Planner Profile: Kate Burch

The Maine Association of Planners is proud to represent planners and others involved in planning across this great state. One of the best contributions we can make to support planning is to connect and support our professional planning community. 

Maine is a big state and the planning community is a busy bunch. The Planner Profiles series gives us a chance to meet each other and learn about our skills, interests, and experiences online.

Meet Kate Burch, Senior Planner at North Star Planning.

How many years in the planning profession?  5

Current job: Senior Planner, North Star Planning

Tell us about your background:

I grew up in northern New Jersey, just outside of New York City. I moved to the city for college and studied fine art at NYU. After college I stayed in academia, working on digital projects at Columbia University Libraries. My husband is from Portland and I always loved visiting Maine. We got to a point in New York where we were frustrated with our housing situation and weren’t sure what our next career move would be, so we moved up here on a bit of a whim. 

What led you into planning? 

I got interested in cities and infrastructure when I was living in New York. I saw a lot of big changes - hundreds of miles of bike lanes, the High Line park - as well as what happens when things break down, like during Hurricane Sandy. I started paying attention to how these things happen and what makes places work.

I didn’t consider planning as a career until after I moved to Maine. I was working at Greater Portland Landmarks and was doing projects where I talked with Portland Planning staff and attended public meetings. Getting that more day-to-day view of city planning made me think, hey, I’d probably be good at this job. So I enrolled in the planning program at USM, and moved to my first municipal role after a few semesters of school.

What is unique about planning in Maine? 

Every municipality does things differently here, from planning processes to local services, with a very limited county or state role. People also take a lot of pride in their town’s uniqueness. That local, independent spirit can really connect planning and local government directly to the people, which can create great ground-up energy for local projects in communities of all sizes. However, there are drawbacks - a lack of regional coordination, building in one town is totally different than building in the town next door, and the fiscal and capacity burden of every town providing all their own facilities and services.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your work? 

As a planning consultant, we get to know so many different communities and work on a diversity of projects. I share my expertise with our clients, but I also learn so much from each place I work with. I love it when I can help a community by sharing a good idea or success story that I learned in another town.

What is the most challenging aspect of your work? 

Resistance to change. People want to protect the places they love, and there’s also that New England thrift and pragmatism - we’ve gotten along just fine this way for the past two hundred years, why try something different now? 

It can be hard to get communities to envision that things could actually change for the better, and that sometimes you need to make changes in order to protect the most important things about your community.

Tell us about your dream project – what kind of planning work would you like to be more involved with? 

I’d love to work on a big revitalization project. I’ve got a soft spot for old mill and factory buildings, waterfronts, anything where you’ve got big historic buildings with “good bones”, and where there’s a connection to parks, outdoor spaces, opportunities to incorporate resilient landscapes.

What is your niche or main expertise?

I have a strong background in graphic design and visual communications from my work before I became a planner, and I use those skills to make the often technical-heavy products of the planning process more accessible. I try to integrate good graphic design and storytelling into each planning project, from a communication-first perspective - I want the client to come away with visually-engaging tools that planning staff or community members can use to implement their plans.