Judy Saunders

Senior Associate

Judy@EstolanoAdvisors.com

Judy is an urban planner focused on equitable community development, housing strategy, and land use. She helps clients translate complex policy challenges into practical, community-centered solutions.

Judy Saunders joined Estolano Advisors as a Senior Associate in 2026, where she leads projects focused on economic development, affordable housing, and land use. She currently manages the Los Angeles Westside Cities Council of Governments (WSCCOG) Housing Initiative, supporting regional collaboration to expand housing opportunities and strengthen long-term local planning capacity. Her work includes shaping equitable public investment approaches, facilitating cross-sector partnerships, assessing community needs, evaluating policy priorities, and helping clients move from planning to implementation.

Before joining Estolano Advisors, Judy advised public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and cross-sector partnerships on housing, homelessness, and community development initiatives. At LeSar Development Consultants, she supported strategic planning, program design, organizational capacity building, and funding implementation for civic and nonprofit clients. As a Housing Policy Bohnett Fellow in the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Housing and Homelessness Solutions, she coordinated affordable housing initiatives across city agencies and conducted land use research to inform production and implementation decisions. While earning her master’s degree at UCLA, Judy partnered with SCANPH to study the demolition and replacement of rent-stabilized housing in Los Angeles, using spatial and quantitative methods to evaluate displacement, redevelopment trends, and policy outcomes over time.

Judy earned a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, where she received a Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies Fellowship and specialized in Affordable Housing Policy and Finance. She is a member of the Urban Land Institute Los Angeles Chapter and serves on the Board of Norwalk Unides.