April 2006: Affordable Housing in Downtown Austin: Oxymoron or Opportunity?
Speaker Bios
Betts Abel is a Development Specialist with the Housing Development section of the Department of Community Planning, Housing & Development in Arlington County, VA. She works with developers to use available financial and land use tools to incorporate affordable housing into proposed projects. She also focuses on policy efforts related to homeownership covenants, bonus density and housing fund contributions. Previous activities include commercial real estate development with private developers as well as work with nonprofits in affordable housing and in historic preservation. She is a member of Lambda Alpha International and has a BA from Hiram College and an MA from the George Washington University.
Conrad Egan is president and CEO of the National Housing Conference (NHC), the nation’s oldest and most broad-based housing advocacy organization. Mr. Egan was appointed to this position after serving for five years as NHC’s director of policy. During 2001 and 2002, Conrad was on a leave of absence from NHC so that he could serve as executive director of the Millennial Housing Commission, established by the United States Congress to recommend ways to better support good housing for all Americans.
His involvement in community development and housing dates back to 1965 when he worked on local housing activities in Detroit, Michigan. In 1969, Conrad joined the staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) serving in a variety of headquarters and field assignments, including serving as director of the Office of Multifamily Housing Management. He would later rejoin the HUD staff as a special assistant to the deputy assistant secretary for multifamily programs, and then became a special assistant to former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. From 1986 to 1993, Conrad was executive vice president of NHP Inc., at the time one of the nation’s largest multifamily property owners and managers. Conrad’s commitment to housing issues extends beyond the workplace into community service. He is also currently serving as the chairman of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
Jerrold Glick is a co-founder of Urban Ventures, LLC, a multi-family housing developer, and is the general partner of Columbia Group LLLP, a real estate investment partnership. Mr. Glick is also the founder and director of several health care companies. His development activities are focused primarily in the Lower Downtown, Upper Larimer, and Highlands Districts of Denver. Projects include the rehabilitation of mixed-use buildings, and the development of low- to moderate-income housing. Mr. Glick is also the chairman of Workforce Housing Initiatives, a nonprofit entity focusing on housing for Denver’s workforce.
Mr. Glick has been active on a number of community boards and commissions including the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, Denver Civic Ventures, Inc., Central Platte Valley Development Council of the Denver Partnership and the City of Denver’s Affordable Housing Task Force.
Charles H. Heimsath is president and founder of Capitol Market Research and has been active in commercial and residential market/feasibility studies and real estate research since 1976. Prior to establishing Capitol Market Research, Mr. Heimsath was responsible for feasibility/market research at R. Robinson & Associates (a real estate appraisal firm). Prior to this position, Mr. Heimasath managed the real estate research division at the Rice Center while living in Houston, Texas. Mr. Heimsath has also served as associate director of the South Main Center Association in Houston and as an urban economist in the mayor’s office in Houston. He obtained his Masters degree in City Planning from The University of Texas.
Ed McNamara is the sole member of Turtle Island Development, LLC, a real estate development company focusing on central-city multifamily development. Mr. McNamara’s most recent project is the Sitka Apartments, a 210-unit mixed-use, mixed-income apartment building in Portland’s Pearl District. Prior to his work with Turtle Island Development, Mr. McNamara worked with Prendergast and Associates, Inc. a Portland real estate development company, from 1995 to 2001. During that time, he developed 496 units of apartments – both affordable and market-rate – and condominiums in projects that received numerous awards for environmental innovation and transit-oriented design.
Mr. McNamara’s other experience includes 10 years as a contractor, 7 years as executive director of REACH Community Development in southeast Portland, 4 years as director of the Neighborhood Partnership Fund at the Oregon Community Foundation, and a year at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellowship Program.
Joseph Montoya has recently been named the deputy director of the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority where he is overseeing operations and new development initiatives. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Montoya worked with the Albuquerque Civic Trust as the first director where he created all the operational and structural procedures and initiated the Trusts’ first development. Mr. Montoya also currently has a private consultant practice named MonTec Inc where he has worked on land use, finance and organizational development issues, and a private development fund. He is also developing a resource data bank and capacity building in the Colonias Project in southern New Mexico with Enterprise Foundation. He also has worked on statewide economic development issues for the McCune Charitable Foundation.
