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By James Rojas, February 12, 2021. A workshop on public spaces in the Diridon Station Area of San Jose was a perfect opportunity to experiment with innovative, creative, and virtual engagement tools to connect people to the planning process and influence the outcomes.

By Geoff Ball and Debbie Mytels, February 15, 2021. Cities are the one community-based institution holding responsibility for tending to everyone’s needs, and cities are uniquely positioned to take on the challenge of creating carbon reduction policies that account for the needs of varied stakeholders.

By John Rau, Feb 11, 2021. An economic analysis of the Napa/Sonoma wine country trade area for the second and third quarters of 2020 showed that taxable retail sales and revenues in the area declined dramatically in several categories as a result of stay-at-home orders and resulting business closures.

Now 89, Scott Brown is an icon of modern architecture and urban planning.

By Florentina Craciun, February 18, 2021. Can the work of urban planning sustain a work-from-home culture?

The deadline to apply for Northern Section Awards is approaching. To submit your award-worthy project by 5:00 pm on Friday, March 12, visit norcalapa.org/awards.

By Bianca Bruno, Courthouse News Service, Feb. 18, 2021. State Senator Scott Wiener announced two new bills to boost multifamily housing.

“In Brave New Home, Diana Lind shows why a country full of single-family houses is bad for us and for the planet.” To be our reviewer, click “Read more.”

By Jared Brey, February 12, 2021. Bills in the California and Hawaii legislatures offer innovative solutions affordable to people at a wide range of incomes. Santa Clara County is highlighted.

By Ludo Campbell-Reid, Feb. 11, 2021. Transforming or adapting cities is as much about behavioral change as physical change. We should be psychologists before we are planners, architects, engineers, or economists.

News about Elizabeth Burks, Lakshmi Rajagopalan, Stephanie Steinbrecher, and Mark Wardlaw, assembled by Haeseo (Hazel) Choi.

We publish 10 times each year as a forum for the exchange of planning information and ideas. Entirely the effort of volunteers, Northern News is written and produced by and for urban planners in northern California.

By Krystle Heaney, AICP, January 18, 2021. California’s North Coast cities and towns are small and spread-out, agriculture and tourism provide the economic base, and local planners need and develop many different planning skills.

Interviewed by Catarina Kidd, AICP. “My undergraduate major at Penn was sociology. I was interested in how housing can help or hinder different socioeconomic outcomes.” All interviews are edited.

By Reanna Tong, AICP, January 17, 2021. Two free workshops on February 13 will focus on anti-displacement campaigns to teach storytelling to planners.

By Naphtali H. Knox, FAICP. What can we learn from a 1974 project that keeps streets quiet and safe in an 1890s neighborhood?

This virtual event will help you test your planning knowledge using actual questions from past AICP exams, and responses are timed.

By Florentina Craciun, January 19, 2021. Let’s bring our authentic selves to our profession. Let’s help pave the path towards a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive planning profession and world.

Don’t wait. The deadline for nominations is Friday, March 12. To serve as a juror, submit your résumé by Feb. 26.

If you recently passed the AICP exam and your name is not on this list but should be, please write us at news@norcalapa.org

By Jared Brey, Next City, January 22, 2021. The proposal does not increase existing height restrictions in single-family neighborhoods, and would not affect historic protections for existing houses.

By Sandra Hamlat, January 25, 2021. The City of San Francisco’s Climate Resilience Team recently prepared a white paper on a Climate-Resilient Economic Recovery.

By Hazel Choi, associate editor. News about Carolyn Fahey, AICP; Arielle Fleisher, Brendan Hurley, Darcy Kremin, AICP; Edgar Maravilla, Brynn McKiernan, AICP; Carolyn Neer, Leslie Trejo, and Ellen Yau.

By Timothy Rood, AICP, and José Ruano, December 2, 2020. To reach populations typically underrepresented in planning, the City offered meetings and materials in Spanish and Vietnamese and partnered with community-based organizations for outreach and engagement.

By Catarina Kidd, AICP. Libby Tyler worked in both the public and private sectors and in planning education. Her longest tenure — 17 years — was as Community Development Director for the City of Urbana, Illinois.

Justin Flynn et al, December 2, 2020. Despite the pandemic, a class of 14 urban planning graduate students at San José State University spent the fall 2020 semester helping to survey, revitalize, and activate the city’s downtown linear park, a critical civic asset.

November 17, 2020. A collection of 1,750 scanned historical reports and archived publications — going back to 1910 — is now available to the public. The documents offer insight into how housing conditions and policies have changed over time and inform policies today. 

Share on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram what made this year special and positive for YOU, your teams, your families, your communities. Tag your story with #PlanningPositivity.

