ABOUT
For parks, recreation and culture, the provision of community and leisure facilities and programs are vital to personal, social, civic and economic well-being. An over-riding aspect of our planning process is to ensure that infrastructure and programming met the needs of the municipality by developing actionable plans to achieve that.
"Creating engaging spaces for community well-being"
Karen Sabzali
Founder and Principal
Karen possesses more than 25 years of professional experience in all aspects of the firm's consulting work, as well as public sector experience. The focus of her work has been in developing healthy cities through the development of strategic partnerships in: development planning, recreation site development and parks and recreation programming.
An effective Project Director, she has led multi-disciplinary teams of planners, engineers, architects, landscape architects and programmers in the delivery and renewal of complex recreation sites and land planning applications.
Her passion for travel has also influenced her best practices approach to parkland and community development. These indelible experiences from Europe, Africa, and South America have in turn re-ignited her quest to define how well we are servicing local: sport, recreation, and leisure needs.
Project, Program and Site Development
Localized Data
In order to develop strategic, sustainable solutions, an understanding of where we are is given perspective by changing demand, emerging trends, and opportunities. To create perspective, localized data is key. We evaluate local programming and site performance needs - beyond simple market / bench-marking analysis. We quantify the necessity for existing assets, versus demand and emerging trends. We employ GIS-based systems for data, demographics, and engagement activities. By putting an emphasis on localized data, we can reduce / eliminate the influence of large-market data and planning standards. Our rural and urban-rural clients like that.
Government Admin
Parks, Rec & Culture
During her 11 years, in various municipal leadership roles, Karen has been developing healthy communities by leading and coordinating efforts to deliver diverse municipal services in: recreation, parks, culture and resource (financial and non-financial) management. The administration of these varied Community Services initiatives has included: program development, determining staffing and service levels, developing key external partnerships, and creating and managing current and long term budget needs. In creating, developing and implementing these plans, adopting principles of sustainable design (social, environmental, economic); and pairing those goals with policies, programs, and procedures design to support and build capacity have been key to successes.
Master and Action Plan Development
Engagement & Research
Our commitment to collaborative planning includes creating inclusive opportunities for stakeholder and community engagement. Our team uses a wide range of both traditional and innovative qualitative and quantitative techniques in gathering feedback and generating ideas. To generate an additional level of local engagement data we employ participatory and spatial planning strategies. The resulting policy and master plans matches programs and facilities to current and projected demographics and divergent cultural needs. To ensure master plans are flexible, "living" documents, our actionable plans are clear, allow for updates and can be used as a reference plan by the entire community.