DENA BELZER, PRESIDENT

Ms. Belzer specializes in connecting regional economic and demographic growth trends to real estate development activity and local policy initiatives. Ms. Belzer’s work draws upon a traditional urban economics framework and innovative analytical techniques to provide strategies for addressing growth and development-related issues.

Ms. Belzer has completed many assignments involving interdisciplinary teams where short-term market conditions and long-term economic and demographic trends must inform community-planning efforts. Recent projects include Better Neighborhoods 2002 targeting three transit-oriented districts in San Francisco, revitalization strategies for several major arterial corridors in the Bay Area, and the Smart Growth Action Plan for Menlo Park. Building collaborative efforts among local governments to address regional growth issues is another focus of Ms. Belzer’s work. She helped organize and is now providing ongoing support to the Treasure Valley Partnership, a group of elected officials representing multiple jurisdictions in the Boise, ID region. Ms. Belzer is also working on the “Shaping Our Future” project with cities in Contra Costa County, California, and with mayors, city managers, and county representatives in Monterey County, California to implement city-centered growth policies.

At the city level Ms. Belzer has conducted economic analyses for general plans, economic development strategies, economic indicators reports, redevelopment implementation plans and land utilization studies. California cities where she has performed this work include San Leandro, Calistoga, Azusa, Fremont, Oakland, San Leandro, Citrus Heights, Torrance, San Francisco, San Jose, and Watsonville.

Ms. Belzer is also an expert on transit oriented development, fostering mixed-use districts, and local-serving retail attraction. She has helped to establish best practices for transit oriented development in multiple communities as well as writing extensively on the topic. Her work on retail revitalization in neighborhood shopping districts has also been recognized as a model for “best practice” by such organizations as Northern California Local Support Corporation.

Ms. Belzer received a Master of City Planning from U.C. Berkeley and a B.A. in Psychology from Pitzer College. She serves on the Boards of the University of California, College of Environmental Design Alumni Association and Community Economics Inc., a non-profit organization specializing in affordable housing finance. Her publications include Visioning the Future: Strategies for Community Change published by HUD, 1994, (contributing author); Transit Oriented Development: From Rhetoric to Reality, published by the Great American Station Foundation and the Brookings Institution Center on Urban & Metropolitan Policy, June, 2002; and Countering Sprawl with Transit Oriented Development, in Issues in Science and Technology, National Academy of Sciences, Fall 2002. Ms. Belzer received a National Business Women’s Week Award from the Business and Professional Women, Berkeley in 1996.

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