By James Rojas, November 14, 2020. Planners, we need to bridge the gap between our formal, infrequent engagement and the ongoing community organizing, and share problem solving with community members.

By Jonathan Schuppert, AICP. What a year! I’ve been “a little terrified every day.” I became — unexpectedly — Section Director in February. Now I’m handing the reins to Florentina Craciun, AICP.

Do you want to be more involved with APA? Do you want to serve your fellow Northern Section members? Consider joining your Northern Section Board as Treasurer.

Registration is open until Dec. 27 for the 2021 Leadership Academy hosted by the California Planning Roundtable.

By Jared Brey, November 20, 2020. The state is failing to build enough affordable homes for lower-income residents in part because it lacks an effective approach to planning and financing the development of affordable housing.

News about Haeseo (Hazel) Choi, Christopher Dacumos, Shannon Fiala, Sanhita Ghosal, AICP, Leila Hakimizadeh, AICP, Julia Hoffman, Sailesh Mehra, Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, Darcy Smith, AICP, and Rachael A. Tanner.

Northern Section’s new Director-Elect is Michael Cass, and Veronica Flores continues as Administrative Director.

Catarina Kidd, AICP, interviews Duncan Watry, AICP, about his role (since January 2020) as planning manager for the New Transbay Rail Crossing, a project of BART and the Capital Corridor Joint Powers Authority.

From CED Berkeley News. From the early 1980s, Professor Innes was an authority on collaborative approaches to urban planning and decision-making, and was twice director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at UC Berkeley.

Beginning Nov. 2nd, you will be electing a new Director-Elect and Administrative Director. But first, we need nominations (due by October 16).

By Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, September 17, 2020. We continually adapt to environmental, societal, economic, and other changes. But adaptation doesn’t come easily and it doesn’t happen by promoting the status quo.

Celebrate the best of 2020 with a single hashtag. Submit 2020’s positive, wholesome, amazing, or good planning-related events, experiences, projects, or ideas.

News about Andy Ross.

By Brendan Hurley. The Bay Bridge seen from the Embarcadero on April 14 and September 9, 2020.

SJSU’s 90-minute webinar is on October 2 at 11:30. AICP | CM 1.5 credits pending.

Readers from around the state share kudos for Northern News. 

By Alex Hinds, September 11, 2020. Small town post offices dot our Northern Section. They’re critical, and loved.

By Carly Graf, SF Examiner. A study recommendation is to be presented to the SFCTA board by next year. Implementation would take two years.

By Jared Brey, September 11, 2020. A group has agreed to buy the site and donate the land to the city for affordable housing to fulfill the affordability requirements of a separate project of nearly 1,000 units.

Thanks to the 21 people who provided photos for this publication last year. Andrea Mardesich scoured past issues to prepare this list.

By Andrea Ouse, AICP, August 17, 2020. Planners are often the agents driving the changes voiced by our communities. We have a moral and ethical imperative to acknowledge and address systemic racism in the communities we serve. 

By Noah Friedman, August 18, 2020. Vibrancy is a reasonable proxy for a city’s general health and well-being. Essential to our cities’ future is an understanding of what makes the places where we come together vibrant.

By Mark Rhoades, AICP, August 19, 2020. Broad changes and trends are currently underway, especially with respect to Covid-19 and housing implementation. 

By Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, August 19, 2020. This has been a year for re-evaluating priorities, values, and future directions. We’re at a point where we can’t ignore our society’s injustices and our collective role in them.

We need 65 planning students and Young Planners to volunteer to work the virtual conference. Click below for information and to register (no cost to volunteers). 

Circumstances created by the Covid-19 pandemic led national APA to extend the May 2020 examination through July.

The deceased in 1999. Bay Area planners may remember him as the planning director in Novato and the community development director in Vallejo.

By Jared Brey, Next City, August 7, 2020. Property owners filed suit “to protect their rights” against a permanent ban on evicting tenants for rent payments they miss because of the pandemic.

Thanks to the 27 planners who wrote for this publication last year, and to Andrea Mardesich, a former associate editor, who scoured past issues to prepare this list.

From HUD User, PD&R Edge, August 3, 2020. Edwina Benner Plaza, Sunnyvale, provides 66 units of affordable housing, generates half of the project’s electricity needs, and makes up the remaining 50 percent from renewable sources.

By the Alameda County Office of Sustainability, August 19, 2020. This interactive map illustrates social and environmental factors that contribute to community heat vulnerability in Alameda County.

News about Mayank Patel and Sarah Yuwiler.

