Sarah Cawrse
|
Office |
Town of Portola Valley, CA |
|---|---|
| Phone | (970) 297-8843 |
| scawrse@portolavalley.net |
Biography
Sarah currently serves as Planning & Building Director for the Town of Portola Valley, California, where she sits on the Town’s executive leadership team and reports directly to the Town Manager. She oversees a $2 million department budget covering long-range planning, design review, entitlement and permit processing, policy development, and code enforcement. Prior to that, she founded Flora Strategies, a sole-practitioner strategic planning consultancy.
Sarah also served as Executive Director, Urban Strategy & Design for the River North (RiNo) Business Improvement District (BID) and General Improvement District (GID). In that role, she managed a $5 million budget in collaboration with the Board of Directors to invest in projects, programs, and initiatives supporting community vitality, public realm improvements, advocacy, programs/events/activations, and support for businesses and creatives.
Before her time at RiNo, Sarah worked in local government for over six years, serving as a Principal City Planner and Urban Designer for the City of Boulder and a Senior City Planner and Urban Designer for the City & County of Denver. In these roles, she led innovative public outreach efforts, built consensus among diverse stakeholders, and managed complex planning and regulatory initiatives that balanced development, design quality, and community benefits.
Earlier in her career, Sarah worked at Design Workshop, a nationally recognized landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm. There, she contributed to a wide range of projects, from large-scale master plans to detailed site design. Sarah graduated from Cal Poly with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture and is a licensed landscape architect in Colorado.
