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Housing Policy as Workforce Policy
February 28, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013 — 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Housing Policy as Workforce Policy
Housing options affordable to the workforce are more critical than ever before. Housing the workforce is a key factor in maintaining the economic competitiveness of a community. This discussion will explore the variety of state and local programs, tools, and developments underway across the country to ensure that workers can afford to live near their workplaces and jobs can remain in the community.
Additional Session Resources
- Other Housing Policy as Workforce Housing Policy Resources are available from the Terwilliger Center for Housing’s Fall Meeting Roundtable
Speaker Biographies and Presentations
Lora McCray, National Association of Realtors (moderator)
As the manager of housing opportunity for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Lora McCray oversees the Housing Opportunity Program, which provides training, information, tools, and resources to help Realtors and Realtor associations nationwide advance affordable housing in their communities.
Previously, McCray was a senior sustainability research analyst and index manager at Calvert Investments, where she managed the company’s Social Investment Review Committee and served as the lead analyst on corporate governance and ethics issues. As a business developer in community lending at Fannie Mae, she designed and implemented affordable housing initiatives to better serve minority and low-income communities. She also managed Fannie Mae’s national Faith-Based and Women-Headed Households Initiatives. Her background includes additional experience in housing and community development, financial services, philanthropy, fundraising and resource development, labor and employment law, diversity management, and organizational development.
McCray holds an MA in applied anthropology from the University of Memphis; a JD from the University of Washington School of Law; and a BA in political science from the University of Georgia. She is a licensed attorney.
William Kohn Fleissig, Communitas Development
Will Fleissig is a developer who partners with institutional property owners, equity funds, transit agencies, and local governments to execute projects that realize maximal value for investors and maximal benefits for the community. Currently, Fleissig is advising the Presidio Trust in San Francisco on a 300,000-square-foot gateway development located at the Presidio’s new entrance off Doyle Drive. The Thornburgh−West Letterman development will repurpose 13 historic structures as part of a mixed-use retail town center, along with 150,000 square feet of new residential and commercial uses adjacent to the Letterman Digital Arts Center (home of the Lucasfilm/Disney complex). Fleissig is also advising Madison Marquette on the development for the 27-acre, 3.2 million-square-foot Wharf District project located near two Metrorail stations along the southwest waterfront in Washington, D.C.
From 2005 to 2009, Fleissig was one of two full-time partners for the West Village Community Partnership managing the development of the 130-acre West Village at the University of California at Davis. The first two phases, now occupied, comprise student, faculty, and staff housing, and a mixed-use square located immediately adjacent to the core campus. When completed in 2015, the privately financed village supporting 3,500 people will become the largest “net zero energy” community in the United States. The project received two 2012 Student Housing Business Innovation Awards for Sustainability and Creative Financing.
Until 2005, Fleissig was a cofounder of Continuum Partners LLC, where he was the partner responsible for coordinating the firm’s planning, design, and entitlement activities on all projects. The firm developed 16 Market Square, a 380,000-square-foot mixed-use building in Denver’s LoDo district; Bradburn, a 120-acre village with four neighborhoods in Westminster, Colorado; and Belmar, a 23-block, downtown district on the 100-acre site of the former Villa Italia shopping mall in Lakewood, Colorado, which received the 2006 ULI Award of Excellence, the 2005 EPA Smart Growth Award, and the 2005 CNU Charter Award. Fleissig has also served in the public sector as the director of planning and development for the city of Boulder, Colorado, and as the director of downtown planning and development for Mayor Federico Peña in Denver.
Fleissig is a board member for Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. He received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, a B.Arch in urban design from the City College of New York, and an MPA with an emphasis in public finance from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Todd Johnson, Seattle Children’s Hospital
Todd Johnson is vice president of facilities at Seattle Children’s Hospital, overseeing facilities planning and design, building and engineering, transportation, grounds and sustainability, and environmental services. A trained leader in Toyota Way process improvement methodologies, Johnson is directing the Integrated Facility Design process being used to plan the major campus expansions.
Previously, Johnson served as vice president at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, and was the president and chief operating officer of Cornerstone Hospitality Management. He has participated in many civic and community organizations, including Plymouth Housing Group, Leadership Tomorrow, and Downtown Seattle Kiwanis. Johnson is a graduate of Cornell University and the George Washington University, where he earned his health care MBA.
Jeanette Henderson, University of Washington
Jeanette Henderson is the director of real estate at the University of Washington (UW), with 21 years of real estate management at UWRE, and prior to that several years as in-house counsel for a Seattle-based developer. The UWRE team handles property transactions, asset management, project management, finance and accounting, and data management, with real estate services provided to all three UW campuses, medical centers, research field stations, biological preserves, and off-campus and various international locations. She serves on the advisory board of the Urban Land Institute Northwest and on the executive committee of Pacific Real Estate Institute.
She is currently chair of the board of directors of Sightline Institute, a sustainability think tank, after serving as chair of its finance and audit committee for a number of years, and is a member of its Cascadia Stewards Council. Henderson grew up in Oregon and is a graduate of Washington State University and University of Washington School of Law.
Anthony L. Marchetta, New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency
Anthony Marchetta became the executive director of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency on September 1, 2010. Marchetta has more than 35 years of professional planning and development experience in the public and private sectors. During his initial two years with the agency, he worked with staff to create new revenue-generating programs, including the Multifamily Conduit Loan Program and the Single-Family Market Maker Loan Program. Under Marchetta’s direction, the agency is updating and reprioritizing the Qualified Allocation Plan of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program to incorporate education and employment opportunities into project site selection. Under his tenure, the agency—in conjunction with the Department of Human Services and Department of Community Affairs—has initiated the Special Needs Housing Partnership Loan Program, which has funded hundreds of new rental housing opportunities throughout the state.
Prior to joining the agency, he was vice president of LCOR Inc., where he developed multifamily and mixed-use projects within the Mid-Atlantic region. As an executive at LCOR, he managed the development of Gaslight Commons, a 200-unit luxury rental project in the “Transit Village” of South Orange, New Jersey. This project won the first New Jersey Future “Smart Growth” award in 2002. Marchetta has also worked with other major developers such Matrix Development Group and Baker Residential Inc. Governor Christine Todd Whitman appointed Marchetta to serve on the New Jersey State Planning Commission in 1998. Some of his many affiliations include the Regional Plan Association (RPA), the Urban Land Institute, and the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP). He received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers, and later two master’s degrees—one in city and regional planning and the other in business administration, both from Rutgers University.