GRACE COFFEY

Grace Coffey is a Senior Planner with Winterbrook Planning. She specializes in housing projects, GIS and spatial analysis, zoning, code research and development, and community engagement. Her extensive background in working with municipal planners throughout the development review process, coordinating with subcontractors, and communicating with homeowners has shown her to be a valuable team player and creative problem solver.

“I hope to apply my skills to reduce inequalities, provide  opportunities, and create better environments.”

Grace received her Bachelor of Arts in Urban Planning and Sustainable Development through Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. While working her way through her Bachelor’s, she worked as a Housing and Green Building Intern where she engaged local housing stakeholders, worked on housing infill communication and policy, and researched housing solutions on the municipal level. She recently wrapped up her Master of Urban and Regional Planning at Portland State University. Over her time at PSU, she was involved in several housing related projects, and worked for Dweller, a company that installs turnkey, prefab ADU’s. Throughout her schooling, she focused on land use and housing, and has accumulated a wide array of problem solving tools, allowing her to be nimble and creative in her approach to every day planning problems–one of these tools being a thorough understanding and education of GIS and spatial analyses.

In her free time, Grace enjoys mushroom hunting, making pottery, and going blues dancing!

Representative Experience:

Dayton DLCD Housing Work
Grace worked with Dayton, OR to prepare recommendations for comprehensive plan amendments to comply with housing-related statutes and facilitate housing production, affordability, and choice. Grace prepared a residential buildable land inventory and conducted an audit of Dayton’s comprehensive plan. A large element of the project was extensive public engagement on housing issues and middle housing options. Winterbrook Planning’s recommendations laid the groundwork for comprehensive plan updates needed after the 2025 Housing Capacity Analysis (HCA) and inscorporated information from a buildable lands inventory, middle housing engagement, and input from the public.

Vernonia UGB Swap
Grace assisted the City of Vernonia with a UGB Adjustment or “swap” to remove residentially designated land that was unsuitable for efficient development from the UGB and bring in land that was in proximity to a school and surrounded on three sides by the existing UGB.  Grace performed the analysis for the swap and crafted comprehensive plan policies to ensure the land brought into the UGB would be efficiently urbanized. The proposal was approved by Vernonia Planning Commission and City Council and Columbia County Planning Commission.

Turner Development Code Analysis and Update
Grace performed a comprehensive code audit and guided the City Turner through a series of development code updates. Code updates were unanimously approved by the Turner City Council.

Astoria Waterfront Development Code Updates
Grace worked on a project with the City of Astoria to update their development code to allow for envisioned development in the recently adopted Waterfront Master Plan. After the approval of the development code updates in 2023, the Waterfront Master Plan no longer has code barriers to implementation.