It’s official - Susan Alanis is your new planning director. From the city’s web site:

City Manager Dale Fisseler has appointed Susan Alanis as director of Fort Worth’s Planning and Development Department, replacing Fernando Costa who recently was tapped as one of the city’s five assistant city managers.

A number of things strike me as curious about this decision; for example, Alanis’ lack of actual urban planning experience:

Most recently serving as acting director of the Planning and Development Department, Alanis joined the city in 1996 as a budget analyst, moving to the Police Department in 1999 to manage administrative services and to become the department’s first civilian assistant director. She was named deputy director of the Development Department in 2006 and was instrumental in merging the Planning and Development departments in 2007.

This concerns me, because under previous Planning & Development Director (and new Assistant City Manager) Fernando Costa, Fort Worth made remarkable strides towards rebuilding its central city and promoting smart urban development. Costa was instrumental in sparking the revitalization of areas like the Near Southside and Six Points, and his work started the city on a path away from continued emphasis on suburban sprawl towards walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods in the central city.

Costa has the background to back up his rep: he worked in city planning in Georgia for 22 years before coming to Fort Worth in 1998. Eleven of those years were spent as planning director of the city of Atlanta, a role which saw him promote and enable the New Urbanism in that city as well.

Alanis, on the other hand, joined the city as a budget analyst. Her major accomplishments in the Planning & Development Department seem to be things like new field computers for inspectors, and an online permitting system. Nothing wrong with that, but still a far cry from Costa’s track record of smart urban development experience. With the city now on the path towards real urban revitalization all around the core and working to counteract the negatives of sprawl, is it wise to appoint a planning director with no apparent planning experience?

There’s more to this tale, though, than just questions of qualification. [Read more]