Award-Winning Work: Edmonton City Plan

On October 24, 2022, the Alberta Professional Planners Institute (APPI) recognized the team of people who worked on the public engagement for the Edmonton City Plan.

Left to right: APPI President Jeff Chase, Peter Ohm, Beth Sanders, Lucas Sherwin, Dnyanesh Deshpande (Credit: Brian Murray)

Here’s a wee video about the project that won an Award of Merit:

The award winners

At the award ceremony on October 24, 2022, a few of us received the award on behalf of others.

• Beth Sanders RPP, president of POPULUS Community Planning Inc. (lead engagement strategist)

• Aaron Aubin RPP, principal of Aubin Consulting (lead engagement advisor and facilitator for the stream of engagement specific to Edmonton’s Indigenous communities)

• Charity Dyke, lead urban strategist for the City Plan project at the City of Edmonton(who made the connections between what the City Plan project team needed and what meaningful engagement could provide)

• Gabrielle Donoff, public engagement specialist for the City Plan project at the City of Edmonton (who looked after so many of the engagement activities)

• Dnyanesh Deshpande RPP, principal of GSA (helpful at every turn)

• Lucas Sherwin RPP, former project planner with GSA (facilitator, engagement material-maker, and the data master behind the scenes)

This team owes great appreciation to many others. Here are a few:

• Kalen Anderson RPP, director of the City Plan project

• Michael Strong RPP, Pablo Orozco P.Eng, Howaida Hassan P.Eng, and Trevor Illingworth RPP, a few of the additional City Plan team members who reached out into the Edmonton community for “coffee chats”

• Peter Ohm RPP, the former City of Edmonton branch manager to whom the City Plan team reported (and provided great stewardship through the organization)

• All the other City Plan team members that popped in and out of the engagement activities

A big project. A big plan. A big team. A lot of gratitude. Want to learn more about Edmonton City Plan?

(Note: Edmonton City Plan also won an Award for Planning Excellence Merit from the Canadian Institute of Planners in 2021)

Want to learn more about Edmonton City Plan?

If you’d like to learn more about Edmonton City Plan, here are three links you’ll find of interest:

1. An interactive website to learn about the plan (this is fun; there are lots of moving pieces)

2. A PDF of the plan

3. All documentation of engagement activities and results are at the bottom of this page (look for “What We Are Hearing Reports:

A snapshot of one phase of engagement.