We’re proud to celebrate that UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning is turning 75 years old in the 2026/27 academic year.
This webpage is a living hub we encourage you to return to, as we not only collect stories from our history but create events we’ve been anticipating for years.
Select from these below options for what to see first:
SCARP's Timeline
Following a study by SCARP personnel, to:
- Discover more about how SCARP has evolved
- Reflect on the impact of our instruction
- Learn how we can still grow
- Gather your stories about the impact you have had in putting your knowledge into action in and beyond the Lower Mainland
We mapped out some pivotal moments in our history into a Timeline we now share with the world
Tell your SCARP story: Submit your own SCARP memory
A few student faces from our history
Clive L. Justice, class of 1953
- One of BC's First registered landscape architects, Past President of BC Society of Landscape Architects
- Principle and Co-Founder, Justice, Webb and Vincent Landscape Architects
Earl A. Levin, class of 1953
- Worked as part of the core team that established Vancouver’s first Planning department;
- Planning Director of Winnipeg, 1960s/70s;
- President of Town Planning Institute of Canada;
- Chair of Planning Department, U. of Manitoba;
- Taught at SCARP
Tommy Jellinek, class of 1963
- Planning Director of Fredericton
- Fredericton City Council
More stories of our history to come!
Today, SCARP has graduated about 3,000 practicing planners into the field and counting.
Since our beginnings 75 years ago, major cultural, technological, economic, and social changes have taken place locally and globally. In response, SCARP alumni have contributed to the practice of linking knowledge and action (Friedman 1987) in a changing world, and across a broad array of practice arenas, including sustainability, social equity, and decolonization.
A community of grads, planners, and partners are now networked worldwide addressing some of today’s greatest challenges.
SCARP's vision today:
Knowledge in Action – Planning in Partnership
SCARP’s mission statement commits us, through education and research, to generating and transforming knowledge into action by planning in partnership to improve lives and communities and the quality of built and natural environments.
The culture and work of the School are shaped and guided by our values:
Read SCARP’s full Strategic Plan
Pursuant to our Vision, our events and our stories invite global planners, the broader global public, and industry partners alike to share knowledge and perspectives, and make of that knowledge sharing a community.
Faculty new and old, and their good works
This decade has seen an extraordinary influx of new faculty positions, each of them enriching the School with new ideas and new initiatives.
Together, SCARP's faculty not only teach a new generation of Planners,but engage the larger community and the Planning profession with new research insights.
A highlight of recent faculty work
SCARP faculty and students co-produce City of Vancouver disaster-preparedness report
SCARP Associate Professors Mike Hooper and Theo Lim, involving an entire class of SCARP's MCRP students, produced this in collaboration with researchers from UBC's Disaster Resilience Research Network and the City of Vancouver Emergency Management Agency.
SCARP's Dr. Andi Binet and students publish paper on the future of BC childcare planning
Binet teamed up with several SCARP students to evaluate child care plans produced by BC municipalities, in their new paper, "Planning for Universal Child Care: An Evaluation of BC Municipal Child Care Plans"
SCARP's Dr. Julia Harten publishes new deep-dive article into housing needs reporting in BC
"Lessons from the first round of mandatory housing needs reporting in British Columbia, Canada"