14th Annual Spring Symposium

WATCH THE 14TH ANNUAL SPRING SYMPOSIUM

On May 27th, the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition hosted the 14th Annual Spring Symposium online. SFHAC’s 2020 Spring Symposium invited participants to think about “What Urbanism Looks Like Now” and featured a conversation between Rich Hillis, Planning Director for the City and County of San Francisco and Jeffrey Tumlin, San Francisco’s Director of Transportation moderated by SPUR’s Community Planning Policy Director Kristy Wang. We were honored to be joined by Mayor London Breed for opening remarks.

Opening Remarks

Mayor London Breed

London Breed is the 45th Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. She previously served as President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Acting Mayor, leading San Francisco following the tragic passing of Mayor Edwin Lee. She is the first African-American woman and only second woman to serve as Mayor.

Before her election as Supervisor, Mayor Breed served as Executive Director of the African American Art & Culture Complex in the Western Addition for more than over a decade, transforming the center into a vital, financially-stable community resource that provides after school arts and cultural programs for youth and seniors. She also served as a San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Commissioner for five years and in 2010 was appointed by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom to be a San Francisco Fire Commissioner, where she served until her election to the Board of Supervisors.

Moderator

Kristy Wang

Kristy leads SPUR’s work in community planning and housing, splitting her time between San Francisco and San Jose. She is the author of It Takes a Village, strategies for implementing San Jose’s urban village plans, and co-author of Room for More, SPUR’s housing agenda for San Jose, and Cracking the Code, our recommendations on zoning and code reform in San Jose’s urban growth areas.

Panelists

Rich Hillis

Rich Hillis is the Planning Director for the City and County of San Francisco. Mr. Hillis is responsible for overseeing long range city planning, development review, and environmental review for most physical development in San Francisco. He served on the San Francisco Planning Commission for eight years before becoming Director of the Planning Department.

Prior to joining San Francisco Planning, Mr. Hillis served as the Executive Director for the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture where he led its reinvigoration, investing over $60 million into the historic campus and providing a stable and vibrant home to dozens of arts organizations and events. Before joining the Fort Mason Center, Mr. Hillis served as Deputy Director of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, where he managed all aspects of the redevelopment of Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island into a new 8,000-unit, mixed-use neighborhood, led efforts on priority Port development projects, and oversaw efforts to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for development along Octavia Boulevard. Previously, he was the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s Director of Partnerships and Property, managing RPD’s assets and concessions.

Mr. Hillis has an Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor’s from the State University of New York at Albany.

Jeffrey Tumlin

Jeffrey Tumlin is the former director of strategy at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a San Francisco-based transportation planning and engineering firm that focuses on sustainable mobility. Previously he served as Interim Director of the new Oakland Department of Transportation.  For more than twenty years, he has led station area, downtown, citywide, and campus plans, and delivered various lectures and classes in 20 U.S. states and five countries. His major development projects have succeeded in reducing traffic and CO2 emissions by as much as 40%, and accommodated many millions of square feet of growth with no net increase in motor vehicle traffic. These projects have won awards from the U.S. General Services Administration, Institute of Transportation Engineers, American Planning Association, American Society of Landscape Architects, Congress for the New Urbanism, and Urban Land Institute.  He is the author of Sustainable Transportation: Tools for Creating Healthy, Vibrant and Resilient Communities (Wiley, 2012).

Thanks To Our Sponsors!

Platinum Sponsors

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	Gold Sponsors
	Silver Sponsors

	Bronze Sponsors
	Cahill Contractors David Seward, UC Hastings DM Development Partners Equity Community Builders Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco James E. Roberts-Obayashi Corp KM Planning Strategy L37 Partners LDP Architectures Lubin Olson & Niewiadomski LLP Macy Architecture Mark Cavagnero Associates Meridiam Infrastructure Paulett Taggart Architects Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation Vanguard Properties