JURY CHAIR

LYNN CARLTON
Vice President, Regional Leader of Planning
HOK
Kansas City, Missouri

Lynn Carlton has over 20 years of experience in urban planning and design. As the Regional Leader of Planning for HOK, Lynn Carlton oversees the planning group in Kansas City, which includes planning, landscape architecture and urban design disciplines. She is responsible for the group’s financial success and integral to business development for both planning and architecture. She enjoys mentoring younger staff, sharing best practices and encouraging their growth.

Lynn also serves as the lead on all Kansas City-area master planning efforts, giving her the opportunity to work on diverse projects across our city and leave an indelible mark – from the Kansas City Downtown Corridor Strategy to the recent Gallerie development at 27th and Gillham. These projects are each complex – but Lynn is passionate about building consensus among stakeholders, resolving barriers to a project’s implementation and encouraging collaboration that results in districts that change our city.

Since the earliest stages of Lynn’s career, giving back to the community has been incredibly important. Lynn is involved in a wide array of Kansas City-area organizations, volunteering her time to support causes she is passionate about including:

• Downtown Council – Chair of the Board
• KC Chamber – Board of Directors
• Urban Land Institute Kansas City Chapter – Governance Board, former District Council Chair
• Lead to Read – Founding Board Member
• Kansas City Design Center (KCDC) – Advisory Board
• Kansas City Missouri Municipal Art Commission, 2018-2020
• Kansas City Missouri Enhanced Enterprise Zone Board, 2020-present
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art – Ambassador
• Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey – Membership Committee and 35th Anniversary Co-Chair

Each of these organizations have played an important role in Lynn’s personal and professional growth, allowing her to build relationships and see first-hand the tremendous impact of our city’s non-profits and organizations. In 2019, Lynn was selected as one of the Kansas City Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business and appeared on the Business Journal cover in December 2019 for her article on leadership.

Additionally, Lynn helped to start two initiatives that have helped welcome women and next-generation leaders. Lynn helped co-found and co-chair the Urban Land Institute’s national NEXT Leadership Initiative. This effort aims to engage individuals between the ages of 35 and 45, providing them opportunities for training, networking and career growth. She also had the opportunity to start the ULI KC Women’s Leadership Initiative. The group aims to raise the visibility and number of female leaders in the real estate industry providing highly valuable programming to help women in pivotal stages of their careers grow into impactful leaders.

BINA BHATTACHARYYA
Associate Partner
Robert A.M. Stern Architects
New York, New York

Bina Bhattacharyya brings a cosmopolitan perspective and artistic sensibility to her work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and landscape design. With expertise in mixed-use master planning, residential community developments, and resort and hospitality design, Bina leads many of RAMSA’s most transformative international projects. She thinks about the impact of her work at every scale, and specializes in crafting landscape strategies that complement a building’s design while bolstering the surrounding urban fabric. Her projects are rooted in research and analysis, and strive for timelessness. She studies the history and traditions of the places she builds alongside the latest ideas and technologies to find innovative solutions that enrich the way people live today. At RAMSA, Bina has designed several award-winning and widely recognized projects, including Heart of Lake, a 200,000-square-meter garden suburb in Xiamen, China that synthesizes classical western traditions and regional vernacular. In the growing city of Jinjiang, China, she led the design of AVIC Uptown, an 825,000-square-meter mixed-use development designed to accommodate a changing urban landscape. Her Hong Kong residential tower St. George’s Mansion is setting a new standard for design–and for living–in the Kadoorie Hill neighborhood. Bina’s ongoing projects include a 20-hectare, sustainability-minded seaside resort and a residential tower that integrates architecture and landscape to create a unique, holistic living experience. Bina Bhattacharyya, AIA, is committed to furthering her discipline and expanding her knowledge as an active member of several professional organizations, including the Urban Design Forum and the Congress for the New Urbanism. She plays a key role in advancing the Urban Land Institute’s mission to shape the future of the built environment as Vice Chair of the ULI Americas Community Development Council, and as a member of the ULI New York Chapter Housing Council. At RAMSA, Bina is making the firm stronger as co-founder and chairperson of the Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Alliance (IDEA).

FARON A. HILL
Founder & President
Peregrine Oak
Atlanta, Georgia

Faron A. Hill is the founder and president of Peregrine Oak, a commercial real estate capital markets and advisory services firm. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the firm works exclusively with clients throughout the United States to provide creative capital solutions. Since its launch in 2007, Peregrine and its principals have capitalized more than $4 billion in transactions across multiple asset classes. Faron is an active member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and currently serves as a member of the ULI Foundation Board of Directors and vice-chair of the Technology & Real Estate Product Council (TREC). He is an active member of the Atlanta District Council and a member of its advisory board. Faron is a graduate of Troy University and went on to earn MBAs from the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University and the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University. In addition to his work with ULI, Faron supports several non-profit organizations in his community.

