UDI Fraser Valley Webinar - The Foreseeable Future: How those who shape this place are thinking about it

PATRICK KLASSEN, Community Planning Manager, City of Surrey
He is an experienced planning professional with a focus on building vibrant, resilient, and inclusive communities. Patrick leads a team of planners that envision the future of Surrey. This leadership role affords an intimate knowledge into one of Canada’s fastest growing Cities. And the region’s next metropolitan core. Success in this context requires a contemporary understanding of the many challenges facing municipalities and the planning profession today. Beyond land use planning, Patrick has a lens for policy. In his prior role at the City Patrick led the development of the City’s award-winning Parks, Recreation and Culture (PRC) Plan. The Plan is nationally recognized for excellence in policy planning and community engagement. Before joining the City, Patrick’s interdisciplinary experiences have included work in the fields of social, indigenous and transportation planning. His work draws from local, regional, and international experience. Patrick is a proud alumnus of both Dalhousie and Simon Fraser University.

JAMES KLUKAS, Deputy Director of Community Planning & Development, City of Delta
James provides leadership to the teams responsible for planning, building, development engineering, and Delta’s Application Centre. Delta is currently working with the City of Surrey and TransLink on the planning for the R6 Scott Road RapidBus, and within a Delta context, James was recently involved in the Mayor’s Housing Task Force for the Scott Road Corridor. Prior to joining Delta, James was a consulting planner, and he is now in his fourth year with the City.

SARAH LOVELL, Transit-Oriented Communities Program Lead, King County Metro in Seattle, WA.
Prior to working at Metro, Sarah was Sound Transit's Transit Oriented Development Program manager helping to develop that practice. Sarah holds degrees in both Architecture and City Planning.

JUAN CALAF, Senior Land Use Planner with Sound Transit in Seattle, WA.
His experience working in a variety of community development and affordable housing projects in Puerto Rico, the Bay Area and now Seattle, equips him to pursue transit-oriented development (TOD) through a unique, equity-accented lens. In particular, Juan's urban design experience around station area planning and TOD has contributed to equitable TOD planning strategies for Sound Transit, one of the country’s largest transit expansion projects.

AMELIA BOWDEN, Planner, City of Maple Ridge
Amelia Bowden has been a planner with the City of Maple Ridge since 2011, working in both development and community planning. A graduate of the SFU Urban Studies program, her thesis explored the connection between physical health and walkable urban design as a result of the City of Maple Ridge’s Town Centre area planning process with Smart Growth on the Ground.

GORDON PRICE (Moderator), Canadian Urban Planner, Former Politician
Gordon Price Gordon Price was a City Councillor in Vancouver, B.C. for fifteen years - six terms that saw one of the more extraordinary transformations of a city in North America. From 1986 to 2002, Vancouver created whole new neighbourhoods in its core. Gordon not only was at the political centre of these plans, but also lived in the neighbourhoods he was part of approving. Gordon sat on the Greater Vancouver Regional District (now Metro Vancouver) board though the 1990s when it undertook “Creating Our Future” and the approval of the Livable Regional Strategic Plan. He was appointed to the TransLink Board in 1999 and went through its turbulent beginnings to see it become one of the most successful transportation agencies in Canada. In 2006 he was appointed Director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, and after retiring in 2015 became a Fellow with the SFU Centre for Dialogue. He has written and lectured about Vancouver, urban development and transportation at conferences, in a column for “Business in Vancouver”, and in his electronic magazine and blog “Price Tags.” (pricetags.ca) In 2018, he launched a podcast series “PriceTalks” (pricetags.ca/podcast)