# Declan King, urban planner, San Francisco Bay Area

> Declan King is an urban planner in the San Francisco Bay Area (Master of Urban Design, UC Berkeley, 2027) with City Hall experience in San Francisco. Work on land use, transit oriented growth, public space and community engagement: refinery buffer lands in Richmond, high speed rail station planning in Merced, Portsmouth Square in San Francisco and parklets on North Shattuck in Berkeley. Graduating may 2027.

I’m an urban planner drawn to the edges of cities: the buffers, curbs and leftover land where one group’s land meets another’s. I map them, count who uses them, and work with residents and city staff on what it would take to share them.

In San Francisco City Hall I’ve worked with the Mayor’s Office and District 5, connecting residents to City departments and policy processes. At UC Berkeley I pair that civic work with spatial analysis: parcel inventories in GIS, field counts and surveys, land use and density studies, and plans that show what change would look like on the ground. Every project here was made with teammates, and my part is listed with each one.

## Projects

* [stitched city (richmond, ca, summer 2026)](https://declanking.me/work/richmond): turning a refinery’s buffer lands into public seams. My role: Buffer mapping, the Point Richmond seam with Kaihong Cui, collages.
* [cultivated urbanism (merced, ca, fall 2026)](https://declanking.me/work/merced): a high speed rail city that keeps its farms. My role: Station and agrihood maps, density study, title collage, storyboard.
* [the fence line (san francisco, summer 2026)](https://declanking.me/work/portsmouth): reimagining walter u lum place beside portsmouth square. My role: Section collage; Rhino model of the fence line.
* [who gets the curb? (berkeley, ca, fall 2026)](https://declanking.me/work/northshattuck): parklets on north shattuck. My role: Parklet map, axonometrics, street sections, sticker survey.

### stitched city (richmond, ca, summer 2026)

* course: MUD Summer Studio, UC Berkeley
* team: Avani Mandpe, Lizzy Kemp, Kaihong Cui
* my role: Buffer mapping, the Point Richmond seam with Kaihong Cui, collages
* tools: ArcGIS Pro, Rhino, Photoshop, Illustrator

#### Planning brief

Question: Richmond’s refinery is ringed by fenced buffer land. How much is there, who controls it, and which pieces could become public?

Methods:
* Contra Costa County parcel data in ArcGIS Pro, filtered by size and land use
* A buffer matrix comparing every site by type, contents, edges and connections
* California Protected Areas data to separate public land from private
* Field visits, sections and Setha Low’s public space toolkit at the Point Richmond knoll

Findings:
* 485 acres of buffer land across 27 parcels; the largest single parcel is 179 acres.
* Most of the fenced buffer is a handful of very large Chevron parcels.
* The small parcels a neighborhood could realistically use are mostly public land at Point Molate and Point San Pablo.
* At Point Richmond, the buffer between the tank farm, Interstate 580 and homes keeps people out but not the air.

Recommendations:
* Open City owned parcels of 15 acres or less first, where public access is realistic.
* Treat buffers as shared infrastructure: filter planting, carbon capture and public paths on the same land.
* Put a community air monitor on the fenceline so residents can see what the buffer does and doesn’t stop.
* Turn the Point Richmond knoll into a terraced public garden linking the village to a hilltop plaza.

#### stitched city

Richmond’s refinery, freeways and rail lines leave long strips of fenced land between heavy industry and the homes beside it.

Our studio read the city through those edges and proposed stitching them back in as public seams that workers and neighbors share.

* Figure: stitching the seams. What the seams could hold: connecting labor, weaving communities, cultivating futures, healing landscapes.

#### buffer lands

I mapped the land that keeps the refinery and its neighbors apart from Contra Costa County parcel data in ArcGIS Pro, kept parcels small enough for a neighborhood to use, and sorted each one by why it exists.

485 acres across 27 parcels.

* Figure: citywide map. Buffer land in grey, our design sites in green.
* Figure: buffer matrix. Each buffer site compared by type, contents and edge.

#### the lungs

The knoll between the Chevron tank farm, Interstate 580 and Point Richmond is a buffer that stops people but not air.

Four moves turn it into lungs for the neighborhood: a redwood filter belt, old oil silos reused as algae ‘liquid trees’, a carbon capture lighthouse and a community air monitor.

* Figure: photomontage from the knoll. Atlas lifts an algae sphere above the tank farm.
* Figure: plan. Belt, silos, lighthouse, monitor.
* Figure: cross section. From the houses to the Chevron buffer, from USGS elevations; vertical ×2.

