Lucia E. Garsys

Background

About Lucia E. Garsys

Weaving creative ideas, partnering to fund capital needs and framing community conversations is Lucia's unique talent. She brings planners, developers, engineers and elected officials together to focus on innovative community solutions by harmonizing seemingly disparate perspectives. She credits her early urban design and redevelopment work with her capital funding and growth policy experience as the perspectives that provided for a wide range and telescopic lens on issues. Lucia held executive level positions in the fourth largest and rapidly growing county in Florida, consulted nationally and globally on community and economic development; introduced planning principles in re-emerging democracies; and continues to bring her knowledge to boards, committees and panels. in Hillsborough County, FL, she broke bureaucratic structures and forged a consolidated mission with employees in the planning, development, and public works sectors to build better communities. She targeted portions of a $1 billion capital program and an annual operating budget of $500+ million to serve neighborhood needs, address resiliency and pedestrian safety. She built partnerships with developers to fund critical infrastructure, led multi-year efforts for a transportation referendum and addressed controversial topics through task forces and work groups. As a consultant, she focussed on land use planning; downtown revitalization with tax increment financing including a sales tax component; developer recruitment and fiscal impact analysis for villages and towns in the Chicago area. Separately, she conducted economic assessments and target industry studies for a national site location firm. In Fairfax County, Virginia she directed the update to an obsolete Comprehensive Plan. She has touched multiple tentacles of planning and development. Her work in Eastern Europe led to transparent land development and planning processes for a half-dozen cities. Lucia's perspectives continue to broaden through peer engagement in ULI where she serves on local boards, on ULI Advisory Panels, its Infrastructure Forum and most recently serving as a juror for Americas and Global Design Excellence Awards. She served as a member on the Board on the Built Environment of the National Research Council and its advisory committees. Lucia believes her abilities are grounded in a family of architects and real estate professionals who piqued her curiosity, enabled her to be agile and gave her an appetite to tackle the tough stuff.