| Jim Previti and future students at the groundbreaking for a new developer-built school in Fontana, Calif. |
Jim Previti, founder and chairman of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based Forecast Homes, sold the 30-year-old company to New Jersey-based Giant K. Hovnanian Enterprises in January. Previti is exiting the day-to-day home building business to focus on land development.
Looking back on one of his proudest achievements as a home builder, Previti points to California legislation that allows for more elementary schools to be built in new neighborhoods. After he worked with two gubernatorial administrations on the legislation, Proposition 1A passed in late 1999. Since then, Forecast has built elementary schools in Fontana and Corona, and a third near Sacramento is under way. Now others are getting into the act, and 12 new schools are moving forward with developer funds.
Previti says it takes at least 800 homes to make land and construction costs jibe, but the school is completed faster than otherwise would have been possible.
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