By Leila Hakimizadeh, AICP, and John David Beutler, AICP, June 3, 2020. Desperately-needed new housing can be added if we upgrade zoning and design standards and adopt policies that promote smart density, protect existing residents, and preserve affordable homes.

(Photo: Tom Rumble, https://bit.ly/3esvlpo) By David Woltering, AICP, June 24, 2020. Despite its challenges, our profession is a noble one. This business of creating and maintaining safe, healthy, and livable communities for all can be immensely satisfying and extremely interesting.

(Dolores Park photo by Christopher Michel https://bit.ly/3j1OlhJ) After nearly 200 interviews with local governments, planners, and communities, Diana Benitez and Jessica Medina report on actions being taken to protect community health, and implications for implementing SB1000, the Planning for Healthy Communities Act.

(Photo: William Cooley) By Sajuti Rahman Haque, June 29, 2020. Community meeting and engagement tactics are evolving to accommodate Covid-19 distancing orders, but key characteristics of in-person, physically present meetings remain invaluable.

(BLM Plaza, Washington, DC. Photo: Victoria Pickering, https://bit.ly/3eZwi9A) By Georgia Sarkin, AICP, July 6, 2020. How can cities evolve for the better after Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter? Five factors affecting public space are crucial to consider — infrastructure, evolution, density, mobility, and equity.

(Zoning, San Luis Ranch Specific Plan, San Luis Obispo) By Henry Pontarelli, July 8, 2020. Don’t expect to see cities transformed before your eyes during your planning career. Consensus is hard fought and hard earned, funding is scarce, conviction comes in cycles; but incremental change will build to meet collective goals.

Lina Velasco, AICP, Community Development Director for the City of Richmond, holds a master of community and regional planning from Cornell University. She discusses her work, professional views, and issues in her city. Interview by Catarina Kidd, AICP, July 2020.

By Alyssa Chung, Meredith Rupp, and Carla Violet, July 23, 2020. What can we learn from planners who have adjusted their outreach to conform to social distancing protocols? Photo: Screenshot of an online presentation of a site plan to a virtual audience.

“Planning for equity and inclusion,” by Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, July 22, 2020. Take the time to understand our biases. Encourage our employers to offer bias training. There’s no action too small to start on this journey.

(Photo: Brooke Cagle, cropped) In a four-minute video, Atisha Varshney, AICP, offers five tips for new graduates navigating the Covid-19 job market, and issues an invitation to join virtual roundtable discussions.

By Libby Tyler, FAICP, July 20, 2020. We’ve made it easy for you. View the webinar video and log your mandatory 1.5 AICP Certification Maintenance Law credits.

Access to these lectures, sponsored by the City and Regional Planning Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, has been provided to you by Professor Vicente del Rio, PhD.

By Alex Hinds and Hing Wong, AICP, July 24, 2020. The first webinar was recorded and posted. You can register for webinar Session 2 on July 30.

From OPR, June 24, 2020. This resource expands on the preliminary guidance provided in the 2017 General Plan Guidelines regarding environmental justice (EJ).

By Marisa Schulz, Next City, July 17, 2020. Listen to women; they are experts on the relationship between everyday life and the city. Unfortunately, women’s needs and viewpoints are underrepresented in cities.

News about Deland Chan, AICP; Afshan Hamid, AICP; Beth Altshuler Munoz; William (Billy) Riggs, PhD, AICP; Kyle Rose; Matthew Taecker, AICP; and Libby Tyler, PhD, FAICP.

By Alicia Murillo, July 13, 2020. Approximately $279 million was awarded from the Infill Infrastructure Grant Program of 2019-2020, of which Northern Section cities received 44 percent.

By Leila Hakimizadeh, AICP, and John David Beutler, AICP, June 3, 2020. Desperately-needed new housing can be added if we upgrade zoning and design standards and adopt policies that promote smart density, protect existing residents, and preserve affordable homes.

By Dan Marks, AICP, May 12, 2020. Let’s build on the responses we’re making during this pandemic to improve the practice of local government planning and our professional well-being.

By Audrey Shiramizu, April 17, 2020. Working and commuting has changed significantly since shelter-in-place became the norm. How and where we work could — and should — look a lot different in the months to come.

By Hanson Hom, AICP, June 7, 2020. This is the third in a series of articles from our past Section Directors. We asked several to write about the differences between planning today and when they were section directors — or to write on any planning subject they wish.

William Lieberman, AICP, Principal Planner at CHS Consulting Group in San Francisco, discusses his 50-year career as a transit planner for public agencies and as a private sector consultant. Interview by Catarina Kidd, AICP, May 11, 2020.

