Award winning
Mark’s expert work has been rewarded as a recipient of many awards including Vancouver’s Top 40 Under 40, BC’s Planner of the Year, and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Urban Planner
Whether it is through his work in his own award winning firms or as the lead project manager on other projects, Mark is the expert on sustainable development.
Professor
A teacher at heart, Mark passionately develops the field through his widely referenced book on urban agriculture, and his Adjunct Professor position at VIU.
Education
Mark is a LEED™-accredited planner who holds professional degrees in both Landscape Architecture (BLA), and Community and Regional Planning (MSci).
Experience
Mark is President of Holland Planning Innovations Inc., a planning and development consulting company based on Vancouver Island.
Mark was Vice President of Development for Storm Mountain Developments in 2015 and 2016, managing the development of an 1,800 acre project on Vancouver Island – the Lantzville Foothills, expected to commence construction in 2017.
Mark is also a partner and past VP of Development for the New Monaco LP and project in Peachland, BC – an award winning 125 acre master planned community, expected to commence construction in 2017.
Mark is also an Adjunct Professor in the Master’s in Community Planning program at Vancouver Island University.
Mark’s career started in the City of Vancouver as a city planner and subsequently as the founder and first manager of its Sustainability Office.
Mark then helped co-found two consulting companies, the Holland Barrs Planning Group, and then HB Lanarc Consultants – both of whom have been recognized nationally as leaders in innovative planning, design and sustainability.
Innovation & Leadership
Following many years of education in innovative sustainable urban planning and design, Mark played a major role in charting the path on sustainable urban development in the 1990s including the planning of Southeast False Creek in Vancouver, which was declared the greenest neighbourhood in North America in 2009 by the US Green Building Council.
He has won many awards for his projects and has developed many concepts and frameworks relating to sustainable communities such as the 8 Pillars of a Sustainable Community, Experience-driven Planning, and the acclaimed Resilient Cities Manifesto;
He is the co-author of the widely referenced book Agricultural Urbanism, that focuses on progressive ways of integrating sustainable food systems into city planning and design;
He has served on numerous boards, including being a founding director of the Institute for Urban Vitality, the Healing Cities Institute and the Pacific Arrowsmith Institute;
In the past he was recognized as one of Vancouver’s Top 40 under 40;
In 2010, he was awarded the “BC’s Planner of the Year”, by his peers in the Planning Institute of BC;
In 2012, his New Monaco project won the top award in Canada for small town planning by the Canadian Institute of Planners.
In 2013, he was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work promoting sustainable communities across Canada.
