builder next door has had approved. You can go to the interactive lot and see exactly what was approved. So that just avoids a lot of frustration for the buyer. So that's one way that even we touch the buyer.
April LaMon That's a good point. I say this from our vantage point, down the road with the community branded apps, but it is a team sport. so creating those moments of transparency for all of those stakeholders or team members is so important to make sure that there is that continuity into the future. So it sounds like a really great solution that helps everyone.
A'Lisa Ozment We just found there were too many, exactly like you said, there were too many problems created because you have so many people involved in the process. So if you're not communicating at all levels, things fall through the cracks, things get miscommunicated. This gives you one version of the truth, right? We talk about that a lot. We need one version of the truth that everyone can access. So that's what we provide.
April LaMon And then you mentioned something I want to dig a little bit into. You mentioned the inspection process. Can you talk about that as well?
A'Lisa Ozment Sure, builders get approval on their plans and then they're free to go out and build a home. Between our approval and the completion of that home, so many things can happen in that process. For example, maybe the brick color that they had approved wasn't available or maybe they, and this happens a lot, they have new personnel on site that don't really know the rules. It hasn't trickled down to them or the guidelines. So things happen in the field that aren't always expected. And when I talk to developers who say, you know, we just, we, we sell to great builders and we don't even have oversight in the field because they're just going to do the right thing. Sure. They're going to do the right thing, but issues come up and communication is dropped and if you don't have eyes on what's going on, it can quickly get out of hand. So what our inspectors do is they are in the field weekly. They're driving the community. They will notice if something starts that doesn't have approval, if they see forms set. know, builders are ready to go. It's busy. We got to get the houses on the ground. We completely understand that. Sometimes something doesn't get submitted and it gets started in the field.
So we can make a phone call and say, you know, we haven't seen these plans yet. Would you mind sending those over before you build this house? And so our inspectors catch that. And then if when the house is completed, they're looking at things such as the landscape, is it the right size, quantity, species, is the house set back the proper amount, just everything exterior to the home they're checking in the field.
And part of that is them having a relationship with those builders in the field too. So once again, it's not about being punitive. It's about working together to get the best product on the street.
April LaMon That makes a lot of sense. then having, like you said, that one single source of truth, you know that what's been approved is what's been built. And I think you mentioned that you capture photographs even so that you have a visual library of the community.
A'Lisa Ozment So when the inspector inspects, they're doing at least four photos of the home, the front, the corners, and the rear. So when that community is finished, we'll have a full database of all of the approvals, photos of all of the homes, and then typically what we do is package that up and pass it off to the HOA that's gonna take over after the debt current lease. So they'll have a very comprehensive view of all of the development in that community.
April LaMon Which is really powerful, because at some point, those architectural review requests are going to come in when I want to paint my house, I want to change something maybe about the facade or add something onto the property. Do you get involved in that as well?
A'Lisa Ozment Yes, we do as a value add to those clients who are engaged us for builder side reviews. We also offer homeowner modification request reviews. So we have an H.O.A. services director Tabitha and she has a team and they have really refined that process. So homeowners submit through our platform and it comes in through the same platform that the builders use different track, but same platform. And those are reviewed and all of the communication is done with the homeowner. And then we keep all of that information as well in APR Track. We are in the process right now, it's so exciting, of building APR Track 3.0. So this one will have even more specialized reporting for the builder side and for the homeowner side, it will also be integrated with those interactive maps. Right now, the homeowner information is not on the maps, but that's going to happen in the future. So it'll be even a more comprehensive look at what's happening in the community and just right at your fingertips.
April LaMon That's terrific. And I imagine it's just more assurance to when the declarant or the developer passes over control to the community board or to the management company exactly what was transitioned.
A'Lisa Ozment Yes, and I think that's the biggest loss is, you know, when we work with communities that have done this internally, or maybe they've hired a third party to do this. We're working with one right now and a lot of information just was never captured. It's not there. So when we asked for that legacy information to fill in our maps, it's just not there. They didn't capture it.
This is really a comprehensive and complete picture. And when somebody asked, can I build a shed in my backyard, everybody's not scrambling saying, what have we approved in the past? Did we do that? What about that one over on Main Street? Did we approve that one? Everybody can see everything and all the history is there. And it just saves a lot of time and frustration.
April LaMon That makes sense. So you mentioned at the beginning 25 years, that's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations. How are you going to celebrate?