Mr. Montoya also has served as the community services director for the City of Santa Fe, charged with overseeing arts, human services, children and youth, senior citizens, library, and economic development and housing. As the community development director and the housing and economic development team leader, Mr. Montoya garnered several national awards including the Ford Foundation/Kennedy School of Government Innovations in American Government Award, Pew Partnership for Civic Change Award, James C. Howland Urban Enrichment Award, three John J. Gunther Blue Ribbon Best Practice Awards and the National American Planning Association Award For Implementation. Mr. Montoya holds a BS in Architecture and a BA in University Studies from the University of New Mexico and has a final project away in order to complete his duel Masters Program in Planning and Public Administration.
Cynthia Parker leads Seattle-Northwest Securities Corporation’s (SNW) housing and real estate development group, specializing in housing finance agencies, housing authorities, 501(c)3 corporations, corporate clients, and public sector finance. Ms Parker is experienced in various forms of credit enhancement, as well as federal programs including Fannie Mae, FHA, and Freddie Mac programs. Prior to her work at SNW, Ms. Parker served as the City of Seattle's Director of Housing, where she was responsible for the City's housing policy and investment activities, including an $87 Million housing levy approved by the Seattle voters. Ms. Parker also has headed a large non-profit CDC development entity in Alaska. As the governor’s representative, she was one of the key architects of legislation which merged various governmental entities into the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, (AHFC) dedicating over one billion dollars to affordable and rural housing. She later assisted AHFC in developing a master multifamily housing bond programs that provided conduit credit enhancement for its affordable housing financings. While living in Anchorage, she was named the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce business woman of the year and is still active with the Anchorage Chamber’s Athena program.
Ms. Parker has constructed over 3,500 units of affordable housing and provided syndication of tax credit equities. In 1997, one of her Anchorage, Alaska projects was named by Fannie Mae as the best affordable development in the nation and was awarded the prestigious Maxwell Award. She is also a former director of the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco, where she served as deputy chair. Ms. Parker is a graduate of Portland State University and is a Series 52 registered representative. She is also currently a member of the Sound Families initiative for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an initiative aimed at providing housing for homeless families.
Michael Pyatok has 37 years of experience in his profession and has served the American Institute of Architects on its National Affordable Housing Task Group and is a fellow with the AIA. Besides designing and actively participating in the firm's projects, Mr. Pyatok is also a professor of architectural design and the newly appointed director of the Center for Affordable Homes and the Family at Arizona State University in Phoenix. He continues to lecture about the firm's housing work at many schools of architecture and conferences, and to periodically write for professional journals about issues related to multifamily housing design, the need for more compact transit-related communities and design methods which include citizen participation. Mr. Pyatok has also taught at various other prestigious universities including the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the University of Washington in Seattle, the University of California in Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, The Chicago Tribune and all major architectural journals. Mr. Pyatok has won twelve out of fourteen design competitions he has entered since 1977, placing second in two. These competitions include diverse projects such as high-density mixed use and affordable housing in New York City and downtown Seattle, West Hollywood's new Civic Center, high-density housing and retail related to a transit station in San Diego and, most recently, high-density housing in downtown Oakland.
The National Endowment for the Arts sponsored Mr. Pyatok to run housing design workshops in many diverse cities from Miami to Santa Monica to New Haven and Portland, Oregon. He has been a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright Fellow in Helsinki, Finland. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a grant to write a book about how to design higher density affordable housing called "Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing." In 2002, Pyatok Architects was chosen as Architecture Firm of the Year by Residential Architect Magazine, and Builder Magazine identified Mr. Pyatok as one of the 12 thought leaders in the field of development.
Renata Simril is a vice president with Forest City Development. She is responsible for implementing the strategic vision for Forest City’s residential and mixed-use development throughout the Southern California region and is currently the development manager for the adaptive reuse of 3800 Wilshire building (former Getty Oil Building) into high-end condominiums. Ms. Simril has an extensive background in real estate development from both the public and private perspectives. Prior to joining Forest City, she served in the Hahn Administration as his deputy mayor for housing and economic development and was vice president for Genesis LA Economic Growth Corporation, a private, not-for-profit organization that facilitates private sector investment in underserved communities throughout Los Angeles County.
Ms. Simril has also served as director of development for LCOR Public/Private, Inc. in Los Angeles, where she was responsible for directing and supervising all aspects of the firm’s commercial real estate development projects in the greater Los Angeles County area; and has served as the deputy for redevelopment activities under former Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas where she managed the implementation of all aspects of the District’s redevelopment policies and economic development priorities. Ms. Simril holds an undergraduate degree in urban studies from Loyola Marymount University and a Masters degree from the University of Southern California. She also teaches Urban Infill Development for USC School of Policy Planning and Development.
