Markham is More: Markham’s Economic Development and Culture Strategy

Developed and co-authored the City of Markham’s Economic Development and Culture Strategy in 2023.

Markham is More: Markham’s Economic Development and Culture Strategy (2023 to 2027) provides an important roadmap to guide the City and its collaboration with community partners to grow Markham’s economy on a foundation of arts, culture, and innovation.

The City took a unique approach to developing the Strategy. While most municipalities undertake separate strategies – one for economic development and one for culture, the approach taken by Markham was to merge them into one overall strategy. This approach recognized the interdependent role that arts and culture play in creating the quality of life that is necessary to attract talent to a community.

As home to Canada’s largest semiconductor cluster, a new urban downtown that will welcome York University’s new campus and more than 170,000 residents, and plans to create the Markham Innovation Exchange (MiX) with its 1,900 acres of employment lands dedicated to next-generation hardware manufacturing, Markham is witnessing major advancements that will continue to transform the community.

The Strategy builds on this momentum with five strategic goals and detailed action plans focused on growing Markham’s economy through business attraction, growing the city’s innovation ecosystem, nurturing the growth of new companies, investing in arts and culture, while expanding the creative talent pipeline.

Taken together, Markham’s new Economic Development and Culture Strategy provides a framework catalyzing the City’s collaboration with its community partners on realizing Markham’s economic potential.

View the Strategy.

MPAC Municipal Engagement Strategy

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) supports Ontario’s 444 municipalities with their property assessment needs every year.

 This includes providing insight and tools to support the management of their property assessment base, adding new assessment and property tax revenues by processing new development and renovations, and providing data that supports broader municipal planning and operational needs.

 To provide greater strategic insight and direction to this work, Chris worked with his team to develop MPAC’s first municipal engagement strategy, including creating a supporting communication strategy and technology strategy that included developing MPAC’s first client relationship management system.

From Concept to Commercialization: A Startup Eco-system Strategy for the City of Toronto

Working with his team, Chris led the development of the City of Toronto's Startup Eco-System Strategy.

The strategy sets forth an ambitious vision and strategic framework to enable the sustained growth of small businesses in Toronto, aiming to make Toronto’s startup eco-system the preferred global location to start and grow a business. The purpose of the strategy is to provide a five-year work plan for enhancing Toronto's startup eco-system.

From Concept to Commercialization: A Startup Eco-System Strategy for the City of Toronto is currently being implemented by Chris and his team.

To view the feasibility study visit here.

York Region Commercial Office Market Analysis

The Regional Municipality of York and its municipal partners have an ambitious plan to develop four new downtowns along the corridors of Highway 7 and Yonge Street.  Referred to as the Region's Centres and Corridors, these areas identified as high-density multi-use communities and the location for the Region's growth in office type employment.

In order to better understand the market opportunity for commercial office development in the Region's various locations within the Centres and Corridors, as well as identify challenges to attracting commercial office development, Chris project managed an initiative to complete an economic analysis of the Region's commercial office market.

This study looked at understanding the costs and benefits of developing in the Region's Centres and Corridors and then comparing these against similar commercial office nodes in the Greater Toronto Area.  With this comparison complete, the study then provided a range of policy and program recommendations for facilitating commercial office development in York Region.

York Region Broadband Strategy

Chris initiated and project managed the development of the York Region Broadband Strategy which provides a roadmap for improved connectivity for businesses, residents and the public sector in York Region.

The Strategy was developed in partnership with York Region's nine local municipal partners (Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Aurora, King, Whitchurch-Stouffville, Newmarket, East Gwillimbury and Georgina).  To assist in developing the Strategy, large and small telecommunications companies were also engaged, including Bell, Rogers and Telus, to help shape the strategy's targets, recommendations and work plan.

The Strategy provides a range of recommended actions focusing on three key areas:

• Education and Advocacy - these actions focus on educating stakeholders on the importance of connectivity to their and the Region's success.
• Municipal Processes - these actions focus on ways municipal processes, such as access agreements and road re-construction projects, can be leveraged to encourage investments in connectivity infrastructure.
• Infrastructure Investments - these actions focus on identifying a range of infrastructure investments to improve connectivity for residents, businesses and the public sector.

To view the strategy visit: www.investinyork.ca/broadband.