Neighbourhood Planning for a 15-Minute City

In the 15-Minute City (external link) , residents live in complete communities where they can access essential needs within a 15-minute walk. The City of Mississauga recently invited residents to contribute their views on this concept in an online forum (external link)  regarding the growth of Downtown Cooksville. This discussion will focus on opportunities to improve livability, address equity issues and reduce GHG emissions in the City of Mississauga using the tools of this planning framework, focusing on the major master-planned communities in development along its waterfront and the Square One District (external link) , with experts in urban planning and development, mobility and social equity.

Panelists -- see below for full biographies:

• Andrew Whittemore, Commissioner, Planning and Building, City of Mississauga
• Rob Spanier, President, Spanier Group and Development Advisor, Lakeview Community Partners Ltd. 
• Dr. Raktim Mitra, Associate Professor and Associate Director (Undergraduate Programs), School of Urban and Regional Planning, and Co-Director, TransForm Lab, Ryerson University
• Dr. Zhixi Zhuang, Associate Professor, Ryerson School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University

Moderated by Cherise Burda, Executive Director, City Building Ryerson, Ryerson University.

Free of charge.

This event appears as part of Mississauga: Urban Innovation in Action, a series of Urban Innovation Café online events presented by City Building Ryerson in partnership with the City of Mississauga. The Urban Innovation Café brings together diverse leaders, researchers and policy makers to discuss urban innovations and their potential to solve complex problems. 

Panelist Biographies

Andrew Whittemore joined the City of Mississauga in January, 2012 as the Manager, Cultural Operations and was promoted to Commissioner, Planning & Building in 2018. Before coming to Mississauga, Andrew began his municipal career at the City of Halifax where he held numerous roles, and where he played a major role in community engagement, delivery of the first regional planning strategy, and the waterfront redevelopment. Andrew’s experience to date has led to the receipt of a number of awards and accomplishments, including, but not limited to: receiving the City Manager’s Emerging Leader Award, delivering the City of Mississauga’s first Affordable Housing Strategy, its first Community Improvement Plan for Office Attraction, and its first Community Engagement Strategy. He holds a Master of Urban and Rural Planning from Technical University of Nova Scotia.

Robert Spanier is the President of Spanier Group, an International mixed-use real estate development advisory firm, specializing in complex retail and mixed-use development projects. With two decades of hands-on experience, Rob has participated in the development or redevelopment of over 80 cities, downtowns, colleges and universities, health and wellness districts, and destination resort towns throughout North America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Currently, Rob serves as the Advisory Chair of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Toronto District Council. He is driven by his passion to create unique and memorable places where people can connect to each other and to their environments.

Dr. Raktim Mitra  is an urban planner with expertise and interests in the fields of land use-transportation planning and healthy communities planning. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning, and Co-Director of TransForm Laboratory at Ryerson University. He is also the Principal Investigator of StudentMoveTO, a partnership between 10 GTHA-area universities and colleges to study transportation challenges and wellbeing of post-secondary students. Dr. Mitra’s research focuses on walking and cycling in urban and suburban neighbourhoods; his current research program explores neighbourhood-level impacts of bicycle infrastructure. 

Dr. Zhixi Zhuang is a registered professional planner, and an Associate Professor in Ryerson’s School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University. She is fascinated by cities and the interactions between people and urban spaces, and her passion for city- and community-building has sparked many of her research interests, which encompass community design, retail developments, urban revitalization and multicultural planning. Some of her present research focuses on the rise of ethnic retail neighbourhoods as physical markers of increasing multiculturalism, and she has recently obtained internal and external funding to explore numerous case studies of ethnic retail neighbourhoods in the GTA.