Mara Samardzic has spent 20 years building communities across Ontario with a career-defining stretch of it on both sides of the approvals table.

She started in land management, working alongside some of Ontario’s most sophisticated landowner groups, before moving into government relations at BILD, advocating directly with municipalities and the Province on development charges, green development standards, and approval process reform.

Today, as a land development leader with over 15 years of in-house, hands-on experience, Mara takes sites from acquisition through assumption, directing low-rise residential portfolios spanning thousands of units across the GTA.

Her dual perspective of regulator-facing and builder-facing is what makes Mara’s voice on the future of development approvals distinct.  She knows not just what the process is, but how and why it got that way, and what it will take to change it.

Mara is a Registered Professional Planner (RPP), a Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a Professional Land Economist (PLE).