Luca Gattoni-Celli
The son of an Italian-born father who patented cancer vaccines and a Yankee mother who put herself through college, Luca is a living embodiment of American pluralism and reinvention.
Luca grew up in the South Carolina Lowcountry, studying economics at the College of Charleston Honors College. He came to DC in 2012 with visions of becoming the libertarian George Will. As a federal tax journalist, Luca covered Capitol Hill, the IRS, and President Trump’s tax cut bill. He then worked at a business research firm, which was the backdrop for him to finally discover his vocation: urbanism and housing.
In August 2021, Luca founded YIMBYs (yes in my backyard) of Northern Virginia, one of the most active grassroots housing advocacy organizations on the East Coast. He was fortunate to recruit more than a dozen brilliant individuals to the group’s leadership team. YIMBYs of NoVA spearheaded coalitions that supported zoning reforms in Arlington County and Alexandria City, fundamentally altering local housing politics in the DC region. The group partnered with local chapters of the NAACP and Sierra Club, as well as VOICE, a network of Northern Virginia religious congregations dedicated to social justice. Luca hangs his hat on his ability to build self-directed teams and find common ground across differences of background and ideology.
Wishing to spark a statewide pro-housing supply movement, Luca recruited the founder and initial members of the group RVA YIMBY in Richmond. Along with YIMBYs of NoVA, this provided the foundation for the Commonwealth Housing Coalition, which advances pro-housing legislation in Virginia’s general assembly. Luca won a grant from Tyler Cowen’s Emergent Ventures program for YIMBYs of NoVA and fundraised an additional $100,000. In 2025, he co-founded the DC Abundance Community, which hosts informal networking events.
Luca has written dozens of essays on his Substack blog Cornerstone, accruing almost 1,500 subscribers. Young Voices placed Luca’s housing policy op-eds in USA Today, Newsweek, National Review, and Washington Examiner. His urbanist writing has also appeared in The American Conservative and Greater Greater Washington. Luca has been a panelist at conferences including YIMBYtown 2024 in Austin and FREOPP’s 2025 edition of Freedom & Progress. He was the sixth guest on California YIMBY’s Abundance podcast. His other podcast appearances include Elucidations and Who Killed the Starter Home?
Luca’s focus at FREOPP is abundant housing, restoring Americans’ spatial mobility so they can pursue a better life, and how land use regulation curbs small-scale business and entrepreneurship. His work is grounded in the realities of real estate and development. Luca is passionate about urbanism’s potential to strengthen social connections and civil society.
A devout Catholic, Luca lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wonderful wife and four young children. Luca particularly enjoys spending time with friends, hiking, e-biking, cooking, music, and Northern Virginia’s fantastic hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
