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Andrew Altman was featured on KCUR-FM's
"Up to Date", Nov. 10, 2004

The Kansas City Design Center is pleased to announce that Andrew Altman, Director of Planning for the District of Columbia, will be the first speaker in our 2004-2005 lecture series,
Re-imagining the Public Realm.

When he joined the District of Columbia Planning Department at the invitation of Mayor Anthony Williams in 1999, Andrew Altman faced a host of potential problems. The agency had limited powers, even less influence, and faced intense ambivalence about its relevance to development policies and meeting neighborhood needs. City planning in Washington, D.C. had long been the exclusive domain of the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees federal buildings and projects, while the local planning staff was mired in bureaucratic minutiae, such as reviewing building permits. Local government lacked the necessary policies and public processes to improve neighborhoods, enhance local economic development, and create an urban design vision for Washington beyond the beltway.

With the strong political support of Mayor Williams, Altman has expanded the stature and influence of the agency, hiring nearly 60 planners and working to create new land use and development policies, including the District's first comprehensive plan in nearly 40 years. The American Planning Association recently honored Altman for his agency's work on the Urban Design Framework for the Near Southeast, which has rekindled development interest in economically-distressed areas along the Anacostia River.

Referred to locally as Washington's "forgotten river," the Anacostia waterfront was riddled with obsolescent industrial sites and large-scale governmental uses. Altman's work provides a vision of the river as a vibrant new waterfront neighborhood with 4,200 new housing units, 41 acres of new open space, and more than 14 million square feet of office and retail space. As part of a larger Anacostia Waterfront Initiative led by Mayor Williams, the framework also attempts to bridge Washington's racial divide: the Anacostia has long served as a profound physical barrier between poor African-American neighborhoods and the District's monumental core.

Altman's remarkable achievements recently led one national commentator to liken his influence to that of Pierre L'Enfant, who designed Washington under the supervision of the nation's first president, and James McMillan, whose 1901 plan for the Washington Mall still guides major decisions made about the seat of the federal government. "Over the past five years, " says Governing magazine, "Altman has not only restored the agency's influence within city government but placed Washington itself back at the forefront of debate about the future of the planning profession."

Biography

Andrew Altman served as the director of city planning and manager of comprehensive planning for the City of Oakland, California, from 1995 to 1999. The plan Mr. Altman developed for Oakland received the California American Planning Association Award for Best Comprehensive Plan.

From March 1991 to July 1995, Mr. Altman was the special assistant to the administrator of the Community Redevelopment Agency in Los Angeles. He was in charge of planning services, including management of the Downtown Strategic Plan, a public/private partnership that developed an action program for downtown Los Angeles. As special assistant to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley from October 1989 to March 1991, Mr. Altman was a primary adviser and representative on all issues related to redevelopment.

Mr. Altman holds a master's degree in city planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Arts in geography from Temple University.