ACT Division Committee

Meet the 2026 Australian Capital Territory Division Committee members.

 

Memorandum of Understanding PIA & TPA

Natalia Anderson RPIA
PIA ACT President

Gyde Consulting

Natalia is a passionate and dedicated Town Planner working throughout Canberra, NSW and federally leased airports.

She works on a wide variety of planning consultancy matters including development applications, lease variations, DA project management, due diligence assessments and community consultations. She has a passion for supporting younger planners into their career and is always open for a chat (or cake!). 

Natalia was the National Young Planner Director for the Planning Institute of Australia 2018-2020 and was the 2017 Planning Institute of Australia's ACT Young Planner of the Year.

Thomas Carberry MPIA

Co-Vice President

SMEC

Thomas is a planning professional with 10 years’ experience across environmental, statutory, and strategic planning projects. Since relocating from Albury Wodonga in 2022, Thomas has developed a strong connection to Canberra and its surrounding region with a particular passion for sustainability, environmental resilience, and high-quality urban outcomes. He has an in-depth understanding of the ACT, NSW, and Victorian planning systems and is experienced in managing complex strategic planning projects, stakeholder engagement, and the facilitation of approvals for major residential and commercial developments.

As a Senior Planner with SMEC, Thomas has contributed to several significant planning projects shaping Canberra’s growth and regional NSW’s development. He is thrilled to be rejoining the PIA ACT Division Committee for another term and is committed to delivering events and initiatives that support and connect the local planning community.

Dot Hepburn MPIA

Co-Vice President

City and Environment Directorate

Dot is an urban planner, passionate about creating sustainable and resilient places and communities. She is a Senior Project Manager at the City and Environment Directorate, leading early technical and planning studies to support land release across the Territory. Dot is an active PIA member, having hosted the ACT and NSW Awards events, PIA Become a Planner information session with NSW Geography Teachers, and presented or hosted a number of PIA CPD events and represented PIA at schools, over her time as a member.

Dot was awarded the ACT Emerging (Young) Planner of the Year in 2023, and a commendation from the SA Division in 2019 for her Masters thesis, which was published by Springer Publications in 2024. Dot is returning to the PIA ACT Committee in 2026, after previously being the ACT Emerging Planner representative on the 2024 Committee, and a member of the NSW EP and SA EP committees. 

Peter Johns MPIA
Board Director

Planning Advisor for ACT Greens

Peter came to planning later on in life, he completed a BA (in the 70s) and then 20 years later did a Grad Dip in Urban and Regional Planning at the Uni of New England in the 1990s. More recently, Peter finished a Masters of Urban Renewal and Housing through UNSW.

Peter has a real passion about cities, especially Canberra, what makes them tick, the equity of cities and how we should leave them in a better place than when we first came to them. Peter spent most of his working life as a town planner in Housing ACT, focusing on the redevelopment of public housing properties. But he also spent a few years in EPSDD working on Territory Plan variations and urban development initiatives.

Russell Coldicutt PIA (Assoc.)
Emerging Planners Convenor

Suburban Land Agency 

Russell is a Development Manager at the Suburban Land Agency, managing the design, planning and delivery of new suburbs in the ACT. He brings expertise in strategic planning, climate adaptation, sustainability, placemaking, and planning legislation, with a focus on creating resilient and equitable communities. Russell has also held positions in the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate of the ACT Government, where he led work on climate-ready planning and development policy and DA assessment.
 
Prior to joining ACT Government, Russell taught and researched the cultural and political dimensions of the built environment at a university in the US, where he also served as Assistant Editor for a leading academic journal.
 
Russell represents Emerging Planners on the Planning Institute of Australia’s ACT Division Committee.

Maxine Cooper MPIA (Fellow)

Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment

Dr Maxine Cooper is a Life Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia, Fellow of the Environment Institute of Australian and New Zealand, Adjunct Professor with the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Arts and Design, independent Chair of the ACT and Region Catchment Coordination Group, independent Chair of the Landcare ACT Board, and Deputy Chair of the National Landcare Network. She has been a Fulbright Fellow (USA) and Commonwealth Scholarship holder (Canada). She is particularly interested in building partnerships to foster interdisciplinary collaborations that advance sustainable practices.
 
Maxine has held executive positions in policy and operational areas, managed diverse government businesses, and undertaken investigations and research, across multiple jurisdictions. Previously she was the Auditor-General for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Prior to that, the ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, and before that, the Head of the ACT Water Security Taskforce. 

Mel Krzus RPIA

GYDE Consulting

Mel is a Director at GYDE Consulting, a leading consultancy in NSW and the ACT offering statutory and strategic planning, communications and engagement, social planning, urban design, and data analytics. Over the past 16 years, Mel has emerged as a dynamic, solutions-oriented planner, who consistently strives to achieve positive and innovative outcomes for government and private Clients.

Whilst she carries a broad spectrum of both statutory and strategic planning knowledge across a very diverse range of project types and scales, she is a statutory planner at heart with a particular interest in larger scale, more complex development proposals. Mel thrives on navigating her clients through the complexity of our planning systems, project managing the approvals process and has a keen attention for detail.

