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.

Is Vancouver a 'World Class City?' (And Is It Making Us Too Expensive?)

In his annual tour-de-force presentation on the state of Vancouver's housing market recently, marketing guru Bob Rennie (referred to often as Canada's "condo king", and thus often accused of having a vested interest in a continued strong market for condos here in Vancouver) had some new, controversial points that are still being debated locally. Perhaps the most provocative was his call to action for the development industry to get back into building housing that is more affordable to ordinary Vancouverites (as opposed to being geared to the international market - his comment was that we know how to serve that world market, now we need to show that we can serve the local market better, or words to that effect). Given that he included details like "capping developer profit at 10%", I found his comments pretty brave in front of an audience of 700+ developers and clients.

Public Input by Blog (Or, 'Care to Comment on the New EcoDensity Charter?')

I believe it's very likely that within a few years, planning departments will be using blogs, and perhaps other social networking site options, as approaches to public input on planning policy or development applications. Perhaps some are doing it already?

The Case for Density in Sustainable Cities

One of the many signs that green development and design is reaching a tipping point toward becoming business-as-usual, is the quantity of articles and writings on the subject in what might be considered "mainstream" land development publications. Case-in-point is the current Issue of Urban Land, the Green issue. This attention is a good thing, despite the growing need to ensure that developments that play the green card, truly do walk the talk.

The Link between Density and Affordability

Since its launch, one of the three primary goals of Vancouver's <a href="http://www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/">EcoDensity Initiative</a> has been to use density, design and land use to strategically assist with the City's growing challenges around affordability. Over the course of the long public dialogue, we've heard many comments and questions on the relationships between density, supply, type of housing and affordability, and it’s been a very hot topic.

Media Density Discussions are Needed for Cities

Can any North American city have a meaningful public discussion about sustainability, about its "green-ness" or ecological footprint, without having the challenging but necessary public discussion about the city's density? Many are still trying to. Many freely trumpet smart growth and sustainability without the tension and trouble that comes with discussing the "d-word" openly, and thus avoid the necessary heavy-lifting. Few politicians, and embarrassingly not enough city planners, are willing to tackle the density issue publicly, as it is still what Sustainable Urbanism author Douglas Farr calls the "3rd rail" of sustainable city building.