What's the true potential of your Canberra property?
BlockPlanner helps Canberra property owners and developers make confident planning decisions with local expertise, clear guidance, and the right connections to move from option to action.
• No obligation, no sales pitch
• ACT-specific, local expertise
Choose your starting point
Understanding your property in three steps
The ACT has some of the most specific planning rules in the country, and they're changing. Understanding what your block can do, what the process involves, and who you actually need to talk to isn't straightforward. Most homeowners either don't know where to start or get the wrong advice early and lose time because of it.
BlockPlanner removes that friction. We translate the rules into plain decisions, tell you what's genuinely possible on your specific block, and connect you with the builders, developers, and project managers who know the ACT market.
You don't need to become an expert. You need someone who already is.
BlockPlanner removes that friction. We translate the rules into plain decisions, tell you what's genuinely possible on your specific block, and connect you with the builders, developers, and project managers who know the ACT market.
You don't need to become an expert. You need someone who already is.
Understand your property's potential
Get a fast answer on what your block can do. Free, clear, and no obligation.
Get your free property check →
Connect with the right people
Knowing what's possible is one thing. Finding a builder or developer you can trust in a market this specific is another. We make the right introductions when you're ready to move.
The ACT planning reforms are real. Getting a project from viable to built takes more than a good design.
The Territory Plan changes opening up Canberra's established suburbs to Missing Middle development are creating genuine opportunity, for the people who understand the terrain and move early.
BlockPlanner works at the point where planning, community, and politics intersect. We've run advocacy campaigns at ACT and federal level, turned community opposition into community ownership, and helped projects get heard that deserved to be.
If you're assessing a site, building a case, or trying to bring a community with you, this is the work we do.
BlockPlanner works at the point where planning, community, and politics intersect. We've run advocacy campaigns at ACT and federal level, turned community opposition into community ownership, and helped projects get heard that deserved to be.
If you're assessing a site, building a case, or trying to bring a community with you, this is the work we do.
Connect with the right people
Long-standing relationships with Canberra builders, developers, agents, and project managers. We make introductions that move things forward.
Advocate for good projects
We build the public and political case, media strategy, government engagement, community consultation, and endorsement campaigns. For projects that deserve to succeed.
Activate places and communities
New developments succeed when the community becomes part of the story. We design and facilitate the process that makes that happen, from government brief to delivered framework.
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 property's 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.
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ACT Planning Explained
What the new Missing Middle rules mean, how zoning works, and what changed in the 2023 planning overhaul.
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How Precincts Get Built
From raw land to activated place. The process, the players, and what actually makes a precinct succeed long-term.
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Development Advocacy 101
How good projects get heard. Navigating community consultation, government engagement, and the media.
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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 with local expertise
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 founded BlockPlanner out of a long-held belief that Canberra is one of Australia's most underrated cities - and that most of the barriers stopping it from reaching its potential are ones that can be removed. His work spans property consulting, place activation, planning advocacy, and policy reform - driven as much by changing how the system works as by helping individual projects move forward. He co-founded and leads the MicroforestCollective, a registered charity working in community-led green infrastructure across Australia. He is a TEDx speaker, an accredited economic development practitioner, a former Menslink mentor, and a Non-Executive Director of EveryMan Australia.
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.
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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