Hello!

I'm Kennan, founder of Rhyne Civic Strategies LLC, a certified WBE & SLBE. I specialize in public policy advising, predevelopment services, and area plans at the intersection of land use planning, urban design, and regulation. I hope we have a chance to work together in the future!

- Kennan Rhyne

Planning & designing our cities necessitates a flexible approach that crosses disciplines to serve residents and business owners best.

Service Areas

Rhyne Civic Strategies LLC is a certified Women Business Enterprise (WBE) and Small Local Business Enterprise (SLBE) with the City of Boston & State of Massachusetts offering the following services for public and private clients alike:

Planning and Urban Design – Kennan specializes in small area plans focusing on the intersection of land use planning, urban design, and zoning changes.
Policy Advising - Advising municipal and state governments in urban planning policy changes from strategy to implementation. As a former Deputy Director for the BPDA, Kennan can also offer internal operation strategies for municipal planning departments.
Predevelopment Services – Rhyne Civic Strategies LLC uses local planning guidance to match acquisition opportunities for the development community with opportunity sites identified through public planning processes. Kennan also provides site planning, land use planning, and urban design services for large development sites.

Planning Approach

Kennan is an outcome-driven planner and designer interested in taking visions for our cities all the way through to implementation. The following values drive her:

Plan responsibly. Always question who a project will serve, the unintended effects, and how a project can be net-positive for our future collective selves.
Think at multiple scales and in various languages, from an engagement strategy to a district plan to a pocket park.
Work as a translator by interpreting the "why" behind every public or client comment and fusing these into a cohesive design vision and planning strategy.
Find opportunities for people to grow through avenues like creative expression, financial empowerment, or strengthening social networks through design.

She harbors a bold perspective for planning our cities better, faster, and more equitably. Her planning approach acknowledges the socioeconomic disparity ingrained in our cities' planning legacies. It aims to mend communal trust between design-agents, whether a public agency or a private developer, with community members hesitant to proactively participate in change-making.

She uses this lens as a springboard for a more positive, outcome-focused approach to planning that presents trade-offs and clear advantages to constituents as our cities grow. This planning approach identifies low threshold/high impact opportunities in each project that can coalesce residents, attract investment, and spur excitement. Finally, bringing design excellence to our cities' existing assets, such as underutilized rights of way, vacant lots, and underperforming open spaces, is critical to this approach.

Email to Collaborate

Experience

Kennan is a licensed architect and certified planner with experience building and planning cities as both an urban designer and municipal planner. She holds a deep understanding of the operational and coordination pathways necessary to create flourishing urban spaces. Kennan founded Rhyne Civic Strategies LLC, a certified WBE & SLBE, in 2023. She specializes in public policy advising, predevelopment services, and small area plans at the intersection of land use planning, urban design, and zoning/regulation.

She most recently served as the Deputy Director for Comprehensive Planning at Boston Planning and Development Agency, overseeing a sixteen-person team conducting planning studies for Boston's downtown and neighborhoods. Each neighborhood plan was grounded in community input to address a complex web of land use, housing, open space, economic development, climate resiliency, and multimodal opportunities.

Before joining the BPDA, she worked for various urban design and architecture firms, focusing on district master planning, placemaking, and planning for economic development opportunities through public-private partnerships. She has also taught urban design seminars and studios at Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Chulalongkorn University.

Kennan holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and both a Bachelor and Master of Architecture with honors from Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Outside of Rhyne Civic Strategies LLC, she practices textile and graphic design through her independent practice, Tiwi, and loves experimenting with ceramics and sewing .

Kennan's Resume