Speakers
Dan Leeming
BA, Dip CP, MES, FCIP, RPP
Senior Advisor, Resiliency Planning, The Planning Partnership
Dan is a founding partner of The Planning Partnership and has worked on the design and development of new towns and various sizes of planned communities for private and public agencies throughout Ontario and the United States over his 35 years of experience. His areas of expertise include community planning, from regional to neighbourhood scale with the application of urban design, sustainable and public health initiatives through facilitation to create meaningful and complete communities while satisfying the needs of the marketplace. Many of his projects have received awards not only from Provincial and National Planning Associations, but from private sector building and development organizations.
Dan also works with various universities and is an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph, has taught Urban Design at the University of Toronto and was the 2014-2015 University of Waterloo ‘Planner in Residence’. He has also authored several articles for the Ontario Planning Journal on topics such as changing energy needs, public health and urban design, our aging society, climate change, and sustainable innovation in community designs. Dan is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners, and a Board Member with the Council on Canadian Urbansim (CanU). Dan formerly served as: Vice Chair of the Toronto Design Review Board; as a member of the Mississauga Urban Design Advisory Panel; on the Board of Active Healthy Kids Canada and co-chaired the Canadian LEED-ND review committee. Dan is also the recipient of the ‘2016 Minister’s Award for Environmental Excellence’ presented by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change for his research and design of new communities in the areas of climate change mitigation.
Alex Taranu
FCIP, FRAIC
Sr. Advisor, Urban Design, City of Brampton
Alex is an urbanist, designer, and architect with broad experience in Canada and internationally. His expertise spans downtown revitalization, sustainable urban forms, transit-oriented development, heritage integration, public building projects, and urban design policy. As Senior Advisor for Urban Design in Brampton, he leads initiatives like Riverwalk and provides strategic design guidance for major city programs. He serves on urban design panels for Ottawa, Burlington, and Metrolinx, and advocates for resilient, healthy urbanism. Alex is a founding director of the Council for Canadian Urbanism, has chaired professional groups, lectured at conferences and universities, organized charrettes and workshops, and served on national juries. He has earned recognition as a Fellow of both the Canadian Institute of Planners and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and received several awards for his contributions to urban design.
David Gordon
FCIP, RPP, AICP
Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University
David Gordon FCIP RPP AICP is Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University. He received the D.Des. from the Harvard GSD. David was SURP director for over a decade and has taught at McGill, Ryerson, Toronto, Riga, Western Australia, Harvard, and Pennsylvania, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. Recent books include The Canadian Suburbs Atlas (2023); Town and Crown: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Capital (2015) and Planning Canadian Communities (2021). His latest research addresses planning histories, capital cities, waterfronts and compares the design of Canadian, Australian, and American suburbs.
