Vanessa Hawkins Dandridge

Vanessa currently serves as Senior Community Development Specialist in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. In that capacity, she oversees the work of 10 community based organizations receiving Community Development Block Grant Funding for service delivery in Bayview Hunters Point and the Western Addition. Prior to this role, she served in multiple private and public sector positions advancing affordable, multifamily infill projects. She received a Masters in Public Affairs (emphasis in Urban Affairs) from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a B.A. in government/public policy from Pomona College.

Jim Heid

Jim is a sustainability advisor, real estate strategist and infill developer based in Sonoma County. With over forty years experience as an urban designer, land planner, sustainaiblity strategist and now infill developer he brings a broad range of perspectives and skills to the discusssion about how communities grow. Trained as a landscape architect, he received a Masters in Real Estate Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as way to more effectively integrate economics, development and design thinking. An active member of the Urban Land Institute ULI, Jim was at the forefront of defining the tenets of sustainable community design. He was the lead instructor for ULI’s pioneering program in Sustainable Community Design and is regularly featured as a keynote speaker on the subject. He continues his leadership as founder and lead instructor for ULI’s new program focused on small scale incremental development. Having led 16 national tours on the subject, the pioneering work and rationale for ‘small’ will be presented in his new book Building Small, to be released March 21. Jim works seamlessly with multi-disciplinary teams, bringing his design and real estate training to resolve complex land use challenges with long term, enduring solutions that are coupled with actionable initiating actions. His collaborative, integrated approach to complex land use issues is demonstrated through regular participation and chairmanship of over over 15 ULI Advisory Service Panels – most recently in Napa, CA and Toronto, Canada.

Patrick Kennedy

Patrick Kennedy is the owner of Panoramic Interests, a development firm that has been building housing, live-work space, and commercial property in Berkeley since 1990. The firm has focused on dense mixed-use, mixed-income, infill developments, typically financed with private funds. All of the multi-family housing projects include below market rate units (usually 20%). Since 1995, Panoramic Interests has built 483 units of housing in several mixed used projects in and around the downtown. In August 2004, the firm finished three projects in the downtown area: The Fine Arts Building, a 100 unit Art Deco apartment building, with a ground floor theater; The Bachenheimer Building, a 44 unit Mediterranean revival apartment, with ground floor retail; and The Touriel Building, a Modernist 35 unit apartment, with a ground floor flower shop. All of the firm’s other projects incorporate the Smart Growth principles designed to discourage auto use, mitigate sprawl, encourage local business, and enhance the pedestrian streetscape in the places where they are located. In April, 2007 Panoramic Interests sold its rental portfolio of 7 buildings to the Equity Residential Apartment REIT of Chicago for $146,000,000, the largest real estate transaction in Berkeley’s history. Mr. Kennedy is now focusing on developing SmartSpace® – a small, stylish, and economical dwelling unit, exceeding all governmental requirements for enviromental construction. He received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College in 1976, his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986 and his M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also in 1986.

Keith McCoy

Keith is President and a Founding Partner of UrbanMix Development, LLC. With more than 30 years in the real estate development industry, Keith has a broad range of experience including land acquisition, community planning, entitlements, product development, financial analysis, asset management and property disposition. Keith has held senior management positions with international development companies and has established new development operations in Northern California. Prior to forming UrbanMix Development, Keith Co-founded Urban Community Partners to focus on creating Smart Growth, mixed income, mixed use communities. As a Co-Developer and Partner, Keith successfully directed the entitlements for East Garrison, a $500+ million – 244 acre, 1,400 home, mixed use, public/private partnership on the former Fort Ord Army Base in Monterey County, CA. Keith recently obtained the entitlements for a 15 acre 400 unit senior oriented, infill, mixed use town center with 30,000 sf of retail space in Foster City, a 1.5 acre senior oriented “Pocket Neighborhood” in Novato, CA (now under construction) and is currently working on a 7 acre redevelopment site in Santa Rosa, CA which will include affordable and market rate apartments, a 1 acre public plaza, retail/Mercado and a civic building. Keith is a graduate of the University of California at Irvine, with a degree in Social Ecology and Urban Planning.

