Lynda Macdonald, OALA, OPPI, RCIP is a graduate of the University of Guelph and is currently the Director , Community Planning, Toronto and East York District for the City of Toronto. Her team oversees all development applications and planning studies in central Toronto balancing unprecedented growth with the need to provide amenities and services to residents, workers and visitors to the City.
Lynda started her career as a consulting landscape architect working first with a national cemetery company and quickly moving on to consulting with Altorio Associates in Ottawa, then Project Planning Limited in Ottawa and Toronto on a range of multi-disciplinary projects in Canada and internationally. In her over 30 years with the City of Toronto Planning Division, Ms Macdonald has been influential in projects across the downtown such as the Central Waterfront Plan , secondary plans for the Fort York Neighbourhood and Railway Lands, countless small and large scale developments and most recently, with the new comprehensive TOcore (Downtown Plan) and the proposed Rail Deck Park in the west downtown. Lynda's volunteer work has included co-leading the Beaches Community Tree Planting Project and being a founding member of the 10,000 Trees for the Rouge Valley project celebrating its 30th year in 2019.
Throughout her career she has put the public interest and the environment first, working to integrate the foundational principles of landscape and urban design into all her planning initiatives and in particular ensuring that the profession is represented in the work done both inside and outside of City Hall.
