Atlanta’s former planning commissioner – Tim Keane – has been named head of Charleston’s planning, permitting and engineering. He will start the position in the beginning of June.
Keane lived and worked in Charleston for 16 years before coming to Atlanta in 2015.
In a telephone conversation Friday afternoon, Keane said he decided to go back to Charleston for personal reasons so he could live nearer to his family.
Keane left Atlanta in February 2022 to become the planning commissioner in Boise, Idaho, where he worked for two years. Then, in February, he was named planning commissioner for the Canadian city of Calgary. After only six weeks in the job, Keane left Calgary because he explained he needed to be closer near his sons, who range in age from 20 to 30.
“I loved the people in Calgary,” Keane said. “It’s the best organization I’ve ever worked for. I was really sad to leave because of the quality of the city and its people, but I just had to.”
Keane spent an eventful six weeks as Calgary’s planning commissioner. The Canadian city was considering a citywide “blanket rezoning” that was quite controversial because it would allow for increased density with more diverse housing types – duplexes, fourplexes and row houses.
The proposal already was in the works when Keane arrived, but he served as one of the proponents of the plan during the City Council’s public hearing, which lasted 15 days with 736 speakers. After several weeks of presentations and deliberations, the City Council passed the rezoning in a 9 to 6 vote.
It was Calgary’s longest public hearing ever, and a reporter for the Calgary Herald said it could have been the longest public hearing in Canada’s history.
Keane said it as if moving back to Charleston at this time was meant to be. As soon as he was elected as the new mayor of Charleston last fall, William Cogswell started talking to Keane about joining his administration.
The two go back to when Keane was planning commissioner working for longtime Charleston mayor – Joe Riley. Cogswell was then a developer of historic properties and quite involved in the city’s preservation circles.
“William always did difficult historic buildings,” said Keane, naming the Cigar Factory in Charleston’s historic downtown as one of those projects. “We always were really close. Back when he got elected last fall, he reached out to me. But I was not thinking about coming back to Charleston. It wasn’t until very recently that we started talking seriously.”
Cogswell announced on Thursday a new organizational structure that consolidated the city’s 26 departments into four main sections. Keane will be overseeing one of those sections that will include stormwater, planning and preservation, housing and community development as well as engineering, permitting and the building inspections divisions.
“The city of Charleston definitely needed a reset,” Keane said of the new organizational structure.
The city’s press release about the reorganization welcomed Keane’s return.
“For the first time in nearly 50 years, our city’s organizational chart has been updated to make us more responsive for our residents,” Cogswell said in the release. “By breaking down silos and increasing communication across departments, we can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our incredible staff. Here at the city, we aim to provide great service to our residents and this move helps us do just that.”
During his tenure in Atlanta, Keane pushed the design envelope – encouraging the city to be better prepared for population growth by allowing for greater density along the city’s main commercial corridors.
Keane worked with BeltLine visionary Ryan Gravel on the Atlanta City Design project that also called for the protection of the city’s neighborhoods and natural areas. But advocated for new housing types, accessory dwelling units, in single-family communities. The City Design incorporated Atlanta’s civil rights history and Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for “the Beloved Community.”
Bem Joiner, the founder of Atlanta Influences Everything, praised the vision that Keane and Gravel brought to Atlanta’s planning department.
“Tim was innovative and progressive when it came to design,” Joiner said in an interview on Friday. “He was trying to make Atlanta into the Beloved City. What I thought was amazing was that he took the ideology of Dr. King and layered it into something physical – the map, the book – coupled with the ideology of Dr. King. Tim Keane saw city design as the answer. It’s a vibe.”
Joiner also appreciated how Keane held developers accountable by urging high quality design of new buildings.
“I’m a brand guy, and Tim Keane is a brand,” Joiner said. “I love how he’d take modern design and mix it with old and new.”
As we get ready to welcome the World Cup to Atlanta in 2026, Joiner hopes there’s a way to incorporate Keane’s vision in the way the city presents itself to domestic and international visitors.
“I’m glad to hear he’s back closer to home. But we have the World Cup and Charleston doesn’t,” Joiner said. I’d love to reprint the Atlanta City Design book and give it as a gift to people. He had an enlightened vision, and he left it behind. Are we not going to leverage any of that? The work is there.”
Keane is now getting settled back in Charleston but continues to have ties to Atlanta. An added bonus is that he will be closer to his fiancé Marian Liou, who lives in Atlanta and is director of arts and culture for Smart Growth America.
“There’s a lot I miss about Atlanta,” said Keane, who likely will be spending more time here when he’s not in Charleston.
“In some ways, it feels like this is where I needed to be,” Keane said of Charleston.
Contrary to Thomas Wolfe’s book “You Can’t Go Home Again,” Keane is hoping to prove you can go home again.
