During Hispanic Heritage Month, Regional Plan Association (RPA) would like to recognize the impacts made on our region and organization by Hispanic or Latino staff members and Board members.

As we wrote in 2020, the urban planning profession seeks to make better places for everyone. It also has special culpability and responsibility to address racial inequality in the built environment, given the field’s legacy of contributions to racial segregation and disparate impacts in our communities. And as we’ve noted in earlier pieces, urban planning still does not reflect the diversity of our country and of our region. While 24.4% of residents in the region identify as Hispanic or Latino, only 6.8% of planners in the NY Metro Chapter area identify as Hispanic or Latino of any race —- the widest representation gap of all major racial groups in the profession.

It is difficult to ascertain if there were any individuals who identified as Hispanic or Latino during the production of the first Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs in the 1920s. The acknowledgements make reference to an Inez Price under ​“Administration and General Direction of Plans and Surveys,” but the archives do not contain further information about her.

RPA did not broaden the diversity of the organization until the 1960s during its preparation of the Second Regional Plan. Gustavo M. Porta was RPA’s Chief Draftsman. A cartographer who produced the maps in the various volumes that make up the Second Regional Plan, he is specifically credited in Public Participation in Regional Planning and The Region’s Growth. Gustavo was educated at the University of Havana and was previously with Junta Nacional De Planificacion.

Advising on the Committee of the Second Regional Plan was Emilio Nuñez, New York City’s first Hispanic judge. As his obituary noted, Justice Emilio was also ​“the first Hispanic judge on the Court of Special Sessions, on the City Court, on the State Supreme Court and in the Appellate Division.” Emilio also served as vice chairman of the Citizens Commission on the Future of the City of New York.

In the 1970s and 1980s, RPA’s Board included several Hispanic or Latino individuals, such as attorney Jack John Olivero, one of the founders of Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, Yolanda Sanchez of the Puerto Rican Association for Community Affairs, Manuel Bustelo of the National Puerto Rican Forum, and Josephine Nieves, head of the Puerto Rican Institute at Brooklyn College at CUNY. In the early 1970s, Josephine was also a member of the RPA Executive Committee, which guides the strategic direction of RPA.

In more recent years, the number of staff members and Board members identifying as Hispanic or Latino has grown. The list is not exhaustive, of course, but includes Lucrecia Montemayor, who was Deputy Director of RPA’s Energy & Environment team and was deeply engaged in RPA’s Four Corridors (4C) initiative, and Pierina Ana Sanchez, who was RPA’s NY Director during the publication of the Fourth Regional Plan. Pierina also spearheaded the analysis and policy development on both RPA’s Inclusive City report on more equitable and predictable land use in New York City and Pushed Out: Housing Displacement in an Unaffordable Region. Gloria Chin was RPA’s VP of Communications in 2021 and is now a member of the Adams administration in New York City.

Current Hispanic or Latino staff members include Marcel Negret, Senior Planner, and Roma Tejada, Accounting Manager. Roma recently celebrated her 25th work anniversary at RPA.

RPA thanks these individuals for their contributions to our organization and to the field of urban planning.