Planna is a proptech company. We are building the product that replaces the way planning advice has been bought and sold for the last forty years.
That means the Senior Town Planner here is not a consultant with a comfortable client list. You are the person accountable for every piece of planning advice that leaves the business, across four states, while also running a team, closing work and writing publicly under your own name.
Most experienced planners will not want this job. The ones who do will not find another one like it.
Who we are
Planna prepares Pre Purchase Reports, Statements of Environmental Effects and development advice across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. Our clients are homeowners, investors, builders, designers and prefab suppliers who want a definitive answer on what they can build, delivered faster and more consistently than a traditional consultancy can manage.
What the role demands
Technical accountability with no safety net
- You own the accuracy of every PPR, SEE and DA package the business issues. If the permissibility call is wrong, the Development Standard is misread or the SEPP pathway is missed, that is yours
- You will move between a Standard Instrument LEP in Sydney, a Hills Face Zone in Adelaide, a heritage overlay in Melbourne and a Class 10a shed in Moreton Bay in the same afternoon, and be expected to get all four right
- You take the matters nobody else can resolve, including heritage, coastal wetlands, integrated development, retrospective approvals and anything a council has already said no to
- You set and enforce the review standard for the whole team
Managing people while carrying your own load
- Manage, review and develop junior and graduate planners without dropping your own output
- Allocate work, catch errors before clients do and have hard conversations when quality slips
- Build processes that hold up when you are not in the room
Sales you cannot delegate
- Scope and quote work, convert PPR clients into full SEE and DA engagements and build repeat B2B relationships
- Structure subscription and credit based arrangements for high volume clients
- Turn down work that does not make sense and defend that decision commercially
Public writing under your own name
- Write blogs, case studies and technical publications that clients, councils and competitors will read and pick apart
- Turn real approvals into marketing material that is accurate, not inflated
- Your name goes on it. So does the criticism
What you need to already have
- A recognised tertiary qualification in Town Planning or Urban and Regional Planning
- At least five years of statutory planning experience, with council development assessment experience strongly preferred
- Detailed working knowledge of the NSW EP&A Act and Regulation, Standard Instrument LEPs and DCPs, plus the ability to become competent in VIC, QLD and SA frameworks fast, because you will be using them from week one
- Experience supervising or mentoring other planners
- Proven commercial judgement. You have quoted, negotiated and scoped consultancy work and can tell a profitable job from a bad one
- Writing that is precise and unpadded. Most of what you produce is paid for and read closely
- Fluency with AI drafting and review tools, and the judgement to catch what they get wrong, which they will
What you get
- Competitive salary and participation in the Employee Share Option Plan
- Phone bill covered
- Real influence in a business small enough that your decisions show up in the numbers within the quarter
- Exposure to four planning systems in one role
The honest bit
Councils do not wait, clients expect definitive answers and the team looks to you when it gets hard.
How to apply
Send your CV and a short note to [email protected]. Skip the cover letter. Tell us about one matter you got approved that others had written off, and send one piece of writing you would put your name to publicly.
Applications close when we find the right person.
Pay: $71,752.74 – $132,300.53 per year
Benefits:
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Darlinghurst NSW 2010
