Katherine Perrott

Katherine Perrott, PhD, RPP, MCIP is an award-winning practitioner, researcher, and educator. As a professional planning consultant in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, she worked across the urban to rural spectrum on projects ranging from climate change action plans to site plan applications.

She has taught urban planning at the University of Toronto, York University, and Dalhousie University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Planning, where she teaches urban design and planning to both undergrads and master’s students.

Katherine is a curiosity-driven researcher, with projects spanning topics from suburban reinvention and high-rise living to image-generating AI. The throughline is density, asking how to better plan for, visualize, and live well in densifying, increasingly complex communities.

• urban density & densification processes

• high-rise living & zoning

• missing-middle housing (stacked townhouses)

• suburban planning & change

• political economy of the built environment

• municipal finance and social economy

• complete communities and amenity access

• visualizing and representing the future

• image-based generative artificial intelligence (AI) in urban design

• urban design

• aesthetics

• visual and arts-based methods

• content and discourse analyses methods

• community-engaged research

• interdisciplinarity (e.g. planning-engineering collaborations)

Katherine Perrott’s research examines urban density and densification processes, driven by the overarching question of how planning can improve quality of life densifying communities. Her research approach draws on planning, geography, and urban design, mobilizing a critical political economy of the built environment to interrogate how value, capital, and governance shape urban form. Her publications address housing trends and planning for missing-middle housing (e.g. stacked and back-to-back townhouses), and high-rise living in both urban cores and suburban areas. Katherine's research pays particular attention to amenities, access, and the conditions for complete communities by examining how residents experience public and private amenities and how planners can support quality of life in dense urban environments. A new direction in her research extends her work on amenities, into how to pay for public facilities, community/social infrastructure, and a high-quality public realm through the development process (e.g. development charges, community benefits charges and related fees). Through this work, she is advancing debates on the value of good design, public investment, municipal finance, and social economy approaches to supporting densifying communities. Methodologically, she has expertise in community-engaged research, content and discourse analysis, visual and arts-based methods, and analysis of emerging image-based generative artificial intelligence.

Katherine Perrott has extensive experience working as an urban planning and design consultant in Atlantic Canada and Ontario. Through that work she has contributed to many Official Plans, Zoning Bylaws, Urban Design Studies, Integrated Community Sustainability Plans, and Climate Change Action Plans. She also has experience writing Planning Justification Reports, draft Official Plan Amendments (OPA), and Zoning Bylaw Amendments (ZBA), Site Plan Review Applications, and Urban Design Briefs for private sector housing developer clients.

Katherine contributes regularly to professional journals including Plan Canada, published by the Canadian Institute of Planners and Y Magazine, published by the Ontario Professional Planners Institute.

She is the lead author and editor of The Studio Skills Guide: Step-by-step instructions for urban design and planning, which is an open access webbook to support student learning. This is an ongoing, regularly updated resource to support students with their studio projects, with regular entries written and updated by Katherine's students and Teaching Assistants.

In 2025, she co-authored the revised Ethical Foundations for Professional Planners. Coursebook and Test Question Bank for the Professional Standards Board for the Planning Profession in Canada.

• 2018, Ph.D. in Planning, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dissertation: The Image of the Suburbs: Planning Urbanity in the Toronto Region. Supervisor: Dr. Katharine Rankin.

• 2008, Master of Planning, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Independent project: Selling the Suburbs: Exploring Representations of Social Diversity in Marketing Media in Markham, Ontario. Supervisor: Dr. Jill Grant.

• 2005, B.A. Honours with Distinction, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Major: International Development Studies. Degree area of emphasis: Rural and Agricultural Development.

• *selected

• 2024, Outstanding Performance Award (Teaching & Service), University of Waterloo

• 2019-2022, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship. One of only eight recipients ($90,000).

• 2011-2016, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship. Awarded nationally ($80,000).

• 2016-2017, Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Awarded provincially ($15,000).

• 2011, Dalhousie University Part-Time Teaching Award for excellence in teaching PLAN 6505 in the School of Planning.

• 2007-2008, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Canadian Graduate Scholarship. Awarded nationally ($17,500).

• 2023-2025, Associate Director, Professional Practice, University of Waterloo, School of Planning, Faculty of Environment.

• 2024-ongoing, Urban Design Specialization applications coordinator, University of Waterloo, School of Planning, Faculty of Environment.

• Ontario Professional Planners Institute, Registered Professional Planner (RPP) since 2013.

• Canadian Institute of Planners, Full Member (MCIP) since 2010.

• Future Cities Institute, Core Member since 2025

• Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU), Board & Association Member

• 2025-ongoing, Board of Directors for the Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU).

• 2023, Jury Member, Schmalz Award for Design Leadership. City of Kitchener’s Great Places (urban design) Awards.

• PLAN 210 - Community Design Fundamentals for Planners
  • Taught in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
• PLAN 211 - Design Studio Foundations
  • Taught in 2023, 2024
• PLAN 309 - Site Planning and Design Studio
  • Taught in 2022, 2023
• PLAN 313 - Community Design Studio
  • Taught in 2024
• PLAN 646 - Site Planning and Design Studio
  • Taught in 2022, 2023
• PLAN 647 - Community Design Studio
  • Taught in 2024
• PLAN 701 - Land Use Planning Fundamentals
  • Taught in 2025
• PLAN 720 - Introductory Planning Project Studio
  • Taught in 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Perrott, Katherine. (2026) Urban vibe and the aesthetic value of suburban reinvention. Urban Studies (online first).

• Perrott, Katherine (2025). Rendering density as a public good. In Keil, R., Phelps, N. and Maginn, P. (Eds.). Peripheral Centralities: Instances Of Anticipatory Urbanism. Jovis.

• Perrott, Katherine. (2023). Walkability. In R. Beunen, M. Duineveld, K. Van Assche (Eds.). Elgar Encyclopedia in Urban and Regional Planning and Design. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

• Perrott, Katherine. (2023). New Urbanism. In R. Beunen, M. Duineveld, K. Van Assche (Eds.). Elgar Encyclopedia in Urban and Regional Planning and Design. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

• Perrott, Katherine. (2023). Smart Growth. In R. Beunen, M. Duineveld, K. Van Assche (Eds.). Elgar Encyclopedia in Urban and Regional Planning and Design. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

• Perrott, Katherine. (2020). Does New Urbanism “Just Show Up”? Deliberate Process and the Evolving Plan for Markham Centre. Urban Planning 5(4): 388-403.

• Perrott, Katherine. (2017). Smart Growth. In Bryan S. Turner (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

• Grant, Jill and Perrott, Katherine. (2011). Where is the Cafe? The Challenge of Making Retail Uses Viable in Mixed-use Suburban Development. Urban Studies 48(1): 177-195.

• Grant, Jill and Perrott, Katherine. (2009). Producing Diversity in a New Urbanism Community: Policy and Practice. Town Planning Review 80(3): 267-289.