THE PLANNING COLLABORATIVE

Established in 2011 by Allara Mills Gutcher, AICP, the planning collaborative is a sole-proprietorship land use planning firm located in Northwest Florida.  Providing services from policy planning and regulatory guidance to local governments and land developers, Allara provides the rare ability to understand the legal context of the interrelationship of the guiding adopted policy and the regulatory framework of the local government growth management and development documents.

Seeing a need to provide a service found lacking in the region,  Allara created the planning collaborative to provide policy planning expertise in the form of written documents and expert consultation to varying clients such as local governments, grassroots community groups, land use attorneys, development corporations, and land developers.  In addition, the planning collaborative completed a Florida-wide project pulling land use planners and public health officials together from across the state to create a platform to engage each profession with the other, promoting collaboration of common goals. The planning collaborative has completed projects throughout northwest Florida and in Georgia.

Allara has been involved in her state professional organization, the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association, for over fifteen years and as of 2018 served as one of the Vice Presidents of the organization.  She also is involved regionally with Opportunity Florida, a regional economic development organization.  In concert with economic development from an industry viewpoint, she also serves as a Board Director for Explore Northwest Florida, a ten-county regional tourism organization promoting ecotourism and interaction with the natural environment.

Allara works with a variety of clients, from grass-roots organizations to Fortune 200 companies. The Planning Collaborative is a State of Florida Certified Woman-Owned Business.