CHARLES LONG
Principal
Junction Properties, LLC
Oakland, California

Charles A. Long is a developer specializing in mixed-use infill projects, including acquisition, entitlement, and public private partnerships. He has recently completed two multi-family projects in Oakland, CA, one at 78 units, the other at 97 units.

He served for eight years as city manager in Fairfield, California and has held interim positions for several cities in finance, redevelopment and management, including Interim Town Manager of Mammoth Lakes and Interim City Manager of Pinole and Hercules, California. His assignments have been diverse including negotiating development agreements, writing redevelopment plans, pro-forma analyses, strategic planning, economic development, organizational development, capital and financial planning, budget reform, base reuse and alternative energy development. He has overseen over $800 million of public financing in his career. Mr. Long is a full member of the Urban Land Institute and a member of the Public Private Partnership Council. He is a faculty member of the ULI Real Estate School, teaching both in the US and internationally. He has served on eighteen ULI Advisory Panels, chairing panels in Salem, OR, Boise, ID, Dallas, TX, Buffalo, NY Pasco County, FL and San Bernardino, CA. He received the 2012 Robert M. O’Donnell Award for distinguished service in the advisory program. He recently completed organizing and delivering 11 webinars for ULI titled Pillars of Community Renewal. He is currently delivering workshops around the country in public private partnerships, most recently in Honolulu and in Reading, PA. He is the author of the book, Finance for Real Estate Development, published by ULI in April 2011 and winner of the 2012 National Association of Real Estate Editors Silver Award. Mr. Long has a BA in economics from Brown University and a Masters of Public Policy from U. C. Berkeley. He served in the U.S. Army as an infantry platoon sergeant.

JOE PERRY
Vice President
Port KC
Kansas City, Missouri

Joe is Vice President of Real Estate at Port KC (Port Authority of Kansas City, MO) where he oversees the management, development and marketing of properties owned or operated by the agency including over 500,000 square feet of industrial space, over 1000 acres of land, a casino, and riverfront development projects in downtown Kansas City. During his 11-year tenure the Port KC team has developed a sale leaseback bonding program of over $1.5 billion.  He brings more than 25 years of experience in the real estate finance, marketing, development, architecture, urban planning, public policy, public/private finance, and development disciplines. Before coming to Port KC, he spent eight years as commercial director for Gale Communities, Inc. where he managed planning, zoning, infrastructure, and building construction. He has public/private financing experience creating and managing tax increment financing, port improvement district, and transportation development district projects. He holds a degree in Real Estate Finance from the University of Missouri – Columbia and a degree in Architecture and Urban Design from the University of Kansas. He is a licensed real estate professional in the Missouri and Kansas, the Chair of Mission Advancement of ULI – Kansas City District Council where he is also active in REDI, Urban Plan and other initiative.  He is on the SAVE, Inc. Board as well as engaged in multiple housing, community planning, and redevelopment entity boards.

GEETI SILWAL
Principal
Perkins&Will
San Francisco, California

Geeti Silwal is the Urban Design Principal at Perkins&Will. As the Head of the West Coast Urban Design practice, Geeti brings vision and design leadership that establishes the foundation of transformative changes for livable and sustainable environments in cities. She strongly believes that urban designers hold the responsibility to inspire integrated, multi-purpose design solutions of innovation and beauty that create healthy and inclusive cities. Designing cities around the fundamental organizing principle of ‘people first’ delivers a more humane, inclusive, socially connected and a healthy city. Everyday city spaces that have the power to instill dignity and build memorable experiences for the common man are of primary interest to Geeti.

Building and revitalizing communities, she lays deep emphasis on placemaking, connectivity, accessibility, and social justice. Her experience covers a vast breadth of scales, including regional transit-focused planning, downtown revitalization, waterfront redevelopments, urban mixed-use infill projects, research/innovation district planning, and public realm enhancement along heavily challenged infrastructure corridors.

Geeti is currently leading multiple projects that leverage transportation investment to deliver high-density, mixed-use, vibrant communities around transit stations. Prioritizing low-carbon modes of travel in these transportation projects, to connect people and communities seamlessly is important to deliver on the aspiration of an equitable city.

Geeti is also deliberate in her design approach to reveal the unrealized potential of Nature and natural processes. This lies at the core of her push to deliver regenerative solutions that address climate change issues of water scarcity, food security and social equity. Her research on the Resource Infinity Loop discusses a solution for a closed-loop water and nutrient infrastructure within our cities. She believes that the pursuit of carbon neutrality is, at its heart, a clarion call for a culture change—one that heeds our delicate relationship with nature and gives back to the environment more than it takes.

LAUREN STANDISH
Vice President
HGOR
Atlanta, Georgia

Lauren Standish is a nationally recognized planner and landscape architect, bringing award-winning, innovative design solutions to the urban landscape for more than twenty-five years. She is currently leading urban design and mixed-use efforts at HGOR, an Atlanta-based planning and landscape architecture collaborative focused on the re-imagination of the physical environment to support the sustainability of people and place.

