Carol Johnson, AICP

Planning Director

Carol Johnson is a dynamic and responsive urban planner, attuned to community needs, and adept at working with diverse groups in crafting policies, plans and implementation strategies in order to facilitate positive change. She has over 30 years of urban planning experience in both the public and private sectors, including serving as Planning Director for Multnomah County, Oregon; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Maricopa County, Arizona and Berkeley, California. She has also worked as a planner in various capacities for cities in the states of Arizona, California, Connecticut and Washington.

Carol is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, the American Planning Association, the International City/County Managers Association and the Urban Land Institute.

Carol worked for the City of Berkeley as Planning Manager and Planning Director from 2014 to 2017. During her tenure, she oversaw the development review and approval of the first tall building in downtown Berkeley in almost 50 years. She also directed the development of the Adeline Corridor Specific Plan.

At the City of Concord she also served as the Planning Manager, and was responsible for the Concord Downtown Plan, including obtaining assistance of a Technical Advisory Panel from the Urban Land Institute to test the economic feasibility of the plan recommendations. For the Concord Safe Routes to Transit Plan, she incorporated culturally specific workshops to engage the community most impacted by the lack of safe pedestrian infrastructure.

While in Phoenix, Carol managed the in-house effort that resulted in the Downtown Phoenix Urban Form Code. It was a unique hybrid code incorporating concepts from form-based codes within the legal context of existing land use entitlements. The Urban Form Code served as the template for the Walkable Urban Code along the remainder of the light rail corridor. Carol also represented the City as a founding member of of the Sustainable Communities Working Group, a multi-agency/multi-sector organization that promoted the creation of equitable, affordable housing along the light rail corridor. She was one of four members responsible for obtaining a commitment for $20 million in loan funds from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Raza Development Fund (RDF) to develop affordable and attainable housing and support services along the light rail corridor. Carol’s final project with Phoenix was the development of a sustainability framework for the update of the Phoenix General Plan which also incorporated concepts of anticipatory governance.