Brent Toderian

In 2006, Brent Toderian was appointed the City of Vancouver’s Director of City Planning, succeeding celebrated Co-Directors Larry Beasley and Dr. Ann McAfee. His broad mandate involves current planning, including the many projects related to the 2010 Winter Olympics, and visioning/CityPlans, including Vancouver’s new “EcoDensity” city-wide initiative. Since arriving, Brent has been encouraging candid, city-wide dialogue around an evolving urbanism, with new opportunities around sustainability, creativity, and architectural risk taking.

Brent came to Vancouver from the City of Calgary, where as Manager of Centre City Planning + Design, he oversaw visioning, planning, development and design in Calgary’s Downtown, Midtown and Beltline communities. Brent also created and was leading Calgary’s award-winning Centre City Plan, which meshed planning, design, and architecture issues with arts and culture, social planning, economic development, urban ecology, and anything else that relates to the future success of Centre City.

Brent previously spent 4 years championing a new tone for innovative neighbourhood design and integrated communities in Calgary as its Chief Subdivision Planner. For 9 years before that, Brent was an award-winning planning and design consultant based in Ontario, working for and with many municipalities, community groups and developers from Toronto to Yellowknife. Brent had a particular emphasis on downtown and inner city planning and revitalization, and was the first Canadian practitioner certified in Downtown Management by the National Main Street Centre in Washington DC.

A passionate advocate for creative city building, urban design and architecture, Brent is a frequent international writer and speaker on the subjects, has taught and lectured at numerous universities, and is a co-founder of the Council for Canadian Urbanism while sitting on numerous other boards and groups related to cities. Called a “sophisticated urbanist” by the Vancouver Sun, and an “urban firecracker” by the Globe and Mail, Brent champions what he calls “holistic urbanism” in all aspects of his work.

In real life he’s an avid skier and loves anything in the outdoors (urban and natural), is passionate about all aspects of the arts, and is anxious to get back into sailing now that he’s on the water again.