James Stockard

Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design

James Stockard, an expert in affordable housing and community development, retired in 2014 from the role of curator of the Loeb Fellowship, which he held for 17 years.  He continues to teach housing courses at the GSD.  He also serves as an Academic Career Liaison for the Career Services Department, helping planning students think about their career paths and connecting them with potential employers.  As a principal for over 25 years with the Cambridge-based consulting firm Stockard & Engler & Brigham, he worked with nonprofit groups and public agencies across the country on such issues as affordable housing development, property management, neighborhood revitalization, and local, state and national housing policy. Shortly before coming to the GSD, he served as the court-appointed Special Master for the Department of Public and Assisted Housing in Washington, DC. Mr. Stockard has taught courses on housing policy at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and Tufts University well as the GSD. He is the co-author of Managing Affordable Housing, and wrote the epilogue in New Directions in Urban Public Housing.

He was the principal investigator for the Public Housing Operating Cost Study commissioned by the US Congress. Stockard served as a commissioner of the Cambridge Housing Authority for 40 years (including 8 terms as chair) and is a founding trustee of the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust Fund. He is a past president of the Citizens Housing and Planning Association, Massachusetts’ largest research and advocacy group for housing and community development issues. He has been a member of the Massachusetts Housing Appeals Committee, ruling on Chapter 40B cases, for the past 17 years.  Stockard is an alumnus of the Loeb Fellowship Program and also earned a Master of City Planning degree from the GSD.

Events