Firm profile
CommunityScale is an urban planning consultancy focused on helping communities across the country improve equity, economic mobility, and housing attainability. We provide a range of services and analytics products designed to help our clients make more informed and targeted decisions around policy and investment. Our two areas of focus are:
- Housing: Data-driven and interactive housing needs assessments, market analysis, and related studies for a variety of use cases
- Zoning: Authoring new districts and complete overhauls for mixed-use environments and missing middle housing
CommunityScale is headquartered in Massachusetts and collaborates with customers, clients, and partners across the country from small towns to large regions to create award-winning projects.
Meet the team
Our team includes skilled professionals with extensive experience in planning, urban design, housing policy, and cutting-edge analytics. The common denominator across our portfolio of past and present work is an emphasis on understanding housing markets, promoting broader housing attainability, and deploying cutting-edge tools to extend our clients’ capabilities and community impacts.
Jeff Sauser, Principal, has experience leading projects for public and private clients across the country. His work emphasizes the role of housing policy and production in driving economic development and creating opportunities for socioeconomic mobility.
Nels Nelson, Principal, is focused on urban planning, zoning, and spatial data analysis. He has a proven track record of working with public agencies, private developers, and community stakeholders to deliver transformative projects.
Sarabrent McCoy, Associate, is specialized in spatial analysis, mapping, and visualization for strategic planning processes. She builds on a background in research and advocacy to identify and highlight common goals across stakeholders.
McKenzie Humann, Planner / Analyst, specializes in evidence-based recommendations for urban systems. She has a dual Master’s in City Planning and Transportation from MIT and experience in planning policy and housing economics.
Emma Tzotschew, Junior Analyst, a Geography graduate from Middlebury College, her work includes automating spatial analyses for academic research and coordinating initiatives, alongside a background in storytelling and content creation.
Kate Burch, Senior Planner, is proficient in zoning, land use policy, and spatial analysis. She draws on experience as a municipal planner and a background in art and design to create accessible and user-friendly plans and policies.
Interested in joining CommunityScale? Head to our careers page for open positions.
Our approach
Read more about our specific approaches to these topics:
Engagement: CommunityScale’s projects are informed by local perspectives, such stakeholder engagement to add expertise and ideas to the process and enrich the outcomes.
Digital products: CommunityScale transforms datasets into actionable intelligence with interactive visualizations as stand-alone objects or in one of our report dashboards.