Brent Toderian

Brent Toderian is an international consultant on advanced urbanism with TODERIAN UrbanWORKS, Vancouver’s former Director of City Planning, and the President of the Council for Canadian Urbanism. Follow him on Twitter @BrentToderian

Member for
18 years 2 months

Contributed 69 posts

Full Bio

Brent is President of TODERIAN UrbanWORKS in Vancouver, Canada, and has over 24 years experience in advanced and innovative urbanism, city-planning and urban design. He advises cities & innovative developments all over the world, from Ottawa to Oslo, from Sydney to Medellin, from Auckland to Helsinki.

Brent left the role of Chief Planner for Vancouver in 2012 after 6 years, with accomplishments that included 2010 Winter Olympics-related planning and design; the internationally regarded EcoDensity Initiative; the Greenest City Initiative; new skyline-shaping and public view corridor strategies; innovative active transport/public use of streets approaches; the Cambie Corridor Plan and other next-generation TOD actions; the transformative Laneway Housing Initiative; and many other ground-breaking initiatives. He led all visioning, planning, and urban design for Vancouver during a challenging era of significant change, and earned an international reputation as a successful city-maker. He also oversaw all architectural and design approvals, where he brought in new approaches for green design and architectural diversity.

Brent is also past Manager of Centre City Planning + Design in Calgary Canada, where he pioneered innovative approaches to visioning, design and architectural review, and created/led the award-winning Centre City Plan.

His career started as an award-winning planning and design consultant based in Ontario Canada, with projects from Toronto to Yellowknife.

A passionate practitioner + advocate for creative city-building, Brent is the founding & current President of the Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU); a regular columnist on CBC Radio on "city-making"; an Advisory Board member of ULI BC; a contributing blogger with Planetizen, Huffington Post & SPACING; and an active leader in many global organizations related to cities. He is a sought-after international speaker, writer, teacher and collaborator on issues of advanced urbanism.

He can be reached at [email protected], on twitter @BrentToderian, and on-line at www.toderianurbanworks.com.

Laneway Housing moves forward in Vancouver

When Vancouver City Council approved the new EcoDensity Charter and Initial Actions earlier this year, among these was a prioritized action to further develop the idea of laneway housing. The issues and options report relating to this work program is now available for downloading from the <a href="http://www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/content.php?id=42" title="EcoDensity">EcoDensity website</a>.

Malls needn't wait for failure, to Re-Urbanize

One of Vancouver's most recent significant planning exercises is noteworthy not simply because of the merits of its process or its resulting planning and design vision, but perhaps more so because of the new model it may represent to North American mall owners. But I'll come back to that.

Testing Vancouver's Urbanism by Pedal and Foot

I occasionally get accused locally of being too much of a "booster" for Vancouver's success and reputation in city-building and urban design. Although I usually tend to mix in a healthy dose of "constructive candour" on how we need to improve, if there's truth to this accusation, I'd say I come by it honestly. First off, I've been an admirer and careful student of the Vancouver approach to urbanism, as imperfect as it might still be, long before I arrived in the City as Director.

Vancouver's New Policies for Greener Buildings and Large Sites

In my recent post outlining Council's approval of the <a href="http://www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/content.php?id=42" target="_blank">EcoDensity Charter and Initial Actions</a> I referenced that two new rezoning policies approved by Council (Actions A-1 and A-2) may give Vancouver the highest green requirements for private-sector building design and large site design in North America. Here are these two policies that are in effect as of May 13, 2008.

EcoDensity Approved in Vancouver

After two years of intensive dialogue and debate, education (in all directions) and idea-development, Vancouver's concept of EcoDensity has been translated into Council-approved policy and actions. In past posts I've outlined aspects and steps of this challenging process, which has been tackling head-on what many consider the most controversial but critical aspect of urban sustainability, "density done well".