John Rahaim was appointed Planning Director for the City and County of San Francisco at the beginning of 2008. In that role he is responsible for overseeing long range planning, development entitlements and environmental reviews for all physical development in the City. In addition to development and environmental reviews, John is overseeing a number of planning initiatives well underway with the City of San Francisco. These include a series of comprehensive neighborhood plans, a city-wide historic resource survey and updates to the City’s General Plan.
Prior to his appointment in San Francisco, John was Planning Director for the City of Seattle, as well as the Founding Executive Director of CityDesign, Seattle’s office of Urban Design, and the Executive Director of the Seattle Design Commission, the city’s primary design advisory panel for public projects and related urban design initiatives. Before Seattle, John was with the City of Pittsburgh Department of City Planning, where he served as Associate Director in charge of development review and the rewrite of the City’s Zoning Ordinance.
John received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.