August 7, 2025
While you may not recognize his name, you will likely know the places he helped shape — including Whistler Village, False Creek, and Sanctuary Cove in Australia — and how these places became model communities that influenced urban planning and resort development across Canada and around the world.
Neil Griggs passed away in June 2025, yet his impact endures in the legacy of the communities he helped create.
About Neil
Neil was born in India in 1939 to Frank and Betty (née Scarlett) Griggs. His father was a medical doctor and lieutenant colonel in the Indian Medical Service and Neil’s early childhood was marked by travel throughout India and the Far East. During this time the family regularly returned to Canada to visit relatives in Manitoba, and by the age of seven, Neil had already completed seven ocean voyages — one for every year of his life. These early experiences helped shape his global awareness and adaptability. As the eldest of four boys, Neil shared many of these early adventures with his younger brothers Beverly, Russell, and Mark, forming a bond that would grow personally and professionally throughout their lives.
Neil’s parents returned to England in 1946 and Neil and his brothers were educated at Hillstone School in Malvern, Worcestershire, and at Wellington College in Berkshire. After graduating from college, Neil spent the first part of his career in Edmonton and Victoria before eventually settling in Vancouver. In his early twenties, he became actively involved in service-oriented work, serving as vice-president of the Central YMCA Men’s Club, where he was appointed to a training program for Palestinian refugee youth. His early leadership prefaced a lifelong commitment to community development and international cooperation.
While skiing at Mount Baker, Neil met his future wife, Jean. The couple married and made their home in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood, raising two children, Leah and Paul, in a tight-knit community on West 26th Avenue.
Neil earned an undergraduate degree in Urban Geography and a Master’s in Urban Planning from the University of British Columbia (1970). While at UBC, he was inspired by urban visionary Walter Hardwick, whose ideas Neil often referenced throughout his career — particularly in his commitment to community-oriented planning.
Neil's professional life in Planning
Neil began his professional life in the 1970s, a time when cities were reimagining how communities could live, grow, and thrive together. Together with visionaries like Doug Sutcliffe, Michael Geller, Walter Hardwick, and Mayor Art Phillips, Neil played a central role in the planning and development of False Creek South, one of Canada’s most ambitious and socially progressive planning projects of its time. Emerging from the ideals of the 1970s, the neighborhood combined mixed-income housing, co-operatives, parks, schools, and community spaces on a former industrial waterfront — setting a global precedent for inclusive urban design.
While False Creek reflected the social progressiveness of Vancouver in the 1970s, it was perhaps a different community plan, one beyond the city, that Neil became most closely associated with: Whistler, B.C.
In the late 1970s, Neil began a project that would forever shape the identity of Whistler. As the project manager and planner for Whistler Village, he helped create a pedestrian-focused village that balanced community needs, tourism, and long-term sustainability — all while honouring what drew people there in the first place: some of the best skiing in the world. It was a fitting project for Neil, who himself was an avid skier.
Working alongside Doug Sutcliffe and Jim Moodie, Sutcliffe, Griggs Moodie Planning Consultants was formed and, in 1978, after an official groundbreaking ceremony, the company led the development team with preparation of a master plan for Whistler Village. The plan prioritized pedestrian access, mixed-use zoning, and long-term livability. The project involved many significant contributors over the years, including, but not limited to, individuals such as Eldon Beck, Al Raine, Nancy Green, Terry Minger, the original Mayor of Whistler, Pat Carleton, and the influential British Columbia politician Robert (Bob) Williams. Ultimately, Neil held the responsibility for translating the evolving vision into a buildable and enduring reality. Later, as President and General Manager of the Whistler Village Land Company, Neil oversaw the planning, infrastructure, and land sales that laid the foundation for what is now one of the most celebrated all-season mountain resort communities in the world.
Whistler Village would go on to host countless world events, including the World Cup Downhill and 2010 Olympics, as well as receive multiple design awards and praise for its pedestrian-first layout, view corridors, mixed-use zoning, and integration of tourism and community needs.
Following the success of Whistler Village and False Creek, Neil found his next major project through rather unusual circumstances — one that would take him halfway around the world to a muddy swamp in Australia.
In the early 1980s, Australian entrepreneur Michael Gore had been traveling the globe in search of a new kind of community design. When he visited Vancouver and was inspired by the design of False Creek and Whistler Village, he became determined to bring that same planning and design approach to the Gold Coast of Queensland. He reached out to Neil with an opportunity that would become one of the most ambitious resort developments in Australia: Sanctuary Cove.
Gore assembled a team, many of whom were from Vancouver, including Norm Hotson, Rick Hulbert, Ian Thomas, and Neil as project manager. The master plan was influenced, in part, by Vancouver’s Granville Island, False Creek, and Whistler Village, incorporating pedestrian walkways, village streets, and mixed-use spaces. It included 3,000 residential lots, a 300-berth marina, and two 18-hole championship golf courses. Sanctuary Cove — one of Australia's most celebrated resort communities — officially opened in 1988 with a five-day celebration event featuring Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, and a host of world-class golf and tennis tournaments.
In 1991, after returning to Vancouver, Neil was contracted by the BC Building Corporation through his firm, Griggs Project Management, to lead the redevelopment of the former Oakalla Prison site, located beside Deer Lake in Burnaby. Working with his brother Mark, the project transformed the 64-acre property into new roads, parkland, and residential townhouse sites, seamlessly integrating it into the expanded Deer Lake Park community. The former Oakalla Prison site is now part of the Oaklands neighbourhood and received an award from the Urban Development Institute (UDI) for Best Planned Communities in 1996.
Neil continued his work through the 1990s on various local projects, but perhaps his most personally meaningful initiative came in his later years — one focused on giving back to communities both locally and around the world.
In 1997, Neil Griggs founded the nonprofit Builders Without Borders. The organization is a Vancouver-based foundation that partners with local and international NGOs to deliver housing, schools, and medical facilities in communities affected by poverty or disaster. Builders Without Borders brought together a group of like-minded professionals — architects, engineers, and planners — who were equally dedicated to making a meaningful difference.
Since its inception, the organization has participated in over fifty projects in twelve countries including Turkey, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Algeria, Ghana, Laos, the Philippines, Haiti, and Canada. Today, Builders Without Borders helps strengthen communities through a range of expertise and services to create safer housing and essential community facilities.
Across a career spanning nearly 50 years, Neil Griggs brought together people, ideas, and places — creating communities that prioritized human connection, livability, and long-term resilience. He had a gift for navigating complex projects with both vision and pragmatism, and for building strong, respectful collaborations rooted in thoughtful, people-centered design.
Beyond his professional legacy
Neil built a life rich with family and tradition. From spending summers in Point Roberts to winters in Whistler, sharing experiences and creating memories were as much a focus and treasure for Neil as were his ambitions for community development and planning.
He was a devoted and loving husband to Jean, his first wife who sadly passed away from cancer in 1999, father to Leah (Fladgate) and Paul, brother to Beverley, Russell, and Mark, and proud grandfather to Leah’s children Taylor (Juliette) and Courtnay (Jeremey),
Neil found love and companionship again with his second wife, Enda, with whom he shared many meaningful years. Through Enda, Neil’s family grew to include her children, Lance (Sandy) and Anita, and grandchildren Lauren, Theo, Cole, and Justine.
He remained active and engaged in the lives of his brothers, children and grandchildren well into his later years. For his family, friends, and colleagues, Neil’s legacy lives on not only in the communities he helped shape, but in the love and enthusiasm he shared with those closest to him.
Neil’s legacy lives on not only in the communities he helped shape, but in the love and enthusiasm he shared with those closest to him.