In this Q&A, COG Planning Directors Technical Advisory Committee Chairman Eric Shaw discusses the committee’s focus for the year, which has included exploring how to bring jobs and housing closer together. This concept of striking an optimized regional land use balance was identified as a priority by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board’s (TPB) Long Range Plan Task Force, and has been a centerpiece of the aspirational element of its new long range transportation plan, Visualize 2045. Shaw is the District of Columbia Office of Planning Director, and also serves on the TPB.  

How did you get into public service and what brought you to metropolitan Washington?

I originally saw myself running for office in my home state of California and started taking classes in urban studies and planning in college to understand the questions I may get from voters and constituents. That morphed into a graduate degree in urban planning, and supporting a mission of equitable and inclusive development through work in the public and philanthropic sectors in DC, Miami, the San Francisco Bay Area, Louisiana, and Salt Lake City.

I was lucky enough to be asked by Mayor Muriel Bowser to join her administration as the Director of the DC Office of Planning. This was my second time living in DC. I worked in the Williams administration as a Capital City Fellow.

How is your work through the COG Planning Directors Technical Advisory Committee working to better our region?

I think that we need to continue regional conversations on equity and inclusive growth, and better align local planning and investments outcomes with key regional goals.

We have begun to shape a narrative around pressing planning issues like transit-oriented development, resilience, and the need for affordable housing and investments in schools and infrastructure. As planners we have to develop strategies to improve the lives of those currently in our jurisdictions and the region, while at the same time ensure responsible and inclusive growth for the future. We are having productive and cross discipline conversations with area housing directors and hope to expand to include economic development officials in those conversations.

I also have the pleasure of serving on the TPB. I am constantly engaging with my peers within the region about how to initiate and institutionalize these types of conversations at the both the COG and TPB levels. It was a great start to be able to recently present to TPB some findings and recommendations that came out of the COG Planning Directors group, including key examples of local achievements in the coordination of land use and transportation planning efforts.

How does the District benefit from membership with COG?

It is one of the few forums to have regional discussions. I also like the aspirational and connected nature of the programs, it helps me see the forest from the trees.