Racially Disparate Impacts in Housing – Undoing Past Injustices

Session 2A | Wednesday | 4:15 – 5:30 PM (PT)

The session will provide an overview of the major shift in the GMA housing goal and housing element requirements, as well as Commerce's recommended guidance to review and address racially disparate impacts in housing. Several jurisdictions have made considerable progress on their racially disparate impact analysis work.  The session will include background on the housing element racially disparate impacts, exclusion, and displacement requirements, and will also include speakers who can share their work and experience on performing the racially disparate impacts, exclusion, and displacement analysis.  This includes what they learned, including in one case a novel approach to using community members to engage in outreach to those who have not traditionally been part of the planning process.  Commerce RDI resources and information available to jurisdictions as they proceed during their next periodic update will also be presented.

David Osaki works on middle housing issues with the Washington State Department of Commerce. He has served as Community Development Director for several Central Puget Sound cities including Fife, Monroe and Mukilteo. David has a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University and a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Washington and has served on planning commissions, a housing authority board, and a homeless encampment Citizen's Advisory Committee in the Puget Sound region. He has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners since 1986.

City of Tacoma

Alyssa Torrez is a Senior Planner supporting the Home in Tacoma initiative as well as other long-range planning initiatives for the City of Tacoma. Before working in this position, she served a 3-year term on the City of Tacoma Planning Commission and worked in Real Estate Development with the Tacoma Housing Authority where she worked to bring community voices to affordable housing projects in Tacoma’s diverse Hilltop neighborhood. In addition to her work in affordable housing, Alyssa has extensive experience working on community engagement with PBS stations and local nonprofit and grassroots organizations. She holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University Fullerton in Communications and Public Relations and a Masters in Community Planning from the University of Washington Tacoma.

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Chris Pasinetti

City of Enumclaw

Elise Keim

Elise Keim is a Senior Planner with the City of Shoreline. She is a lifelong Washingtonian and has been lucky enough to serve as a planner for several jurisdictions in Western Washington. Her BA is in environmental policy from Western Washington University and her Master’s is in Urban Planning from University of Washington. Elise brings her experience in code writing and implementation to her policy work to ensure a community’s vision becomes reality. During her career as a planner her areas of focus have included commercial development, environmentally critical areas, and housing. Growing in her practice Elise is continuing to learn what it means to be actively anti-racist in a profession that gatekeeps the future of cities.

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Hennry Jennings

Snohomish County Planning and Developement Services

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