Associate Planner

At Urban Planning Partners (UPP), we help create better places as partners with our clients and the communities where we work. Our projects are dynamic, complex, and rooted in real places and real people - spanning housing policy, CEQA review, land-use approvals, municipal planning, and community engagement throughout the Bay Area and Northern California.

We're a small, savvy team known for designing a way forward when the path isn't obvious. We innovate within existing policy, set new precedents thoughtfully, and bring clarity to the trickiest planning codes. We care about impact and about how we get there: with curiosity, rigor, collaboration, and a healthy dose of fun. Our culture values flexibility, work-life balance, and showing up for one another.

This is a mid-level, longer-term role for a planner who's ready to lead. As an Associate Planner, you've already managed smaller projects and supported big, complicated work. At UPP, you'll grow into fuller project management, mentoring, and proposal leadership-shaping both our projects and the firm alongside us.

You'll help deliver high-quality planning and CEQA work across Northern and Central California, with increasing responsibility for strategy, client relationships, and deliverables that move projects from vision to implementation.

(Responsibilities vary by experience and project needs.)

• Lead small and medium planning/environmental projects as PM or Deputy PM
• Draft and manage project descriptions, entitlement pathways, and CEQA topic sections
• Coordinate streamlined reviews and approvals for commercial, mixed-use, and multifamily projects

• Prepare CEQA documents (exemptions → EIRs) for infill, TOD, mixed-use, and policy projects
• Conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis with clear logic and defensible conclusions
  
  Coordinate subconsultants and maintain strong QA/QC across deliverables

• Support jurisdictions adopting pro-housing policies and objective design standards
• Review, refine, and propose ordinance updates that are implementable and durable
• Turn complex policy into clear tools that communities and staff can use

• Pull GIS data, perform spatial analysis, and create maps/visuals that tell the story
• Develop graphics for reports and engagement
• Research codes, ordinances, and official records to build sound planning pathways
• Use Adobe/Sketch Up as needed to translate ideas into accessible visuals

• Support Bay Area jurisdictions as an extension of staff
• Review applications for completeness, coordinate department feedback
• Write staff reports and present clearly to Planning Commissions/City Councils

• Design and facilitate engagement—from surveys to workshops to focus groups
• Use inclusive, innovative approaches to reach representative voices
• Translate community insight into planning outcomes people can see themselves in

• Lead/co-lead proposals and interview prep
• Support social media/marketing as needed
• Lead a long-term internal project (website, graphics, BD, etc.)
• Play an active role in professional organizations and the planning community

• 3-6 years of professional planning experience with progressive responsibility

• Bachelor’s in planning, community development, environmental science, public administration, or related field
• Master’s degree may substitute for 1 year of experience

• Managed 2-3 small projects (