2011 Fellows
Marta Farevaag, FCIP
Marta Farevaag is a partner of Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, a Vancouver-based consulting firm in Planning, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture with award-winning projects across Canada and internationally. Marta participates in many of the firm's multidisciplinary urban design projects as the urban planner on the team, often with a role in community consultation and communications. Her areas of expertise include major park and university campus master plans, downtown and waterfront redevelopment, cultural and heritage landscapes, and public realm strategies.
Marta has been active in urban issues including roles as a Director of the Vancouver League organizing free public lectures by noted designers, a member, and Chair in her last year, of the Vancouver City Planning Commission, and a member of the Vancouver Urban Design Panel and the Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee. She is currently the Chair of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.
Marta has been recognized for her achievement in professional practice and community and leadership in the profession.
Diana Santo, FCIP, RPP
Diana Santo is the Senior Planning Director in the Planning and Environmental Design Group at MMM Group Limited. Over the course of her 45 year career, Diana has contributed to various facets of the planning profession, through her diverse roles as a Director at the Ontario MMAH, Vice-Chair of the Ontario Municipal Board, planning consultant and mentor to planning professionals.
Diana has extensive public sector experience with land development and land use planning policy initiatives. As the Director of the former Subdivisions Branch and the Official Plans Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Diana was responsible for the approval of all Official Plans and most plans of subdivision throughout Ontario and provided municipalities with planning advice in developing plans that reflected both provincial policies and sound development options. She was instrumental in initiating the Ontario Foodland Guideline as Provincial policy, protecting prime agricultural lands and tender fruit growing areas. During her 20 year position at the Ontario Municipal Board, Diana presided over many contentious and ground-breaking cases. Adjudicating many matters relating to the interpretation and implementation of land use planning policy with diverse parties with varied and/or opposing public interests. She either case managed or adjudicated many of the commercial competition cases that became known as the “store wars” and decided the development of key sites in Toronto. As part of the adjudication function, she had to weigh the credibility of opinion evidence of professional land-use planners.
The past years in private consulting at MMM Group Limited, Diana has focused on strategies for urban intensification that avoid significant disputes with interested stakeholders.
Donald J. Stastny, FCIP
Donald J. Stastny is the personification of an International Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners who has impacted planning and urban design within Canada as well as appropriately representing the ethics and ethos of the Canadian Institute of Planners in the international arena.
Admitted as a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners in 1978, Don has been practicing urban planner and designer, architect, and process facilitator for over thirty years, rebuilding communities physically and culturally. Using design as a comprehensive and strategic tool, he works towards elevating the public’s understanding and expectations of planning and design locally, nationally, and internationally. Don has undertaken a range of projects including the planning of neighborhoods, cities, and regions, as well as the design of museums, multi-family housing, office buildings, historic renovations, and cultural centers. He has developed and managed over fifty national and international processes for competitions, commissions, and plans. He is a masterful facilitator, having worked with international governments, state agencies, city departments, tribal governments, and neighborhood associations to reach consensus and establish “common ground”.
Having co-founded his firm in 1975, Don has set high standards not only for his own work, but has taken equal care in creating environments for other planners and designers to excel. Don has been honored with Fellowship in the American Institute of Certified Planners, the Institute of Urban Design, and the American Institute of Architects.
Don has been recognized for his achievement in professional practice and teaching and mentoring planners.
Alexandru Taranu, FCIP, RPP
Alex is an urbanist and architect with over 30 years of experience in Canada and abroad. He has worked in consulting as well as government offices on a wide variety of projects and is currently Manager of Urban Design for the City of Brampton, Ontario, a dynamic city of almost 500,000 residents in the Greater Toronto Area. In his position Alex manages the Urban Design section with a staff of 15 urban designers, planners, architects, heritage coordinators with focus on Central Area planning and design, city-wide urban design policy, development design review, heritage preservation, urban design studies and special projects management.
His areas of expertise include downtown revitalization, redevelopment of inner city and suburban areas, sustainable urban forms and transit oriented development, urban design policy, design review and architectural control, heritage integration, process and project management.
Alex is founding member and director/secretary of the Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU) and founding member and past chair of Ontario Professional Planner’s Institute Urban Design Working Group. He has written articles for Plan Canada and Ontario Planning Journal, organized numerous events, workshops and presentations and is a frequent lecturer on urban design. He was a key contributor to the Ontario Professional Planners Paper and communication campaign on the “Healthy Communities, Sustainable Communities” initiative as well as other key policy papers including the ones on the Planning Act and the Provincial Policy Statement.
Alex has received the OPPI Award in 2007 for his professional work through the years within the planning profession. Alex has been nominated for his achievement in the areas of professional practice as well as teaching and mentoring of planners.
John van Nostrand, MOAA, FRAIC, FCIP, RPP
John van Nostrand is the Founding Principal of planningAlliance, as well as of its affiliated firms – regionalArchitects and rePlan Inc. Over the last three decades, John has been the driving force behind the firm’s domestic and international planning and urban design practice. He has worked on major urban development projects throughout southern Ontario, focusing in particular on the Greater Golden Horseshoe. At the same time, he has worked in a wide range of developing countries on the planning, design and construction of new communities ranging in size from 150 to 150,000 persons. He has also directed a number of major mine-related housing projects in Africa, Latin America and Canada. John’s current projects include a revitalization plan for the Lawrence Allen neighbourhood in Toronto, a comprehensive regional infrastructure and sustainability plan for the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, neighbourhood plans in Seaton, a new town for the First Nation community of Kashechewan in Northern Ontario, a streetscape study for Dundas Street West in downtown Toronto, an Economic Diversification Plan for Thompson, Manitoba and the competition for the Athletes Village for the 2015 Pan American Games.
John’s work has been recognized with a number of national and international awards, including a World Leadership Award for Town Planning, Daniel Burnham Award for Best Comprehensive Plan (for the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe), and numerous Awards of Excellence from the Canadian Institute of Planners. In 2004, he was awarded the annual Jane Jacobs Award for Ideas That Matter for his work in both developed and developing urban settings.
John has been nominated for his contribution to professional practice and to planning and community research.