In 2017, Lauren became a Principal and has since accepted the role as Vice President of the firm (2020). Her design philosophy celebrates urban form – optimizing a balance between the built and natural environment. Lauren’s approach to complex, multi-layered developments is founded on an assimilation of components – art, technology, culture, programming capacity, living infrastructure – to leverage adaptability as a function for creating destinations of underutilized places and the spaces in between. From campuses and civic spaces to city parks and urban master plans, Lauren has crafted an exceptional body of work that reflects a deep commitment to memorable placemaking, including Atlantic Station Central Park (a Hines Development), Georgia World Congress Center’s Pedestrian Mall, and The Battery Atlanta at Truist Park. In the past five years, two projects to which Lauren has contributed leadership have received national recognition as major contributions to the Southeast’s infrastructure.

Lauren’s understanding of the capabilities of transparency within the natural landscape strengthens form with function – resulting in impactful places that speak to a site’s history, context and aspirations. She has utilized her expertise in performance-based landscapes as a mentor for neighborhood legacy residents and non-profit organizations to layout frameworks that support the public agenda from an individual and organizational standpoint. Recently Lauren worked with Park Pride to develop trail connectivity and space activation and create conceptual park designs for a historic neighborhood in Atlanta.

Lauren is known for culturally significant design that serve as a powerful tool to showcase community character and improve quality of life. Connecting the individual experience with urban systems requires a high touch and loose fit design programming. Lauren has served on the ULI Atlanta’s Technical Assistance Programs (TAPs) Committee as a project manager for the Atlanta Community Schoolyards pilot program since its inception. She is also assisting in reimagining the Atlanta City Detention Center in Downtown Atlanta. She has been a member of ASLA and the Society for College and University Planning for over a decade.

STEPHANIE TING
Executive Vice President, Director of Investments
The Swig Company
San Francisco, California

Stephanie Kwong Ting joined The Swig Company in 2021 as Executive Vice President, Director of Investments. Stephanie leads the Company’s investment and capital markets transaction activity. Prior to joining The Swig Company, Stephanie was an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley’s real estate investing group and worked in the New York City, Hong Kong and San Francisco offices. She was also a member of the group’s U.S. sustainability committee and helped drive Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts. At Morgan Stanley, Stephanie acquired and managed both core and opportunistic real estate investments worth in aggregate over $2 billion across all asset classes on the West Coast. Stephanie graduated magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard University and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. As a member of ULI, NAIOP and the Harvard alumni network, she is active in giving back to the community and mentoring the next generation of real estate professionals.

SAVLAN HAUSER
Executive Director
Jack London Improvement District
Oakland, California

Savlan brings over a decade of experience in urban design and development in Mexico City and the San Francisco Bay Area to her role as Executive Director of the Jack London Improvement District—Oakland’s geographically largest business improvement district. Prior to her role in Jack London, Savlan worked on multifaceted revitalization efforts through two major Area Specific Plans as consultant to the City of Oakland. Savlan holds a degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley, is a LEED AP, and Urban Land Institute’s Chamberlin Public Sector Leader Fellow 2017-2019. By the age of 6, Savlan was in love with vibrant, urban environments as a busker, playing her fiddle on the streets of great West Coast Cities while on family vacations. Savlan also serves as chair of the Oakland BID Alliance. Representing over 3,000 businesses and property owners, the BID Alliance communicates best practices, ideas, and resources, connects with key City and agency representatives, and advocates on behalf of its members to further the goals of growing and maintaining Oakland’s vital commercial districts.

BRUCE JETT
Principal
JETT Landscape Architecture + Design
Orinda, California

Educated in Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University, Bruce Jett has practiced landscape architecture for 35 years, and is a licensed landscape architect in California and Texas. Bruce founded JETT Landscape Architecture + Design in 1999 to focus his passion for urban-based landscape architecture design into a practice of exceptional design and project delivery. At JETT he leads a team of fifteen landscape architects, designers and thinkers in the firm’s Orinda, California and Seattle, Washington offices.

Bruce embraces, and often facilitates, the free-flow of ideas across a wide range of disciplines and interests to understand and integrate historical, cultural, psychological and social influences in our evolving urban tapestry to create contemporary, compassionate, and meaningful urban landscapes of lasting value for clients, users and the community.

Bruce’s work spans urban districts, streets and public ways, parks, plazas and playgrounds, universities and institutions, multi-family housing, retail and commercial projects in the public and private sectors. He is recognized for his leadership in delivering creative, constructible design solutions from project visioning through final project delivery. The results can be found in award-winning landscape designs in the Bay Area. He has been a ULI member since 2011 and has been involved in the East Bay Programs Committee.

Before founding JETT, Bruce worked for Peter Walker and Partners, Amphion Environmental, Hart Howerton, John Nicol Associates, and Dillingham Associates.