A'Lisa Ozment Cheers! Thank you. Well, we have some blog post planned and we're going to do a retrospective, look back over those 25 years. We're having a big team meeting in February in Austin, a big dinner. So we're excited about that. And we have a whole line of new communities coming in 2025. So we're gearing up for that. You know, we may talk to a client a year and a half before builders start putting houses on the ground.
So we have been waiting for, these are like our babies. We're just waiting for them to start and 2025 is going to be a banner year for APR. Also, we just started in North Carolina. We've got project in Arizona and in Florida. So we had some interest from Illinois last week. So expansion plans are there and we're excited for the growth.
April LaMon That's terrific, congratulations. And it sounds like a new version of the product as well with 3.0. You're gonna be busy, for sure.
A'Lisa Ozment Yes, it's going to be a busy year.
April LaMon Well, you know, I'm very curious to learn more about you, A’Lisa. We ask a couple of questions to all the people that are on the podcast and I'm always excited to hear their answers. It's just everybody sees the world so differently. the first question really is around your sources of inspiration. mean, we work in a very demanding field in a demanding pace and
We need to keep our battery fully charged. How do you keep yourself inspired? 25 years now and counting.
A'Lisa Ozment Well, personally, I have a great group of friends and a wonderful family and we're very active. My husband and I travel. My son got a jazz degree from the University of Texas and plays in a band in Austin. So we go watch him play. My daughter is here in town. I spend a lot of time with her. We have a very full life outside of APR and that kind of keeps my battery charged. So I'm excited every day what's happening next. And you know, I thought that the empty nest syndrome would hit, but I'm busier now than I've ever been. So also as far as work's concerned and what we're doing at APR, I love to go to conferences. I'm planning to go to ULI conference in Florida next month. I've got the CBAS conference in Houston coming up as well will be a sponsor for that and that's Wonderfully attended. That's a great place to hear about You know what's going on in the home sales market in the Houston area? So going to regional Houston off at Austin Dallas conferences, Florida, Arizona.
Those are all very important things to stay kind of on the cutting edge and and hear about what's coming next and what we can look forward to in the future. And that really informs when I'm sitting down with a client and looking at design guidelines and we start talking about place making, this helps me build a relationship with our clients so they know that I'm hearing information that they're hearing. So that helps build that relationship and credibility for APR.
Something else I like to do is listen to podcasts. I don't have a list specifically of what I listen to, but anything about leadership or communication, those are the things that are interesting to me right now. And I also try to get our team to listen to podcasts. If I find something interesting, I pass it along to our team. So those are kind of the ways that I stay inspired personally and as far as architectural control is concerned.
April LaMon The second question I'm really excited to hear your answer to is what advice you would give to the 25 year old version of yourself. And I know that can only be 25 years ago because you've been in business 20. No, I know. But you've had such a rich background. You've been very courageous and kind of stepping into unknown. What advice now looking back would you give to yourself back then?
A'Lisa Ozment April, I have to start that with telling you something unique about myself. It's kind of my claim to fame. And I don't know that we've talked about this before, but when I was at school in San Marcos at Southwest Texas University, I was fortunate enough to be hired as a mermaid at Ocarina Springs. So I actually, we had little pigs that we taught to swim because they were part of the show and I would put on my mermaid suit and I would swim this whole mermaid show. It's no longer there, but if you look at the documentary for Ocarina Springs, I'm actually in that documentary. In my young years, it was all about fun and I still enjoy having fun and I love to swim.
I think I would tell my 25 year old self to get ready, because other things can be fun too. Working can be a lot of fun. And the big advice that I would give is to walk through doors. When opportunities come, don't let fear hold you back. Just do your due diligence, be very discerning, and then go. Just go.
Anything you don't try, you may regret. So just keep going. My husband says, and our friends say as well, that he's the brakes and I'm the gas. So we balance each other perfectly. He's more cautious and it takes him a long time to make a decision. But sometimes by waiting, he misses the opportunity. I try to be very thoughtful and think about what I'm doing and then move and go because life moves fast and this business moves fast and to stay on top as an entrepreneur, you need to be bringing the latest things to your clients. So let's go.
April LaMon Let's go. Here's to 2025. Let go. I'm feeling it myself. Cheers. Awesome. Well, thank you for taking this time to share more about yourself and APR with us just to broaden all of our awareness of yet another important, important component of this process of delivering beautiful homes and spectacular communities and places people live.
A'Lisa Ozment Thank you so much, April. I'm really honored to be here and thank you for giving me the opportunity to come on and talk about what I love, which is APR and beautiful development.
April LaMon My pleasure.
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