Lydia leads projects that promote equitable economic development and resiliency and manages large-scale participatory planning processes.

Lydia supports a variety of HR&A services including program design, financial and organizational strategy, community engagement, and climate adaptation planning. Most recently, she developed an equitable economic development framework for Greenwood Park in Baton Rouge, and is working to design the City of Newark, NJ’s approach to economic development and long-term recovery from COVID-19.

She supported the historic transition of Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County’s first female County Judge, including leading program development and management for the Talking Transition initiative, the County’s largest community outreach and participatory policy-making initiative in recent history. Lydia has developed strategies for organizations including the NYC Department of Education’s Division of Early Childhood Education, for which she also developed and is supporting the implementation of a Racial Equity Plan.

Through her work as a Forefront Fellow with the Urban Design Forum, she developed physical, programmatic, and financial strategies for resident-led resilience and climate adaptation planning on NYCHA campuses. Lydia received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and pursued coursework in Environmental Science and Public Policy at both Harvard College and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Jon draws on his experience in public-private partnerships, real estate development strategy, and climate adaptation planning to create more productive, inspiring, and resilient urban spaces.

Jon works with interdisciplinary teams to address complex urban challenges that demand economic, design, public policy, and scientific analyses. At HR&A, his work has included project management, financial analysis, and economic impact analysis for several large real estate projects in New York City, including the Anable Basin redevelopment plan. He has advised the Trustees of Reservations in their efforts to create a new world-class park on the Boston waterfront, as well as organizations in New York and Toronto seeking to transform the public realm. Jon has played a major role in citywide climate adaptation plans in New York, Boston, and Miami-Dade County, and has managed or contributed to economic analyses for the flood control infrastructure plans in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.

Prior to joining HR&A, Jon worked at SiteCompli, a real estate technology company whose software helps New York City owners and managers stay on top of building code compliance. He also interned at the New York City Department of City Planning’s Waterfront Division, guiding City policy related to sea-level rise; researched public-private partnerships at New Yorkers for Parks; and provided management and policy support at the Times Square Alliance during the Broadway pedestrianization project.

Jon holds a master’s in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he concentrated in Real Estate & Urban Development and Environmental Planning. At Harvard, Jon won the urban planning Academic Excellence award and participated in teams that achieved the following: first place in the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston’s Affordable Housing Development Competition; semi-finalist in the Boston Living with Water competition; and a Student Project Award from the American Institute of Certified Planners. Jon also holds a B.A. with Honors in Psychology from Yale, where he wrote, directed, and produced a musical comedy.

• Forefront Fellow, Urban Design Forum
• Member, American Planning Association

Thomas Jansen is an experienced urban strategist providing real-estate, policy, financial and economic advisory to municipalities, institutions, and developers. Thomas helps clients and stakeholders navigate complexity to advance the implementation of real-estate and planning projects that produce wide-ranging public benefits.

Thomas’s experience includes developing market-aligned visions for large-scale development projects, navigating fraught entitlement processes, and designing creative financing strategies.

Working at the intersection of the public and private sectors, Thomas advances complex development projects. These projects require close partnerships to move beyond market or financial challenges to deliver jobs, affordable housing and vital urban environments. Frequently, Thomas also works with public agencies and institutions to maximize the potential of public assets and transportation investments. Thomas has:

• Advised the City of San Jose in negotiations with Google for a development agreement for the 80-acre Downtown West mixed-use neighborhood, which will include 1,000 affordable units, a $155 million community-directed stabilization and opportunity pathways fund, 15 acres of parks and open space, and other benefits.
• Shaped a streamlined entitlement framework for Downtown Los Angeles on behalf of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning that will produce tens of millions of dollars of affordable housing and community benefits through incentive zoning structures which will be replicated in similar benefit programs in other Los Angeles community plan updates.
• Analyzed the Los Angeles Unified School District’s portfolio of over 6,400 acres of facilities and identified top opportunities for revenue generation and affordable housing production. In this assignment, Thomas managed the creation of a live tool incorporating property data to inform ongoing decision-making by senior executives.
• Worked closely with planning and design teams to create market-aligned land use programs for dozens of large public and private properties. Project locations have ranged from the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas to Austin, Cape Town, Dallas, Denver, Hong Kong, Santa Fe, and Seattle-Tacoma, among others.

Thomas also manages analysis and strategy development for important policy initiatives. Thomas’s work focuses on growing access to economic opportunity, in part by aligning public-sector and business interests to invest in multi-benefit solutions. Thomas:

• Developed the City of Los Angeles’ first citywide economic developments strategy. The strategy included a 5-year strategic plan with organizational recommendations to better deliver economic development services, programs to address economic inequities and empower Angelenos, programs to strengthen city businesses, and place-based programs to grow local economies.
• Determined the necessity of expanding the California State University System by constructing a 24th campus, as directed by the California State Legislature, through analysis of long-term enrollment demand and workforce/occupational needs. This effort identified more cost-effective strategies to invest in the system’s capacity and better serve first-generation, underrepresented minority and low-income students.
• Surveyed the Urban Land Institute’s membership to analyze adoption of real estate development progressive practices that support social equity, health equity and individual health outcomes. This first-of-its kind survey also included recommendations for ULI to advance member awareness and adoption of such practices.

Prior to joining the firm, Thomas worked as an owner’s representative in New York City and as an urban designer for mixed-use development projects in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Thomas received his Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and pursued coursework in Real Estate Design and Development at both the Wharton School and Penn’s School of Design. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.