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IoES Professor Appointed as L.A. County Regional Planning Commissioner
Dr. Stephanie Pincetl has been selected to the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission (RPC) by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. Supervisor Kuehl was recently elected to represent the Third District in Los Angeles County, a region of two million constituents and 431 square miles.
Dr. Pincetl is professor-in-residence at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and founding director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities (CCSC). Her research focuses on urban sustainability and the interaction between cities and ecosystems. She has written extensively about land use in California, environmental justice, habitat conservation efforts, water and energy policy. Her book, Transforming California, the Political History of Land Use in the State, is the definitive work on land use politics and policies of California.
Under Dr. Pincetl’s leadership, the California Center for Sustainable Communities is a partner in UCLA’s premier Grand Challenge, Sustainable LA, Thriving in a Hotter Los Angeles. The CCSC’s research focuses on resource flows across L.A. County and brings together powerful data sets as a tangible resource for planning and decision making. For example, the CCSC at UCLA’s Interactive Energy Atlas (expected launch date June 2015) is a website that links energy consumption data with land use information, socio-demographic characteristics, and climate variables. This type of analysis and the accompanying resources can help policy-makers and stakeholders better target conservation and efficiency programs and support the development of policies for greater environmental sustainability.
Dr. Pincetl is an expert in bringing together interdisciplinary teams of researchers across the biophysical and engineering sciences with the social sciences to address problems of complex urban systems and environmental management. She serves in a leadership capacity and as a member of the Spatial & Discipline Integration and Biodiversity committees for the UCLA Grand Challenge.
Additionally, Dr. Pincetl has served on numerous environmental group boards including the Communities for a Better Environment and the Planning and Conservation League. She currently is a board member of the Theodore Payne Foundation and Faculty Director of the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability (LARC).
Dr. Pincetl is looking forward to working with the county on climate adaptation planning, better conservation of local ecosystems and habitats, and better linkage between mass transit and land-use planning.
About Supervisor Kuehl
Supervisor Sheila Kuehl was elected in 2014 to represent the Third District in Los Angeles County, a region of two million constituents that includes much of the mid-city, Hollywood, San Fernando Valley and Westside portions of the City of Los Angeles, including unincorporated Topanga and other communities in the Santa Monica Mountains. The District also includes the cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Malibu, West Hollywood, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, San Fernando and Westlake Village.
Supervisor Kuehl previously served eight years in the State Senate and six years in the State Assembly. She is the Founding Director of the Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College and, in 2012, was Regents’ Professor in Public Policy at UCLA. While working in the State Senate and State Assembly, she authored 171 bills that were signed into law, including legislation to establish paid family leave, establish nurse to patient ratios in hospitals; protect the Santa Monica Mountains and prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender and disability in the workplace and sexual orientation in education. She fought to establish true universal health insurance in California.
About the Regional Planning Commission
The Regional Planning Commission’s five voting Commissioners are appointed to four-year terms by the Board of Supervisors. In addition, there are four advisory, non-voting, members. The Planning Commission acts as an advisory body to the Board of Supervisors on all planning matters, and administers the provisions of the State Planning Law (Title 7, Division I, of the Government Code), the State Subdivision Map Act, CEQA, and the Los Angeles County Ordinances affecting planning such as the County Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Ordinance. It formulates planning policies and conducts regular Public Hearings each Wednesday, which can include review and approval of proposed development projects in unincorporated County areas. More information can be found here.