ACT Property guidance & Community Advocacy
What's the true potential of your Canberra property?
Most Canberra homeowners don't know what their block could actually do. We assess your property against ACT planning rules and tell you exactly what's possible, in plain language, for free.
• No obligation, no sales pitch
• ACT-specific, local expertise
Your free property assessment includes:
What you can build • Planning zone explained • Development potential • Estimated value uplift
Consult
Activate
Advocate
Simple & Free
Understanding your property in three steps
No planning knowledge required. We translate ACT planning rules into plain language and tell you exactly what matters for your block.
1
Enter your address
Type in your Canberra address and we'll pull up your block's zone and size instantly.
2
We assess your block
We run your block against ACT planning rules and tell you what's possible - what you could build, and whether your property has real development potential.
3
Get your plain-English report
Your free report gives you a clear starting point. If you want to go deeper, including what's already on the site and how that affects your options, we can help.
What we do
Four ways BlockPlanner helps Canberra
Understanding your property's potential is just the start. Depending on where you want to go, we can help you take the next step, whatever that looks like for you.
Understand your propertys potenital
Our free assessment tells you what your block can do under ACT planning rules, in plain English. Takes minutes, no obligation.
Get your free assessment →
Connect with the right people
Knowing what's possible is one thing. Knowing who can help you get there is another. We have long-standing relationships with Canberra builders, developers, and project managers, and we'll make the right introductions when you're ready.
Advocate for good projects
Good developments sometimes struggle to get heard. We build the public and political case, engaging media, securing political support, and bringing communities together around projects that deserve to succeed.
See our advocacy work →
Activate places and communities
New developments succeed when the community embraces them. We bring people together around shared ideas, turning consultation into genuine participation and new spaces into thriving neighbourhoods.
See how places thrive →
Free education & Insights
Understanding Canberra property shouldn't require a degree
We publish plain-language videos and articles explaining how ACT planning, development, and property markets actually work. No jargon, no sales pitch. Just useful knowledge, whether you're a homeowner, an investor, or just curious.
▶
ACT Planning Explained
What the new Missing Middle rules mean, how zoning works, and what changed in the 2023 planning overhaul.
▶
How Precincts Get Built
From raw land to activated place. The process, the players, and what actually makes a precinct succeed long-term.
▶
Development Advocacy 101
How good projects get heard. Navigating community consultation, government engagement, and the media.
▶
The Asset Management Gap
Why most commercial assets underperform, and what precinct activation actually does to change that.
Videos launching mid-2025 · Subscribe to be notified
WHO WE ARE
Built by people who live this work
BlockPlanner was founded by people who believe that how places are built shapes how communities feel about them. That conviction runs through everything we do.
Founder & CEO
Mitch Porteous
Mitch has spent over a decade working across housing, urban land, and green infrastructure in both public and private sectors. He's a TEDx speaker on community-led development, an accredited economic development practitioner, and co-founder of the Microforest Collective, which has delivered community-built urban forests across the ACT and beyond. At BlockPlanner, he leads property consulting and place activation, focused on Australia's housing supply challenge and the role smart infill and community engagement can play in solving it.
TEDx Speaker
Accredited Econ. Development Practitioner
Microforest Collective Co-founder
Housing & Infill
Strategic Advisor
Will Honey
Will is the CEO of The Property Collective, one of Canberra's most established residential real estate agencies. He has spent more than two decades working across sales, project marketing, and development, from site acquisition through to settlement, giving him a rare end-to-end view of how residential projects actually get built and sold in the ACT.
He understands what developers need, what landowners want, and what it takes to get projects across the line. That depth of market knowledge is what he brings to BlockPlanner.
He understands what developers need, what landowners want, and what it takes to get projects across the line. That depth of market knowledge is what he brings to BlockPlanner.
Residential Property
Property Development Support
Market Expertise
Projects we're proud of
Real advocacy. Real Communities. Real outcomes.
These aren't case studies, they're stories about Canberra people working to make our city better, and how we helped them get there.
Development Advocacy
Canberra Co-housing
When Canberra's co-housing community needed help navigating government approvals, we stepped in to coordinate voices and build the case. Through media engagement across radio and print, and strategic meetings with Senator Pocock, the Chief Minister, and multiple MLAs, we helped position this community-led housing model for success. Not lobbying. Just making sure decision-makers understood what the community was trying to achieve and why it mattered.
Federal & Territory engagement
5+ media outlets
18-month campaign
Place Activation
City Hill Activation
How do you turn community consultation into real outcomes? City Hill showed us. Working with a government brief and existing community input, we used the TEDx Adventure methodology to move from ideas to delivery. It wasn't about telling the community what they should want. It was about creating frameworks where good ideas could happen within real constraints. A methodology we now bring to every project we touch.
100+ participants
TEDx Adventure format
Delivered framework
Development Advocacy
Genesis, Coombs
Genesis is a sustainable residential development in Coombs by ACT Securities, combining ecological design with high-quality living. Getting a development like this in front of the right people takes more than marketing. It takes education.
We're working with ACT Securities to design and deliver a community education event that brings buyers, investors, and local residents into the story early, through a genuine conversation about what sustainable living looks like in practice.
We're working with ACT Securities to design and deliver a community education event that brings buyers, investors, and local residents into the story early, through a genuine conversation about what sustainable living looks like in practice.
Education event
Sustainable development
Community activation
What our clients say
What impact looks like in practice
We measure success by what actually changes, for communities, for projects, and for the people behind them.
Development Advocacy
"BlockPlanner managed our RFT, including running the advocacy campaign behind it - print and radio coverage, MLA engagement at ACT and federal level, a site visit and letter of support from Senator Pocock, and public endorsements from the ACT Greens and Thomas Emerson. They turned seven years of community work into a credible, visible bid."
- Michael Bones, President, Cohousing Canberra
Get started
Let's talk about what's possible
Whether you're a property owner wanting clear advice, an asset owner looking to activate a precinct, a developer who needs advocacy support, or someone who just wants to learn, there's a place for you here.
Or follow us for free educational content →
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