Leadership

Mr. Joseph Ravenna IV brings experience in corporate law, government, and market design to AREA. He has been awarded two fellowships for his research on air right liquidity and transferability.

Mr. Ravenna's legal background includes corporate transactions at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and prior development permitting practice. He also served at the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, where his focus was market design. He chaired the real estate committee on the board of the Harvard-MIT Cooperative Society and served as president of the Harvard JD-MBA Association as well as the Harvard Business Law Review.

Mr. Ravenna is an attorney and a real estate broker licensed in New York. He is a student at Harvard Business School and a graduate of Harvard Law School, the Wharton School, and the College at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Honorable Lawrence S. DiCara brings 40 years of experience in air rights transactions and land use to AREA. Most notably, he structured the air rights transfer that enabled the Copley Place development between 1980–84.

Mr. DiCara served as the president of the Boston City Council and served on the Council for 10 years. In the decades since, he has practiced real estate development and administrative law, both at Nixon Peabody LLP and in independent practice. He also serves on the board of the Harvard-MIT Cooperative Society, consults, and is a prolific author on urban planning.

Mr. DiCara is an attorney admitted to the Massachusetts bar. He is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, Suffolk Law School, and Harvard College.

The Honorable Steve Dicterow brings 20 years of public development permitting experience to AREA. Most notably, he guided the Montage Resort Laguna Beach development, completed in 2003.

Mr. Dicterow served as the mayor of Laguna Beach for four terms and served on the Laguna Beach City Council for 20 years. He resolved the $19 million Diamond-Crestview land-use lawsuit and streamlined the City’s design review process. Mr. Dicterow practiced intellectual property law at One LLP and remains active in his independent legal practice.

Mr. Dicterow is an attorney admitted to the California bar. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and the University at Albany.

Mrs. Dorette Coetsee brings 30 years of experience counseling American small businesses to AREA, which informs AREA’s outreach to owners and midsize developers. In 2025, she led the counseling of 388 small businesses, 101 of which she counseled directly.

Mrs. Coetsee served as acting regional director for the U.S. Commercial Service within the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she currently acts as state director. She has represented the agency to the vice president of the United States and been awarded the special act award. In prior work, she has secured over $700,000 in federal grants for private businesses.

Mrs. Coetsee is a graduate of the University of South Carolina Moore School of Business and the University of Pretoria.