Michael Michaud

Michael Michaud helps manage a three-generation small family real estate business based in Kingsburg, CA named Wigh Properties. Located south of Fresno, Wigh Properties owns and manages commercial buildings in Kingsburg’s small downtown and residential buildings (apartments, cottages, and houses) near the downtown. Their work also includes renovations and adaptive reuses of existing downtown buildings. In addition, Wigh Properties remains in active with local economic development efforts and with efforts to revitalize Kingsburg’s central area. Michael is currently studying design and planning through the U.C. Berkeley Extension Professional Program in Sustainable Design.. Also, he is a board member of the California Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism and he volunteers as a guide for San Francisco City Guides. Born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County, Michael now divides his time between San Francisco and Kingsburg.

Louis Mirante

Louis Mirante is Vice President of Public Policy at the Bay Area Council, focusing on the Council’s housing policy and legislation work. Prior to joining the Council, Louis was the legislative director of California YIMBY, a statewide housing advocacy and coalition-building organization that in just five years rose from the margins to become one of California’s leading housing policy groups. In this role Louis helped craft and win approval for key state legislation to boost housing production and hold local governments accountable for meeting their housing obligations. Louis has also held positions with the California Department of Finance, the California Department of Transportation, and the California Air Resources Board, giving him important experience in the workings of the California’s administrative state, as well as insight into the implementation of transportation and climate policies. Mirante serves on the board of the Casita Coalition, a statewide advocacy and policy group the Council helped form to promote the construction of accessory dwelling units and other missing middle housing typologies. Louis graduated with highest honors from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a degree in political science, and his award-winning thesis focused on the effects of state supreme court design on judicial outcomes. He was in the University’s inaugural class of Bonderman Fellows, which funds its members to travel the world for a year after graduation. Originally from the East Bay, Louis is based in the Council’s Sacramento office.

Dominic Mogavero

Dominic serves as the Director of Development Services at Mogavero Architects. For nearly thirty years, Mogavero Architects has been building livable communities through award-winning architecture, planning and urban design. With an office located in Sacramento and projects throughout California, the team is comprised of passionate, committed professionals. The firm offers multi-disciplinary capabilities and extensive background in all aspects of design, planning, architecture, landscape architecture, development and community advocacy. Dominic received his Bachelor’s Degree in political science and government from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Blake Peters

Blake is responsible for site acquisition for new affordable apartment communities, forming partnerships with market rate builders and developers on mixed-income residential projects, and acquiring existing apartments for preservation or conversion to affordable. He is also President of Miramonte Development, Inc., which provides land acquisition and project management consulting for a wide variety of clients ranging from non-profit affordable housing developers and public agencies, to traditional homebuilders and apartment developers. He previously worked at Eden Housing, Inc., John Laing Homes, and New Cities Development. He is a graduate of University of California, Davis.

Jeff Roberts

Jeff Roberts was born and raised in Los Angeles. He moved to Fresno to attend Fresno State in 1973. He graduated in 1976 and then pursued his graduate studies in Urban and Regional Planning. Jeff worked for the County of Fresno early in his career but has spent 18 years as a private consultant and the last 12 years as an employee of Granville Homes. Jeff is a Board member of the Building Industry Association and the Millerton Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. He is a past Board member of the Fresno Arts Council and the past President of the Tree Fresno Board of Directors. Jeff has been married to Tina for 32 years. They have a 25 year old son, Andy.

Geof Syphers

Geof Syphers is the Chief Executive Officer of Sonoma Clean Power, which serves the residents and businesses in Sonoma and Mendocino counties with clean energy from more renewable resources, such as geothermal, wind, and solar. Previously, he provided consulting and project management to deep green developments. As founding director of the Green Building Services Group at DNV-KEMA, his team consulted on 160 projects, from affordable housing to airports, including 40 LEED projects. He is a founder of the Council of Infill Builders, a non-profit organization focused on research and education about the benefits of good infill development. Geof also served as Chief Sustainability Officer for Codding Enterprises, a California-based developer and holding company where he manages the technical aspects of planning, entitlements and design of Sonoma Mountain Village, a zero carbon, zero waste mixed-use community endorsed by One Planet Communities. Geof is a frequent public speaker, licensed mechanical engineer, a LEED accredited professional and holds advanced degrees in physics and engineering.