#### the chevron seam

On the hill above Point Richmond, a terraced garden climbs from the houses to a hilltop plaza where an Atlas figure honors the refinery’s workers.

Carbon capture plants sit on the brow; three glass domes at the foot of the hill give the first clean breath.

* Figure: site plan. Tina, a seamster who works at Chevron, guides the tour.
* Figure: paths. The route up the terraced garden.
* Figure: landmarks. Tank, Atlas and the three domes.
* Figure: prevailing wind. Air crosses the fence; people can’t.
* Figure: inside the dome. The walk up toward the Atlas, an ‘Honor Labor’ banner overhead, goats on the slope.

### cultivated urbanism (merced, ca, fall 2026)

* course: ENVDES 201 Advanced Urban Design Studio
* team: Miguel Cruz, Yimei Zheng, Yun-Ying Chiu
* my role: Station and agrihood maps, density study, title collage, storyboard
* tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, Esri and NAIP aerials

#### Planning brief

Question: California’s high speed rail will stop in Merced. How can the city grow around a station without spreading over the farmland that defines it?

Methods:
* The state’s draft 2026 rail business plan and the Legislative Analyst’s Office review
* Routing from the platform to Downtown 2.0 on real roads
* A framework drawn on a one hectare grid over USDA NAIP aerials
* A density comparison: one acre each of a Merced tract, our agrihood and Barcelona

Findings:
* The draft plan moves the station south onto unincorporated land at Highway 99 and Mission Avenue.
* From the platform to Downtown 2.0 is 2.2 miles by road.
* The relocated station would not serve ACE or San Joaquins (Gold Runner) trains; those riders would transfer at Madera.
* Our agrihood reaches about 13 homes an acre, more than double a typical Merced tract (5), and keeps its orchard.

Recommendations:
* Concentrate growth on one spine from the station to UC Merced instead of letting it spread.
* Build small agrihoods along the spine: apartments and townhouses on the edges, working farmland in the middle.
* Run transit, bike paths and farm stands along the spine so the station, downtown and campus connect.
* Treat the missing ACE and San Joaquins connection as the station’s biggest gap and plan for it early.

#### the spine

California’s high speed rail will stop in Merced, a Central Valley farm town of about 90,000.

Instead of letting growth spread over farmland, our team drew one spine from the new station to UC Merced and packed new homes into small ‘agrihoods’ along it.

* Figure: the spine. The team’s framework on real aerials, from the station (HSR) to UC Merced.
* Figure: areas of interest. Sites for agrihoods along the spine; north is to the right.

#### station to field

The station sits outside the framework, so I traced the route from the platform to Downtown 2.0 on real roads: 2.2 miles.

The title image breaks today’s aerial into the team’s one hectare cells.

* Figure: station map. From the HSR platform to Downtown 2.0 on real roads.
* Figure: title collage. Photo to pixel: the aerial dissolves into the team’s land use cells.

#### the first agrihood

Four hectares north of Downtown 2.0. The orchard stays; apartments and townhouses line the edges and the middle stays in crops.

About 13 homes an acre: denser than a Merced tract (5), nowhere near Barcelona (60).

* Figure: agrihood plan. Four hectares; the orchard stays.
* Figure: how dense? One acre each of a Merced tract, our agrihood and Barcelona, and where people gather.

#### a tomato, 70 days

One tomato’s trip through the framework, drawn as a comic: planted in an agrihood, grown by Hmong farmers, picked with UC Merced students, hauled up the spine by Tilly the Tractor, eaten on campus and back to the soil.

* Figure: storyboard. A tomato, 70 days. Places are faded photographs of Merced; the tomato carries the color.

### the fence line (san francisco, summer 2026)

* course: MUD Summer Studio, UC Berkeley
* my role: Section collage; Rhino model of the fence line
* tools: Rhino, Google 3D Tiles, Photoshop

#### Planning brief

Question: Portsmouth Square, often called Chinatown’s living room, is fenced off for a two year rebuild. Where does everyday life go in the meantime?

Methods:
* Site visits and photos along the construction fence on Walter U Lum Place
* A section cut through Google’s 3D city model in Rhino, showing the homes, shops and halls around the square
* Precedents, including SWA’s section drawings for the renovation
* A site model of the fence line and walk built from CadMapper data

Findings:
* The square is closed from summer 2026 until mid 2028.
* The fence along Walter U Lum Place became a dead zone between construction workers inside and residents outside.
* The square’s everyday uses, like games, resting and meeting friends, had nowhere nearby to go.

