Senior Urban Planner / Project Manager

ESA seeks a highly motivated Urban Planning Project Manager to join us in any of our Southern California offices, with the flexibility to work in office or remote. We have several offices to choose from based on your preferences. We have offices in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Irvine, Pasadena, and San Diego, CA). We are looking for a team member with 5 years of planning experience who is proactive and has the intellectual curiosity to continue the advancement of our established team of community planners and environmental consultants. This opportunity is focused on collaboration, delivery, and client service.

Who You Are

• You are a mid-level professional with a strong desire to grow and advance your career and to develop your planning and project management skills.
• You are an effective and energetic team member with5 or more years of experience supporting aspects of community planning relating to land use, community planning, public policy, climate change, and urban design.
• Must have a minimum of 5 years of CEQA knowledge.
• You have a strong working knowledge of policy planning, land use permitting, and relevant federal, state, and local regulatory and environmental regulations and processes.
• You have strong project management, business development, writing and analytical skills, and effective oral presentation skills with the ability to convey complex information understandably to different audiences.
• You hold a bachelor's or master's degree with major course work in urban planning, urban design, geography, public policy; or a related interdisciplinary field, who can work with minimal direction for most tasks and manage projects.
• Proficiency in design software, such as Adobe Creative Suite, ArcGIS, SketchUp, or other is a plus but not a requirement.
• You are located near one of ourSouthern California offices.

What You Will Do for ESA

As an Urban Planner, you will serve as project manager and contributing author for community planning documents, for municipal and private development clients, including but not limited to Specific/Master Plans, Area Plans, Neighborhood Plans, General Plan Updates (whole or partial updates), Climate Adaptation Plans, and a range of other projects based on team interest, firm/staff qualifications and capacity.

You will be responsible for coordinating the task or project delivery schedule, managing logistics, disseminating and maintaining related information and resources, assisting with budget tracking and invoicing, meeting with team members to gauge progress toward task completion, and responding to team member or client questions about assigned tasks or projects.

You will apply critical thinking and problem-solving to evaluate, select, and adapt standard techniques and procedures in the development of planning documents for both the private and public sector clients. You will be required to effectively communicate with staff, clients, and teaming partners and serve as a trusted professional bringing creative and innovative solutions to clients.

Other job duties may include:

• Managing projects involving a multi-disciplinary team (5 years minimum actively managing projects or equivalent);
• Business development including responding to request for proposals, preparing scopes and budgets and coordinating with subconsultants;
• Working closely with clients and serving as the primary, or one of the primary points of day-to-day contact;
• Leading or assisting with proposal and other business development efforts;
• Occasional traveling for project work;
• Performing quality control of project deliverables; and
• Training and developing the careers of junior level staff.

What ESA Will Do for You

Joining ESA means becoming part of a close-knit team of environmental and planning professionals who contribute to outstanding projects, improve environmental stewardship, and advance a more sustainable and resilient future for our communities and wild places.

At ESA, we spend our days helping to keep the environment in balance, and we want to help keep your life in balance too-by providing benefits such as medical, dental, and vision insurance (paid at 70% for you AND your family), a 401(k) plan with company match, an employee stock ownership program, and paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays, to name a few.

No matter what stage you are at in your career, we provide opportunities for continued growth, development, and recognition. Whether you want to further your technical expertise, sharpen your business acumen, or help lead the next generation of employee-owners, we want to support you in reaching your career goals, and we believe these efforts will not only benefit you, but will also benefit all ESA colleagues and clients. Specific programs we offer include tuition reimbursement, professional development bonuses, and attendance at conferences.

What's Special About Our Community Development Team

Our Community Development team has built a legacy of success preparing award-winning, long-range planning documents for a broad spectrum of communities, providing environmental compliance, clearance, and advancement. We combine our firm's technical depth in community planning, climate action and adaptation planning, natural resources science and environmental planning with deep knowledge of local regulatory practices and procedures, including the most current legislation and case law, to create value-added, cost-effective, and legally defensible solutions for our clients.

ESA is unique in that we have a deep scientific, technical, and regulatory expertise, which we apply to our planning and environmental review projects. We keep project approval and implementation at the forefront, balancing long-term planning, community attributes, stakeholder objectives, and cost. Our focus is on comprehensiveness and clarity, and the result is that our planning, CEQA, and NEPA documents are frequently recognized by professional organizations with awards for creative approach and quality.

We have worked on many exciting, award-winning projects, such as:

• Southern California Association of Governments Climate Adaptation Framework
• Oxnard Climate Action and Adaptation Plan
• Alhambra Sustainability Plan
• Alhambra Housing Element Implementation Project
• Ormand Beach Restoration and Public Access Project
• Culver City General Plan Update
• Los Angeles County Area Plan - West San Gabriel Valley and East San Gabriel Valley
• Santa Barbara County Solar Amendments