Kate Earle Funk
Ms. Funk is a founder and Senior Principal in Keyser Marston’s San Francisco office. Previously with Larry Smith and Company, she has over 30 years of experience in real estate and urban economics.
Key Role
With her broad experience, Ms. Funk has managed projects involving market and financial analyses, and urban economic analyses for policy planning.
Areas of Specialization
Affordable Housing
Within this area, Ms. Funk has emphasized jobs housing analyses, which serve as a basis for public policy determinations, fee programs, and other measures associating development projects of all types with affordable housing demand. Examples include housing nexus analyses for the cities of San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Angeles, San Mateo, Walnut Creek, and also several counties. She has worked extensively with inclusionary housing measures and housing trust funds. She has prepared housing impact analyses for individual large scale projects and assisted in structuring mitigation measures.
Other Nexus Work
In addition to the jobs/housing nexus work, Ms. Funk has prepared other AB 1600 analyses, linking development to demand for childcare, parks/open space, and the arts. Examples of cities who have adopted such programs with Ms. Funk’s assistance are San Mateo, West Sacramento, and Seattle. Santa Monica is currently considering adoption of a program.
She has also prepared AB 1600 studies for public infrastructure systems such as for water, sewer and drainage master plan projects.
Additional Areas of Specialization
Hotel and Conference Centers
Ms. Funk has focused on hotel and conference center market and financial feasibility analyses, particularly those involving an in-depth examination of demand generated by local firms and institutions. Assignments have been conducted for Santa Cruz and Mountain View where local firms were extensively interviewed to determine their role in supporting a new facility. She has also assisted numerous redevelopment agencies in negotiations of hotel transactions including Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Oakland, Seaside, Fremont, and Milpitas.
Infrastructure Finance and Strategy Specialist
Ms. Funk has directed a variety of assignments to assist both public agencies and private landowners in determining their infrastructure finance needs and how to best finance them in the context of the underlying real estate fundamentals. She has conducted in-depth analyses for assessment districts, development fees, Mello-Roos CFD, and redevelopment applications. Examples include developing an infrastructure financing strategy for an 85-acre area project in Union City for the Pacific States Steel Corporation, assessing traffic impact fees for the City of Livermore, and establishing an infrastructure finance strategy for the West Sacramento Triangle Specific Plan for Zimmer/Gunsul/Frasca Partnership and the City of West Sacramento.
Professional Credentials
In her professional career, Ms. Funk has been a speaker for organizations such as CRA, CALED, CALALHFA, classes at UC Berkeley and USC. She is a member of the Lambda Alpha Honorary Land Economics Society. Ms. Funk received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.