Hope Watson RPIA

P L A N I T Strategic

Hope has more than 15 years experience in environmental assessment, consulting and planning, with a broad range of experience in urban and infrastructure planning, environmental impact assessment and environmental planning projects across Australia.

She enjoys thinking strategically about planning and development matters, and providing sustainable solutions to planning and environmental challenges for my clients.Hope's experience has included the management of multi-disciplinary environmental impact assessment and planning projects. She has provided services to clients from a range of industry sectors including transport, power, mining, property development and waste and for both the government and private sector.

Negar Yazdi RPIA

ACT Government

Negar (Nez) is a dedicated researcher and practitioner in the field of urban planning, with over nine years of experience across local and international private and public sectors, contributing to a diverse range of projects and studies. Currently, she is an Assistant Director in the Planning and Urban Policy Division at the City and Environment Directorate (CED) , focusing on strategic planning policies.

Specialising in child-friendly urban environments, Nez has played a pivotal role in drafting national guidelines and policies for government ministries in Iran and the Tehran City Council. Her contributions include authoring the book "A Grounded Analysis on Children's Cognitive Development in Urban Settlements," recognised as a significant publication in Iran on this subject.

Nez's dedication lies in promoting inclusive and sustainable urban planning, with a particular emphasis on creating environments that cater to children's needs. She was the Planning Institute of Australia's ACT Young Planner of the Year in 2022.

Josh O'Connor RPIA

Knight Frank

Josh is currently an Associate at Knight Frank Town Planning with over seven years of experience helping projects come to life across government and private sectors in Australia. He’s passionate about all things planning—whether it’s master planning, rezoning, development applications, or tackling tricky heritage and environmental issues.

Josh’s experience as a land use planner and project manager includes projects of scale and significance across the ACT, NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania. Outside of work, Josh has been an active participant in the PIA Victoria ‘Career Foundations Mentoring Program’ in 2023/2024, an alumni mentor for Masters of Urban Planning students at the University of Melbourne, and a former member of both the PIA Young Planners Committee in Tasmania and the PIA ACT Division Committee.

Karen Wright RPIA (Fellow)

Anglican Diocesan Services

Karen is passionate about creating people-first cities that provide healthy, connected and inclusive places for everyone. Karen has worked across social planning including schools planning, design and planning for healthy places, transport and land use planning, and in both strategic and statutory planning. She is highly engaged with creating solutions to complex urban problems including the timely delivery of social infrastructure, increasing the use of active transport and designing better places for people.

Karen has worked for 25+ years in planning across government, not for profits and consulting and is a Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia. She has extended her initial studies in Town Planning at UNSW, to further study in international urban and environmental management, active transport research and project management and is interested in how cities and suburbs can support local food production.

 

Richard Nash RPIA

SPACELAB

Richard is an experienced Town Planner and Urban Designer and is the Principal Planner with SPACELAB. Richard has over 15+ years’ experience through several roles including the National Capital Authority and as the General Manager of Purdon Planning. Richard works to achieve good planning outcomes through design-led thinking.

Richard brings extensive technical and leadership skills along with a proven track record providing solutions to complex design, technical and process related challenges. Over the last decade, Richard has been involved with delivery of some of the largest and technically challenging mixed use, multi-unit dwelling developments within the ACT. Richard also has extensive experience working in the broader ACT region with the NSW planning system.

Brian Risby MPIA (Fellow)

Brian is a Fellow of PIA and has been a planner for over 35 years working mostly in Tasmania, including in State Government, the Tasmanian Planning Commission and private consulting. Brian retired from full-time work in August 2024 having been appointed as the Director of State Planning for Tasmania in 2021. He has also advised Ministers of Planning.

Since 2014 Brian has led a very ambitious planning reform agenda in Tasmania including the introduction of a single statewide planning scheme, a new major projects approval process, and a comprehensive suite of Tasmanian Planning Policies.

Currently Brian commentates in the media on planning and related issues with regular contributions to the Hobart Mercury newspaper and to the Victorian and Tasmanian Planning News. he spends his time between Canberra and Tasmania and is considering starting a research degree around sustainability and wellbeing policy impediments and opportunities.

 

Ingrid Shelton RPIA

Ontoit

Ingrid is a qualified project manager and town planner, with over 13 years in local and international experience in project management, land use planning, urban management, placemaking and urban design. 

She is a registered Town Planner with PIA and a registered Project Manager with PMI Australia. She has an interest in legislation, placemaking and community engagement. She is currently a Senior Associate at Ontoit and manages the delivery of complex projects from concept to completion, working  closely with clients and multidisciplinary teams to manage strategy, timelines, risks, and stakeholder engagement, ensuring projects are delivered efficiently.

Olivia Stafford PIA (Assoc.)

Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council

Olivia has over six years’ experience as an urban planner working across statutory and strategic planning in the ACT, NSW and Victoria. She has held roles in both the public and private sectors, including with the National Capital Authority and Purdon, and is currently a Senior Town Planner at Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council.

Olivia is passionate about transparent and well-integrated planning processes that balance good design, development outcomes and community needs. She believes meaningful community engagement is essential to achieving outcomes that are fit-for-purpose and reflect the vision and character of the city. Olivia is committed to representing the interests of planners across the greater Capital Region and fostering collaboration between jurisdictions.