{"id":150483,"date":"2026-01-26T20:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/150483\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T20:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:52:24","slug":"city-officials-consolidate-fresnos-long-range-city-planning-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/150483\/","title":{"rendered":"City officials \u2018consolidate\u2019 Fresno\u2019s long-range city planning division"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake?<\/p>\n

The city’s long-range city planners are responsible for working with the community to craft and implement plans that reflect residents’ vision.<\/p>\n

Fresno officials recently shuffled a key urban planning team, drawing sharp criticism from a longtime planner.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 15, city planners were informed via email that the long-range division of the city\u2019s planning department would be consolidated into the current planning division, senior planner Casey Lauderdale shared with Fresnoland in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis really came out of the blue,\u201d Lauderdale said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s long-range planning division is responsible for engaging residents across the city to build and implement plans that support the goals and visions for neighborhoods and the city.<\/p>\n

The move came about a month after a contentious City Hall vote over the largest development plan in city history<\/a> that drew condemnation from a large crowd of protesters who accused elected city leaders of once again placing the interests of developers ahead of community needs.<\/p>\n

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Lauderdale said the department changes affected about 10 people who work in the long-range division.<\/p>\n

Planning staff were told that once they wrapped up their projects \u2013 and there\u2019s a few plans still in the works, like the South Central and Central East Specific Plans, for example \u2013 that they\u2019d shift over to current planning and report to the supervisors there, she added.<\/p>\n

Current planners function more like a development service \u2013 making sure that developers and builders\u2019 projects are in compliance with city and state land use regulations, from rezones to subdivisions to conditional use permits.<\/p>\n

Planning Director Jennifer Clark declined an interview with Fresnoland, and instead shared in a statement that the move to consolidate long-range and current planning functions is intended to facilitate \u201ccross-training\u201d across the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll planning work remains intact, and our planners will continue performing the same functions as a unified team,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Lauderdale said that cross-training is a good goal, but said she worries that it won\u2019t alleviate the department\u2019s long-standing understaffing woes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally think that once the [long-range planning] projects are done, there won\u2019t be any more proactive planning efforts,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also said she was concerned the move is an attempt to stifle a division of planners that attempted to have an independent voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team has really stood up inside City Hall for community interests,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve spoken up against things like SEDA, even though we were pretty much forced to work on that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s planning department isn\u2019t a stranger to occasional reorganizations of its different functions.<\/p>\n

Fresnoland spoke with two former city planning leaders who reflected on the role that long-range planners have played over the last several decades. Both said they didn\u2019t want to criticize the city\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlans are not self-implementing,\u201d emphasized Nick Yovino, who served as the department\u2019s director from 2001 to 2008, with his career as a planner dating back to the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cInfill development doesn\u2019t just fall out of the sky,\u201d he said . \u201cEspecially in a place like the west area.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he was also familiar with how the department has changed over the decades due to budgetary constraints and developers\u2019 demands, especially during the building boom of the 2000s.<\/p>\n

Keith Bergthold, who served as the department\u2019s assistant director and then interim planning director from 2008 to 2014, echoed the important role that long-range planners play in helping plans get implemented, especially in the neighborhoods west of the 99. The city council approved the West Area Specific Plan in October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you going to consistently and persistently implement these long-term plans, which is the solution for Fresno \u2014 not sprawl?\u201d Bergthold asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yovino said that outside of crafting community plans, planners spend a lot of time \u201ccleaning up\u201d the zoning code, crafting city policy, and finding funding to make sure that development happens in alignment with the community\u2019s stated vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lauderdale pointed to a handful of initiatives led by long-range planners, from building an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) incentive program to chasing grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up brownfields in southwest Fresno to allow redevelopment to occur.<\/p>\n

Lauderdale is worried all of that will go away.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur culture isn\u2019t just \u2018check the box.\u2019 We question things,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019re being punished for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s at stake? The city’s long-range city planners are responsible for working with the community to craft and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-150483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}