The Planning Institute of Australia National Congress always provides the chance to listen to industry leaders and ask them questions face-to face. You can meet some of your professional heroes, engage in high level debate and refine your ideas. You also get to visit a new place and have fun. What’s not to like?
A few of the URPS team escaped the mainland to attend the PIA Congress in Hobart last month.
Now back at our desks doing our best to deliver great work of our own, we have had some time to reflect on our key learnings from the Congress:
- We need to be better at engaging First Nations people in our projects. We shouldn’t let a fear of getting it wrong get in our way. Speaking with First Nations knowledge holders and learning about country enriches our projects and moves them from the tokenistic to the authentic.
- The housing crisis isn’t our fault. It’s not as simple as “zone it and they will come”. Some very complex factors are impacting demand. In the rush to bring housing online, planners need to keep in mind how we create great places to live that encourage active travel, have high amenity and are attainable for all our community.
- Climate change is here and now. It’s not just “out there” anymore. We all need to think about what we can do to address it in our everyday. From strategic planning to development assessment – every part of planning plays a role in mitigation and management of climate change impacts.
At URPS we love to learn and we invest in keeping our team’s knowledge up-to-date. We think this results in informed, curious and passionate practitioners.