Recommendations:
* Treat the construction fence as a temporary civic edge instead of a blank wall.
* Line Walter U Lum Place with seats, planters, trees and a Connect Four wall.
* Make interim public space a required part of long park closures, so neighborhoods keep their routines.

#### the fence line

Portsmouth Square, the heart of Chinatown, is fenced off for a two year rebuild. The fence along Walter U Lum Place has become a dead zone between workers inside and residents outside.

The proposal makes it a temporary civic edge: seats, planters and a Connect Four wall that keep the square’s everyday life going until the park reopens.

* Figure: section through the square. A clipping plane through Google’s 3D city model in Rhino, collaged in Photoshop.
* Figure: the fence line. Planters, trees and a Connect Four wall along Walter U Lum Place.
* Figure: final board. As presented.

### who gets the curb? (berkeley, ca, fall 2026)

* course: CYPLAN 241, with the North Shattuck Association
* team: Grace Daniels, Kaihong Cui
* my role: Parklet map, axonometrics, street sections, sticker survey
* tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Street View, Berkeley permits

#### Planning brief

Question: When parking spaces become parklets, who actually gets to use them: the public, or a business’s customers?

Methods:
* Berkeley permit records for every parklet on the street, 2014 to 2025
* Street View history and tape measurements of nine parklets
* One hour activity counts at Saul’s, the Cheese Board and Crepevine
* Sticker survey boards at all three, plus catalog sheets and drawings in the style of San Francisco’s Parklet Manual

Findings:
* Of about 329 square meters of parklet, 15% is open to anyone and 69% is for customers only.
* At Saul’s, the private deck (13 tables and 27 chairs by permit) is 73% of that site’s parklet space.
* In one lunch hour 54 people used Saul’s, and staff set even the public tables with cutlery and napkins.
* Almost every survey respondent had bought something: 15 of 16 at Saul’s and 12 of 13 at the Cheese Board.
* The Cheese Board parklet drew 27 people in an hour, 23 of them 65 or older.
* Berkeley lists parklet site plans in its permit system but doesn’t let the public download them.

Recommendations:
* Mark public parklets clearly as public seating, open to anyone without buying.
* Keep table service and place settings off public parklet seats.
* Publish approved parklet site plans online with each permit.
* Report each block’s public versus private parklet share when permits are renewed.

#### who gets the curb?

A community engagement study of the street’s nine parklets, the platforms that turn parking spaces into seating.

Of about 329 square meters of parklet, 15% is open to anyone and 69% is for customers only.

* Figure: saul’s, 1475 shattuck. Blue is open to anyone; orange is for customers only.
* Figure: nine parklets. Delaware Street to Rose Street, colored by who may sit in them.

#### three parklets

Saul’s, the Cheese Board and Crepevine, measured on site and checked against permits and Street View, drawn the way San Francisco’s Parklet Manual draws them.

* Figure: the cheese board. Benches, counters and long tables; the 2014 deck is open to anyone.
* Figure: crepevine. A roofed timber room with about 7 tables and a heater, for customers only.
* Figure: saul’s section. Parklet, sidewalk and storefront at one scale.
* Figure: cheese board section. Same scale.
* Figure: crepevine section. Same scale.

#### counting and asking

We counted everyone using each parklet for an hour and asked people with a sticker board.

At lunch, 54 people used Saul’s in an hour; 15 of 16 sticker answers came from people who had bought something.

* Figure: activity count. One hour at Saul’s.
* Figure: sticker survey. What people told us at Saul’s.

## Featured

* [student spotlight: from city hall to urban design](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddzr3DIv0S0/) on @ucberkeleyurbandesign. UC Berkeley’s Master of Urban Design program on my path from the San Francisco Mayor’s Office to urban design, and why I connect policy with the form of cities. I also serve as IURD’s delegate to the Graduate Assembly.
* [summer 2026 studio: seam city, richmond](https://www.instagram.com/p/DfsJat7m-4F/) on @ucberkeleyurbandesign. The program’s feature on our summer studio: industrial buffers along Richmond Parkway turned into civic seams. With Avani Mandpe, Lizzy Kemp and Kaihong Cui.

## Skills

* planning + policy: Land use and zoning, transit oriented development, density and housing studies, public space programs
* gis + data: ArcGIS Pro, Mapbox, parcel data, OpenStreetMap, USGS and NAIP imagery
* community engagement: Outreach and tabling, sticker surveys, activity counts, stakeholder coordination
* design + visualization: Rhino, AutoCAD, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign

## Contact

* Email link: https://declanking.me/#contact