Ben Metcalf
Ben Metcalf is the managing director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, where he leads the expansion and deepening of the center’s work addressing housing affordability challenges through rigorous research and policy analysis. In addition, he holds an appointment as Associate Research Professor with UC Berkeley’s Department of City & Regional Planning and serves as practice director for the Abbey Master of Real Estate Development + Design. He is also the chief executive officer of Terner Labs, a nonprofit organization formed in 2021 to advance the applied innovation work of the Terner Center.
In 2015, Metcalf was appointed by former Governor Jerry Brown to lead California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), a role he held until 2019. During his tenure at the state, he played an instrumental role in the passage and implementation of the 2017 Housing Package and oversaw the department during a period of significant expansion of the state’s financial and regulatory reach into housing and land use matters. In addition, Metcalf served on the board of directors of the California Housing Partnership Corporation and the California Housing Finance Agency, and he was the founding chair of the State of California’s Homelessness Coordinating and Finance Council.
Prior to joining HCD, Metcalf worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., including as an appointee of President Obama in the role of deputy assistant secretary overseeing HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs. His responsibilities included oversight of the Federal Housing Administration multifamily guaranteed loan portfolio and a subsidized affordable housing portfolio representing 30,000 multifamily properties across the U.S. As senior advisor to the FHA commissioner on multifamily housing, he developed key administration priorities related to energy efficiency; housing for the elderly, disabled, and formerly homeless; and comprehensive neighborhood revitalization.
Earlier in his career, Metcalf developed mixed-income and mixed-use communities with California-based BRIDGE Housing Corporation. He had day-to-day responsibility for a portfolio of major projects from initial due diligence and site acquisition through approvals, design and construction, bringing forward ~$125 million in development activity and played key roles in successfully securing environmental and land use approvals for four major Bay Area land opportunities representing ~$1.5 billion of new development.
Metcalf holds a master’s degree in public policy and urban planning from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BA from Amherst College. He served as inaugural fellow at the Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence at the University of Pennsylvania.
CYPLAN 230 U.S. Housing, Planning, and Policy
CYPLAN 238 Studio in Affordable Housing Development