The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) Planning & Research Department is seeking interns to engage in challenging regional planning tasks addressing land use, housing, neighborhood development, and urban policies. Projects and tasks will include:

• Regional Forecast—Intern will participate in tasks that directly support developing the distribution of population, households, jobs to jurisdictions and Priority Development Areas. This includes working with jurisdictions to verify local plans and expectations, and comparative analysis to assess feasibility of different development patterns. Intern will research underlying factors affecting the forecast, such as location choice of households throughout the region.

• Open-Data Land Use, Policy & Development Database—Multiple interns will work on a suite of coordinated projects to refresh, expand, integrate several datasets related to current land use, current development and local land use plans and policies:

o Creating a Development Tracking Dashboard: Intern will refine a pilot process for regular, semi-automated collection of building permit data from jurisdictions to help create a first of its kind “dashboard” for tracking all development in the region.

o Building a regional regulatory policy database: Intern will expand on the regional regulatory policy database in order to make it more useful for policy analysis and as a potential input source for the UrbanSim land use model. The project will identify regulations, especially those affecting production of both market-rate and affordable housing.

o Identifying housing sites for the Bay Area: Intern will complete the existing online inventory of housing sites for the Bay Area identified by each jurisdiction through their housing element.

o Tracking housing growth in the Bay Area: Intern will collect, prepare and release 2014 regional housing permit summary and prepare a summary report of residential growth in the Bay Area.

• Enhancing Planning Team Visual Resources—Intern will work with Planning and Research Department staff to strengthen the visual/graphic content of reports and website by harvesting existing high quality photos, video and other graphics to fill content gaps identified by staff, producing missing content, and assisting with technical tasks related to print and media publication.

QUALIFICATIONS
Applicants must be in urban or regional planning or a related field, and have completed at least their junior year of undergraduate study, be in a graduate program, or have recently graduated. Other qualifications include excellent writing, analytical, and communication skills, and an understanding of recent urban growth patterns, sustainability and equity concepts. Proficiency with Microsoft Word and Excel is required. GIS and data collection skills are desirable.

Compensation: $13.50 - $17.50 per hour depending on education and experience

Duration: Up to twelve weeks during the months of June through September 2015

TO APPLY
In order to be considered for a summer internship, you will need to submit the following items to ABAG by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 17, 2015.

1. Completed ABAG application (Use “2015” for the Job Number)
2. Completed Interest Form (choice of internship projects)
3. Resume
4. One-page writing sample
5. Cover letter

The ABAG application and job announcement can be obtained from www.abag.ca.gov/jobs.html. The Interest Form is on the last page of the job announcement. Send all 5 items to:

Mailing Address:
Internship Coordinator
ABAG Summer Internship Program
P.O. Box 2050
Oakland, CA 94604-2050

Street Address (for Drop Off during normal office hours 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., M-F)
101 8th Street
Oakland, CA 94607

Completed application and required materials must be received by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 17, 2015.

ABAG is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified disabled individuals are protected against discrimination.

For questions or assistance, contact Christina Fong, ABAG HR Department, at 510-464-7941 or ChrisF@abag.ca.gov.