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 Posté le: Ven Aoû 30, 2013 2:25 am Sujet du message: ‘I have a feeling for a good deal and a bad deal |
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{‘I have a feeling for a good deal and a bad deal’}
Photos View gallery zoom “I might be a business genius but there’s more emphasis on luck than knowledge.”Joseph LebovicJoseph Lebovic doesn’t want to talk about himself. Self-promotion, he says, does not become him.After 60 years of building communities across the GTA, Lebovic prefers to let his reputation do the talking.But the man behind the bricks couldn’t duck the spotlight earlier this year when the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his work as a builder, community leader and philanthropist.“Mr. Lebovic has built quality homes and complete communities across the Greater Toronto Area, and given back tremendous personal time and resources through charity work to support those communities,” BILD president and CEO Bryan Tuckey said in an interview.Those “resources” he referred to are no small potatoes. The Joseph Lebovic Charitable Foundation has given away “many millions” to health and education causes,Michael Kors Outlet, according to the silver-haired benefactor.Of all the plaques, awards and certificates of appreciation that fill the reception area of his company’s head office — an old-style homestead surrounded by farmers’ fields in Stouffville — he calls the BILD trophy especially meaningful because it was bestowed by his peers.The award celebrates a career that began in 1953 when Lebovic, his father Harry and brother Wolf founded development company Lebovic Enterprises — a natural evolution, he says, from the sawmill the family started after emigrating from Czechoslovakia four years earlier.Fashionably understated in jeans, short-sleeved shirt and blue slip-ons, Lebovic settles into his well-worn wingback chair to offer an insider’s insight into the state of the housing industry then and now. But before hammering away on government bureaucracy and overregulation, the reputed “hard-nosed businessman” opens the door a crack on his softer side: He’s “still a bachelor.”His age now is “immaterial” but he hopes to live to 100.He plays singles tennis and works with a personal trainer.His gambling limit at the casino is $200 “because the odds are against you.”“Way more” of his money goes to charity than into his own pockets.Getting back to business, Lebovic recalls the early days when the company set its standards of “uncompromising workmanship and outstanding value.”Back then, you could buy a Lebovic semi-detached home on an unpaved road in Scarborough for $10,500, with $500 down. If you didn’t have enough money for the down payment, the sales agent would lend you some, he says.Lebovic Enterprises went on to build neighbourhoods for thousands of families in Whitby, Ajax, Pickering, Stouffville, Aurora and Nobleton. Over the decades, many families have made three and even four Lebovic purchases, the developer notes proudly. Along with single-family homes, condos and million-dollar mansions, he’s put up commercial, industrial and institutional buildings in keeping with the concept of complete communities that provide places to play and work, as well as live.Reflecting on his success, Lebovic says: “You have to be lucky. I might be a business genius but there’s more emphasis on luck than knowledge. I have a feeling for what is a good deal and a bad deal.”He thinks developers these days are getting a bad deal, thanks to the bureaucracy and administrative channels that must be navigated at three levels of government. And home buyers are paying the price.“Bureaucracy is costing people billions of dollars by slowing things down,” says Lebovic, complaining that it takes 10 years to get the more than 160 approvals required for a new sub-division. Just a three-year delay in construction can add $50,000 to the price of a house, he says.The way to get houses on the market “faster and cheaper” is to put approvals in the hands of certified and insured engineers, planners and architects who would be accountable to the public, he says.“We don’t need all these regulations and approvals by governments who are not liable if something goes wrong,” he argues.As for the “tens of thousands of civil servants” who check building plans, “we’ll still pay them but let them play golf and we’ll save years and years of time,” says Lebovic, who has other bones to pick over the high cost of land and the system of property tax assessment.A champion of the industry, he has been a long-time member of BILD and held top positions at the Urban Development Institute. He also serves on numerous boards and is involved with multiple charitable organizations.These days, he spends more time on charity work than the business, although he says he still makes all the decisions on houses and development while his brother Wolf handles sales and planning. The community-minded Lebovic gives back with gusto. Among his foundation’s biggest gifts were $50 million to Mount Sinai Hospital in 2006 — called the largest hospital donation in Canadian history — and $22.5 million to the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus in Vaughan. Somewhat smaller, one presumes, was the fee the brothers paid to “adopt” a zebra at the Toronto Zoo in 1998. Giving is its own reward, says the do-gooder, hoping his example will inspire others.“There’s no question when I see my name on a building it makes me feel good.”Even better is meeting a beneficiary face to face.“A guy came up to me yesterday and said Mount Sinai saved his life. He saw my picture there and said, ‘Thank you very much.’ ”Generosity, it seems,Michael Kors Purses, becomes him. “I can’t take it with me,” the philanthropist points out. And he has no children to inherit his wealth, he adds with a smile.“I was never so big that I have to reproduce myself.” |
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