By Khalida Sarwari
Saratoga has a new community development director.
Erwin Ordoñez, who for the past 2½ years was senior planner for the town of Los Gatos as well as its acting advanced planning manager, began work with the city Jan. 20. He replaces James Lindsay, who is now Saratoga’s city manager.
Prior to his tenure in Los Gatos, Ordoñez was housing manager and senior project manager for housing for the city of Morgan Hill and senior housing planner for the city of Santa Clara.
“I’m just really excited to be here,” Ordoñez said. “I want to be able to contribute my knowledge, my professional expertise to making Saratoga a better place.”
The community development director serves as the city’s principal planner and is a member of its management team, reporting to the city manager, according to the city’s job posting for the position. The job entails planning, directing, managing and overseeing all activities and operations of the community development department, including long-range and current planning, permitting, business licensing, and building and code compliance services. The director is also responsible for management of zoning compliance, administration of applicable city, county, state and federal land use regulations and legislative program compliance.
“What I’m hoping to do is to continue the great stewardship that previous director and current city manager James Lindsay has provided to the community the last three years,” said Ordoñez.
Several things attracted him to the community development director position, Ordoñez said. Having worked in a neighboring town, he said he is familiar with issues unique to the West Valley. A further draw was Saratoga’s city staff and community. He said he feels he can make a difference in the city and appreciates that the citizenry is engaged and cares about development issues.
“A lot of communities talk about a sense of place,” he said. “Saratoga doesn’t have to worry about that. It has a sense of place. It’s a community that really values its character, its heritage, its identity, so that’s something that’s really important to me as a community development professional.”
Ordoñez brings a wealth of experience to the director job. In Los Gatos, he was chair of the town’s development review committee and in charge of coordinating the housing element update as well as overseeing any study issues identified by the council, and reviewing the town’s policies for live entertainment. He also worked on ordinance updates and managed the town’s housing program.
Ordoñez earned a bachelor’s degree in urban studies and planning with an emphasis on architecture and design from UC-San Diego and has completed coursework in the urban planning program at San Jose State University.
He lives in San Jose with his wife and two children, ages 7 and 14.
