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HUD   >   About HUD   >   Principal Staff   >   Shelley Poticha

Shelley R. Poticha, Director for Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities

Ms. Poticha serves as Senior Advisor for Sustainable Housing and Communities at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). A well respected expert in growth management and urban policy, Poticha will be responsible for advancing housing and communities that promote affordable, livable and sustainable living environments. She will also provide technical and policy support for energy, green building, and integrated housing and transportation programs at HUD and around the nation. Poticha will also lead HUD's interagency effort with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to help improve access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment in communities nationwide.

Poticha previously served as President and CEO of Reconnecting America, where she became a national leader for the reform of land use and transportation planning and policy with the goal of creating more sustainable and equitable development. Her work stimulated a national conversation about the role of transit in shaping communities and the importance of building diverse and inclusive neighborhoods.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Poticha was responsible for the first regional Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) policy that conditions the allocation of new transit funds on good land use planning. She also worked in Denver with the city and transit agency on a TOD Typology and Strategic Planning; in the Twin Cities to educate a broad coalition of community, business and government groups about the value of focusing the region's growth in neighborhoods served by transit; and in Seattle where she helped define a funding program for construction of a new streetcar.

Prior to joining Reconnecting America, Poticha was the Executive Director of the Congress for the New Urbanism. In this role, she guided the organization's growth into a national coalition with a prominent voice in national debates on urban revitalization, growth policy, and sprawl. She also launched a number of key initiatives addressing inter-city revitalization, mixed-income housing, infill development techniques, environmental preservation, alternative transportation policies, and real estate finance reform.

Poticha has co-authored The New Transit Town: Best Practices in Transit-Oriented Development, "Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit," the Charter of New Urbanism, and The Next American Metropolis with Peter Calthorpe.

Poticha holds a Master of City Planning from the University of California at Berkeley and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz.