Paul Crawford

Since forming CMCA in early 1990, Paul Crawford has been involved with comprehensive planning, implementing ordinances, and computer applications for a variety of California cities and counties. He has completed a new Land Use Element for the Placer County General Plan, Energy Elements of the General Plan for Glenn and San Luis Obispo counties, and a study of the Santa Clara County South County Agricultural Preserve. He has also completed new zoning ordinances for Marin and Placer counties, and the cities of Buellton, Calabasas, Mountain View and Pismo Beach, a Local Coastal Program for the City of Guadalupe, and a 12,000-acre specific plan for Solano County. He is currently managing the preparation of a new General Plan for the Town of Loomis, and new zoning codes for the cities of Chico, Novato, Sonoma, Truckee, and West Hollywood. He served as interim planning director for the City of Buellton for the first two years after the incorporation of that City.

Paul Crawford was Director of Planning and Building for San Luis Obispo County from 1980 to 1990. He concurrently served as Executive Director of the San Luis Obispo County Council of Governments. He managed over 85 staff with an annual budget of $4 million. Under his management, San Luis Obispo County: updated the Land Use, Circulation and Housing Elements of the General Plan; prepared several specific plans (including initiation of a joint city-county effort); obtained Community Development Block Grant funds for low-income housing programs; received certification of the county’s Local Coastal Program from the California Coastal Commission; and completed successful permit process streamlining efforts. In 1988, Crawford directed the processing of land use permits and preparation of an EIS/EIR for a major onshore support facility and pipeline as part of a new offshore oil project. From 1984 to 1989, he served on a tri-county advisory committee on offshore oil issues established by the Governor’s Secretary of Environmental Affairs.

The San Luis Obispo County Department of Planning and Building also achieved significant advances in office automation under Mr. Crawford’s management. Crawford was acknowledged in the September, 1989 issue of Planning magazine (“Stalking the Wild Permit,” page 24) as having developed one of the first automated permit tracking systems in the nation. He has also performed extensive research and development work in the automation of zoning information retrieval and zoning ordinance administration. Among the results of that work was an automated zoning information system for San Luis Obispo County, including 24-hour zoning information service to the public (the “Zone Phone”).

Before his tenure as planning and building director, he was the project manager for the county’s comprehensive Land Use Element/Land Use Ordinance, a single-map integrated land use policy and regulatory system that replaced the more traditional two-document zoning ordinance and general plan format. He personally drafted the Land Use Ordinance. This innovative project won the American Planning Association California Chapter meritorious program award in 1981.

Mr. Crawford has also worked as interim Planning Director for the City of Pismo Beach and served in a variety of capacities for cities in the California Central Valley. Before his public sector work, Mr. Crawford was a private consultant in Visalia, where he worked on a number of land use and site planning projects and prepared several EIRs. He also designed streetscape elements of a downtown revitalization program, designed neighborhood parks and served as a staff advisor for a Housing Authority.

Mr. Crawford earned his B.S. degree in City and Regional Planning at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he now teaches several courses, including Introduction to Urban Planning and Planning Administration, and a graduate seminar in Planning Agency Management. He was selected by the Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design as 1990-91 Honored Alumnus. He is also a computer expert, and has served on the faculty of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, U.C. Davis Extension, and U.C.L.A. Extension, where he teaches professional development courses in zoning ordinance drafting, and geographic information systems (GIS).

Crawford is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), American Planning Association (APA), Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), Association of Environmental Professionals (AEP), and the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA). Mr. Crawford was president of the California County Planning Directors Association in 1988 and 1989. He has participated extensively in the legislative review activities of the County Supervisors Association of California (CSAC), and was the recipient of a CSAC Circle of Service Award in 1989, for that work. He has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County, and on the CalTrans District V External Advisory Committee. Crawford was elected to the California Planning Roundtable in 1993, served as its secretary in 1997 and 1998, and currently serves as its president. In October 1998, he received the Award of Excellence for Leadership as a Professional Planner from the California Chapter of the American Planning Association.

Mr. Crawford is an excellent communicator, whether writing or speaking, and has the ability to make highly technical information understandable without trivializing the content. He is a good meeting facilitator and mediator and is able to help groups work through complex problems to solutions. His experience as a professional photographer and film maker also enhances the clarity and effectiveness of the documents and public participation programs he produces. (His photos have been published in a variety of periodicals, and his documentary film The World Within is being used by school districts, national and state parks throughout the United States. He also was one of the authors and a principal commentator in two videotapes available from the American Planning Association: Why Plan?, and The Role and Responsibility of the Planning Commissioner.) In his various capacities he has earned a reputation for thoughtfulness, thoroughness and political sensitivity.