Melani Smith

Biografía: Melani Smith leads development and implementation of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments’ (COG’s) subregional housing programs, associated with the southeast Los Angeles agency’s significant portfolio of grant funding in this arena. She supports COG local jurisdictions in developing robust housing policy and plans, introduces subregional approaches to addressing the housing need in the region, addressing both housing preservation and production. She is also leading efforts to educate and communicate with COG’s member jurisdictions about the affordable housing development process, typologies, and interested developers. She is integrating her efforts with those of the COG’s Homelessness Program Manager, seeking to ensure that the full spectrum of housing need is considered in an integrated fashion in the subregion. Prior to joining the COG, she was a Senior Director in LA Metro’s Transit Oriented Communities planning group, where she focused on integrating sustainable and healthy urban design, first/last mile connections and equitable access for all, into Metro mobility corridor projects in LA County. She led Metro’s team preparing a TOD Strategic Implementation Plan for the 12 station areas that have been identified along the future West Santa Ana Branch transit corridor through the Gateway Cities in southeast Los Angeles County. She also developed a multi-year implementation program for the Plan, through which Metro will continue to support West Santa Ana Branch cities in undertaking strategic, coordinated, and sustainable transit supportive planning and placemaking in their station areas. Much of her career prior to Metro was focused on building and leading led vision-driven urban design and planning practices in Southern California. She did this in her many years as CEO/President and Principal at Meléndrez (now RELM Studio) in downtown Los Angeles, and as Director of Governmental Services at The Planning Center (now Placeworks), in Costa Mesa,