By Samie Malakiman, Gwen Buckley, Larissa Sanderfer, Nhan Le, Manee Jacobo, May 11, 2020. SJSU graduate students report on their engagement work with the Alum Rock Community in San Jose during the time of COVID-19.

Julia Lave Johnston, President of APA California, announced that the Chapter’s 2020 conference this Fall will be held online. The conference will nevertheless remain an “opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to our organizational values.”

By Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, May 13, 2020. Is everything upside down, or is it suddenly right side up?

By Naphtali H. Knox, FAICP, editor, May 9, 2020. Post COVID-19, SF could see a huge spike in vehicular congestion “unless transit systems can resume safe, high throughput operations quickly.” Plus 12 photos of the near total absence of vehicles on Bay Area bridges and SF streets during the Friday afternoon getaway March 27.

News about Alesia Hsiao, AICP; Amy Lyle; and Patrick Streeter, AICP

By Avery Livengood, AICP, March 28, 2020. An article in last month’s ‘Planning news roundup’ implied that cities’ investments in green infrastructure cause gentrification and displacement, but there are differences between city funded and privately funded investments.

By Marlene Stevenson, March 24, 2020, edited by Sajuti Rahman, associate editor. This is the first in a series of articles from our past Section Directors. From a list of 23 past directors going back to 1974, we found contact information for 16, and asked several of them to write about the differences between planning today and when they were section directors — or to write on any planning subject they wish. We have also published an article from former Section Director Darcy Kremin, AICP.

By Audrey Shiramizu, April 17, 2020. Working and commuting has changed significantly since shelter-in-place became the norm. How and where we work could — and should — look a lot different in the months to come.

By Darcy Kremin, AICP, April 14, 2020, edited by Sajuti Rahman, associate editor. This is the second in a series of articles from past Section Directors. Also see the article from former Section Director Marlene Stevenson.

Interviewed by Catarina Kidd, AICP, April 15, 2020. This month’s guest — an urban planner and assistant professor in environmental studies and sciences at Santa Clara University — discusses his job and offers his professional views.

By Michal Naka, Next City, April 6, 2020. Micromobility can help cities build resilience in times of crisis, whether we face a pandemic, an earthquake, flooding, or severe weather brought on by climate change.

By Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, April 15, 2020. When and as restrictions on travel and assembly are gradually lifted under State guidance, implementation will largely be local. Planners should continue to lead by example, learn from others, and adapt as needed.

From APA, March 25, 2020. One member from APA Northern Section was inducted with this year’s class of 53.

By Richard L. Davis, associate editor, April 14, 2020. Our editors saw many articles about COVID-19’s effects on urban planning. These 10 summaries are relevant, informative, yet much shorter than those in ‘Planning news roundup.’

Job change write-ups for Shannon Hake, AICP; Michael Hart; Greg Holisko, AICP; Andrea Mardesich; Lisa Porras, AICP; Ralph B. McLaughlin; Destiny Preston; Kevin Riley, and Matt VanHua, AICP, were curated by associate editor Richard L. Davis.

By Mindy Craig. There are lots of big visions and strategies for acting on climate change. But what about immediate action? Here’s a way to amplify and accelerate action for climate change.

Catarina Kidd, AICP, interviews Martin Carver, AICP, Managing Partner of ZeroCity, LLC in Santa Cruz.

From the archive, by James Castañeda, AICP, June 2015. “The real world started for me right after I graduated from college. Hold on to your passion. Never lose sight of who you are, what you’re doing, and, most importantly, why you’re doing it.”

By Esra A. Hudson and Michael E. Olsen, Manatt Employment Law, March 9, 2020. Here are some steps that all employers can take to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19, starting with good and open communication.

The April 1 due date is in statute and HCD cannot change it. Cities can submit the APR to HCD before taking it to their council, and submit a revised APR to HCD at any time.

By Jonathan Schuppert, AICP, March 18, 2020. As I work from home, I’m learning much about my colleagues and their families, enabling me to empathize, better understand their thought processes, and work together more effectively.

In this segment, curated by associate editor Sajuti Rahman, we highlight a change in the APA Northern Section Board and six job changes: Amalia Lorentz Cunningham, AICP; Delo Freitas; Brian Heaton, AICP; James Murphy; Lauren Ninkovich; and Melissa Ruhl. Congratulations all!

A recent Executive Order order authorizes California’s state and local bodies to hold public meetings by teleconference and to make public meetings accessible telephonically or otherwise electronically to all members of the public seeking to attend and to address the local or state agencies.

Check here for everything you need to know about applying for the 2020-21 California Planning Foundation Scholarships for outstanding planning students.

Given the severity of and uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, our planning tour to the Middle East, originally scheduled for 2020, is postponed until 2021.