Holly Owen, AICP

Holly is the Community Development Director at the City of Kingsburg. She serves not only as the planner, handling all current and long range planning, but also supervises the Building and Code Compliance departments for the City. Until September 2021, she was in the Central Coast area as Planning Director for the City of Solvang, and then as a Supervising Planner for the County of Santa Barbara.

After a long interest in local economic development and exploring what seems to make some towns ‘work’ (and others, not), She began her practicing planning career as an intern at the City of Clovis in 2010.  Holly then worked at various jurisdictions and with local mentors as a consulting contract planner before starting full-time work in Solvang. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in English from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN and Master’s coursework in City and Regional Planning from Georgia Tech in Atlanta, as well as Master’s coursework in Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota.  She has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) since 2015. She served as a circuit planner for Fresno Council of Governments, assisting several Central Valley cities with the 5^th Cycle Multi-Jurisdictional Housing Element. Holly was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and has lived in Minnesota, North Carolina, Georgia and now Fresno. After representation in 2015-2016, she is returning to serve on the Board of the Central Section of the American Planning Association.

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