Allison Knapp Wollam
/Allison Knapp Wollam has served as a Brookwood Consulting Planner since 2009. She is an expert in environmental review and planning process matters, particularly in California. She also is the principal of Allison Knapp Wollam Consulting, a firm she founded in 1996 after three years in the private sector and ten years in the public sector. She provides land use and environmental planning services, often managing complex and sometimes controversial projects. While rigorously protecting the interests of her clients, she works to identify common ground and to attain consensus among diverse groups with divergent interests to produce winning and implementable projects.
Allison regularly prepares and manages environmental documents and project entitlements for her clients that include Northern California municipalities such as Belmont, East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Pacifica, San Bruno, Saratoga, South San Francisco and Union City.
As the consulting planner for the City of South San Francisco for the Terrabay, Mandalay and Centennial Towers projects, Allison has worked with Shepherd Heery and Alan Katz. Her responsibilities have included project planning and community outreach, as well as identification, management and enforcement of mitigation measures for environmental issues, especially in the realms of archaeology, biology, geology, hydrology and traffic.
Allison’s interests and talents are diverse. She has taken an active role in the successful construction, financing and operation of special needs housing. In the 1990’s she provided management services for the construction of a hospice. Allison identified and assembled the project team from construction through the program operations of the hospice. She processed the project entitlements, conducted public outreach, identified and secured the funding, facilitated state licensing and coordinated public donations. Belmont House Hospice is the first state licensed facility in California and was awarded six state and national awards of excellence.
Her awards include the National League of Cities James Howland Award of Merit, National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials Award of Merit, National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials Award of Excellence, Northern California Chapter American Planning Association Award of Excellence for Advocacy Planning, Helen Putnam California League of Cities Award of Excellence, National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials Award of Merit, California Chapter American Planning Association Award of Merit for Advocacy Planning. Allison received two congressional proclamations for her work one from Congressman Tom Lantos and from Congresswoman Eshoo.