Our Services

• What uses is a site suitable for (i.e., its land development capability)?
• What type and density of uses (floor space and / or dwellings) could go there, and will they be the highest and best use of the land (and are they marketable in the long term)?
• Can financial benchmarks and desired hurdle and cap rates be achieved, and what is the impact of time on project costs and income?

The above questions confirm the emphasis on the need to focus early on the capability of a site.  We investigate sites for public, private sector and institutional clients based on sound marketing, financial, social, environmental  and physical analysis.

The preparation and lodgement of rezoning proposals is a significant part of our business.   We manage and prepare planning proposal documentation. Following lodgement, we supervise the application through the rezoning process. This may include responding to any subsequent RFIs and agency liaison, presentations, negotiations on infrastructure commercial / planning agreements (VPAs) and engaging with the community and / or elected representatives where required.

A key element of our approach is a continual focus on the public interest and public benefits that may be offered by a project. Thus our commitment and involvement is not merely a technical (‘box ticking’) exercise. We demonstrate how a potential project recognises the needs of the local and broader communities and ESD / ESG priorities, and how it can generate wider benefits where reasonably possible. 

Following an acceptable rezoning and development consent, we can continue to be involved in the management of the construction of the project. For example, this may include managing detailed civil and / or architectural design, subdivision works certificate (SWC) applications, civil contractor appointment and supervision, project marketing and sales etc.

We can establish, implement and monitoring the project programme, budget and risk register (including milestones, hurdles etc).

We create plans for sites ranging in size from individual infill projects through to large scale plans for new residential communities, town centre and employment precincts. Our plans are based on sound marketing, financial, social, environmental and physical analysis and best practice urban design. They address potential land uses and intensities/yields, road and access networks, public places and spaces and environmental protection measures, which respond to the site’s characteristics in an innovative yet practical manner.

At all steps of a given project, we can monitor and review design outputs to ensure that plans are practical, commercially realistic and meet client, market and stakeholder expectations. In this manner we oversee and add value to a project’s financial feasibility, master plan yield, place making, construction costs and income.

Often development and planning proposals need to be championed, qualified or critically reviewed. We recognise that involvement in mediations and negotiations, (and formal presentations to Government, Local Councillors, resident and other interest groups), is a key element of this process. Stephen is a confident and accomplished public speaker and regularly presents at conferences and lectures. His involvement often extends to the preparation of testimony and attendance as an expert witness in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

We recognise the importance of sense of place, existing / desired future character and local diversity. We have prepared DCPs and design guidelines for individual sites through to large master planned precincts and existing suburbs and town centres.

To be successful, strategies and policies must:

• Not over design or over regulate as this may
  obliterate any inherent sense of place. Rather, they must put in place a planning framework that ‘knows’ at what point to intervene and also, contains the flexibility to allow character to evolve;
• Present the most appropriate implementation mechanism to manage new activities and
  built form; and
• Propose plain English controls that communicate in a clear and concise manner the intentions for development, supported by sketches and illustrations where necessary.

The NSW planning system is complex and development applications must be prepared in an era of regulatory change.  

The preparation, lodgement and management of development applications is another of our central capabilities.

We can brief, appoint and coordinate consultants, manage project budgets and programs and oversee quality control of outputs to ensure that applications are formulated in a correct, sensitive and confident manner. We can lodge and guide the application process to facilitate timely approvals.

Our scope of work includes preparation of Statements of Environmental Effects, urban design studies and Environmental Impact Assessments. Our work often extends to requests for departures to standards contained in any relevant Local Environmental Plan or requests for variations to controls in a Development Control Plan.

Assessment of proposed residential apartment development against the Design Principles and Guidelines contained in SEPP No.65 – Design Quality of Residential Apartment Development is often a core part of our work.

The scope of urban design studies undertaken by the practice is wide ranging and includes the preparation of detailed site and context analyses, building envelope studies and site / streetscape / locality character, landscape and scenic (visual impact) assessments. They draw together complex site, development, accommodation, asset management, infrastructure, user requirement, technical, financial and statutory issues.

We aim to successfully integrate buildings into their immediate environment and manage the interface between the private realm (buildings and spaces) and the public realm (the public spaces) that surround them.