Peta Charles has worked with a diverse mix of clients, varying from first time homeowners through to larger companies such as Arnott’s and Shell.
We find Peta's advice and reports to be essential to the success of the DA's we are involved in. She helps us with mainly residential and smaller projects. DA = Development Application.
Brisbane Town Planning (BTP) is registered for RiskSMART (fast track) with Brisbane City Council (BCC). Peta has considerable experience within the BCC, plus worked in both the public and private sectors.
Having worked within Council means Peta has a valuable appreciation for the officers in Council and detailed knowledge of the DA process. She has established positive working relationships with Council staff, which benefits us and you.
Peta & Kim are a great team, and keep on top of all applications, so you and us are aware of progress and and issues needing negotiation, which can occur.
As well, we appreciate Peta's involvement in our association, BDQ. She is a major part of our technical committee, with special influence within our CPD program.

Josephine (Josie) works with us on many of our residential projects.
We need and like her to solve the more interiors aspects of the design. She brings a wealth of capability to ensuring everything comes together for you and the builder.
DfL (Designed for Living), her business name, says it all. Josie specialises in boutique interiors and residential design. As she says ``it's all about you``. Her warmth and understanding is very valuable to us, as our projects work even better.
Josie has spent years working in the industry to design boutique homes in Australia and the UK. She has a keen eye and understands how important it is to create beautiful spaces that are also practical for day to day life.
Josie is fully qualified with a Bachelor Built Environment; Interior Design. She has personal experience of renovating her own home, so she knows just what it is like for our clients.
Another reason we like having Josie on our team, is that she is heavily involved in our association, BDQ, being the chair of the Interior Design committee, which is working on an important initiative to achieve accreditation, then licencing for Interior Designers.

Adrian Dine and his staff have considerable experience in structural design of all sorts of buildings, with AD.STRUCTURE focusing on clear, simple design for residential buildings.
We have used AD.STRUCTURE for many years as they share the same ethos of high quality design and documentation. Their drawings are in the upper echelon of the industry, and ideal for builders as the information is laid out to suit the logic of erecting structure on site. They also provide advice as and when needed, which builders love.
In their words:
``AD.STRUCTURE have the expertise to handle every aspect of structural design and documentation for residential building and renovation projects — presenting economical and practical solutions to make your family home structurally safe without compromising on design aesthetic.``
Adrian has gone even further, and is a member of our association, BDQ. He is involved in our technical committee, with contributions that are helping us all.

BAAA are our expert building approvals team. Building Approvals (BA) are obtained through private certifiers. Certifiers are also Building Surveyors.
We use the whole team, but mainly deal with Michael Tyrrell. He is well respected in the industry for his honest, down to earth approach to services. He approaches certification and inspections with the attitude of practicality combined with satisfying the endless codes in this industry. Michael is used to liaising with our Town Planner.
We use BAAA for our approvals, for which they are very thorough, but where they are the best is in providing us with extensive preliminary advice. and guiding us occasionally through the myriad codes and standards.
The BAAA team are experts at dealing with the extensive paperwork that is generated as part of a BA. They also are good at dealing with things like siting relaxations and build-over services applications.

Greg Hoonhout (owner, left) & Paul Powell run the survey arm of Gateway Survey & Planning.
They produce the best surveys for our needs, and are essential to the accuracy we depend upon when starting any of our projects.
Gateway visit the site, collect a lot of data and produce three things for us:
Detail & Contour Survey - a full record of everything on the site or underground, and when there is an existing building, its salient points in 3D. This is essential for accurate design.
NGS - Natural Ground Surface. Every council has its own way of defining this and Gateway are familiar with them all. NGS matters when keeping buildings under allowed maximum heights.
Identification Survey - On some projects we must locate boundaries and Gateway are really good at this.

Atee Safaei is a multi-talented graduate of architecture and building design.
She offers photorealistic renders of our projects for clients. In this way you will see your dream house in a real way. She creates still images or mini-movies, both inside and outside.
There can be advice and pointers to you and us, which is most helpful.
She can even place the building in streetscapes and amongst a neighbourhood.
Visit the ABOUT page on the website to obtain a fee estimate.
It is very useful to use a local renderer, rather than sending it overseas, as we can interact with Atee.
There is another service that Atee can offer - a hand-drawn sketch of your house. After the reno has been completed, is even better.
Atee is a lovely person to deal with, and we highly recommend her.

CWA provide us with hydraulic design drawings for our projects, as required for DA's and BA's. This includes stormwater, sanitary pipework, hot & cold water supply, box and valley gutter design, rubble pits and ground water egress. Think water, think CWA!
They also liaise with council to obtain the necessary approvals.
Without them, we simply could not manage to create good solutions to our projects. It makes us feel comfortable when we use their services and will ensure you have a well performing building and site.

Clarke provides you our client with accurate building costs.
This is so useful.
He provides a detailed Budget Estimate at an early stage of our design process, to establish certainty with budget considerations. We use this to adjust our design as needed before going too far, especially prior to working drawings.
Clarke offers consultations with us and you to go through options.

Tori and her team provide us with energy assessment reports, as required by National Construction Code (NCC), and Queensland Development Code (QDC) MP4.1.
The idea is that together, we create an efficient building, so you benefit long-term. Tori helps us ensure you end up with a thermally comfortable building, year-round.
They use essentially two methods, depending upon the project. One is via modelling the building within advanced software and then adjusting that model to achieve 7 stars. The other is via Deemed To Satisfy (DTS) using prescribed methodologies. In both cases, that is then fed back to us for collaboration, and possible adjustments to attain a good result.
We find this is best begun early in the design process, and re-checked right near working drawings.
Like all our consultants BERA is an essential team member to help us all create a great building.

Vince Reitano looks after our flood assessment and report matters.
He is brought in on projects where council has flagged that our subject property has a flood issue or overland flow. Above is a diagram from a report assessing the amount of overland flow that a property should experience during a 1 in 100 year rain event. These assessments, in report form, become part of a DA and BA, proving to council and certifier how the site is affected during the event including flow rates.
Bellas & Reitano deal with all aspects of engineering, not just flood, but this is our main use of their expertise.

Bernard & team provide us with bushfire assessment reports.
These are necessary when the site has a bushfire overlay on the local authority's planning scheme. They assess the local conditions, which is a thorough process and come back with a BAL rating. BAL (Bushfire Attack Level) goes from nil right up to severe. Any site with a BAL of 12.5 and over, require some design and material responses.

We recommend Paul when our owners need independent builder inspection advice, beyond our own input. Some builders like to use Paul's services so they don't miss anything. He is a specialist at inspections of build quality. This can happen at various stages of the construction process, improving the end product and subsequently, the handover experience for both the builder and owner. Paul can also provide an inspection at handover, to provide an itemised list of any defects or incomplete work that the builder may have missed or omitted.

We use John's services, mainly drone photography. We need high quality aerial images of most of our reno projects, to obtain a good understanding of high-up elements, especially roof, gutter, chimneys and more. With this, we not only can create accurate modelling, but we also can 'see' what is above. This is eminently better than relying on satellite aerials, and it augments the positioning of the ridge we receive from our surveyor.
On some houses, the only way we and everyone else, can see the roof, is via John's drone images and videos. Some roof tiles or sheeting are so brittle or damaged, that to just inspect, would further deteriorate things.
We also obtain 'after' drone shots from John, for this website, and award entries.
John can also visit your project during construction, so you get a birds-eye view, without climbing ladders!