People Directors

Jim Draughon has over 30 years of professional experience in real estate development and redevelopment activities. His experience is equally distributed between private sector development, public sector redevelopment, and private real estate consulting services to public agencies. Before joining RSG in 2006, Mr. Draughon served as Program Manager for the Tustin Redevelopment Agency, responsible for negotiation of property acquisitions and disposition agreements, and for management of the Agency's administrative, reporting, and monitoring activities. He previously served as the Senior Negotiations Officer for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, responsible for real estate development activities in the Downtown Project Area. Mr. Draughon has managed large-scale urban mixed-use public-private developments in San Jose and downtown Los Angeles, as well as small-scale infill housing developments in suburban and rural cities throughout California.

Mr. Draughon manages RSG's housing-related services to assist clients in the areas of affordable housing and urban infill development and serves as project manager for a variety of housing and real estate economics assignments, including development programming analyses, preparation of affordable housing strategies, implementation of housing programs and projects, and negotiations of disposition and development agreements to fulfill our public agency client's real estate and housing needs. His broad and diverse development experience enables him to use his technical expertise to identify creative solutions for achieving the development objectives of RSG's clients.

Since joining the firm, Mr. Draughon has prepared affordable housing implementation and development programming strategies for the cities of Agoura Hills, Corona, Irvine, Oroville, San Carlos, San Jacinto, Soledad, and Victorville. He has also performed market evaluations and financial feasibility analyses for affordable housing projects in the cities of Apple Valley, Atwater, Chula Vita, Huntington Beach, La Quinta, Poway, Porterville, Santa Clarita, and Westminster, as well as negotiations for numerous low-income housing tax credit projects. Mr. Draughon recently updated the inclusionary housing ordinances in the cities of Agoura Hills and San Carlos, including the preparation of detailed residential nexus studies in order to substantiate the affordable housing impacts associated with developing market rate housing units. He also prepared the affordable housing monitoring manual and initiated the monitoring program for the City of Carson, as well as prepared Reuse Valuations and Section 33433 Summary Reports for the disposition of Agency-owned properties for a number of the jurisdictions identified above.

Mr. Draughon enjoys the diverse assignments associated with RSG's public sector consulting services particularly the challenges arising from the increasing complexities of the legal and financing constraints imposed on affordable housing development. He feels that the challenges are what spark the imagination, which lead to innovative solutions and keep the work immensely interesting and fulfilling.