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New organisational structure

The City of Gold Coast recently announced its new organisational structure which came into effect on 1 November 2023. The new structure features seven departments: Infrastructure Gold Coast; Service Gold Coast; Environment, Heritage and Resilience; Planning and Regulation; Invest Gold Coast; Strategy, People and Performance and Business Services.

Introducing the Planning and Regulation department

The Planning and Regulation department is led by Executive General Manager Alisha Swain. Alisha is an experienced Local Government executive with more than 20 years’ experience and is known by many for her former role as Director Economy, Planning and Environment.

The new department is responsible for strategic planning and development assessment/statutory planning as well as City standards and local laws, licencing and permits, and compliance functions across the diverse functions in the city.

The department includes the following four branches, each under the leadership of a General Manager:

  • City Development (Mick Moran, General Manager) – is responsible for the management and assessment of development applications (including major developments, planning assessments and specialised engineering and landscape assessments) as well as being responsible for planning and building advice, infrastructure charges, infrastructure agreements, plan sealing, planning appeals and planning certificates.
  • City Planning (Catherine Rollo, Acting General Manager) – is responsible for long term planning and policy development to manage growth and development of our city while protecting and conserving our natural resources and heritage. This includes strategic infrastructure planning (including coordinating the LGIP), strategic urban and regional planning, city design (including City Architect and Placemaking)
  • City Standards (Ainslie Buffett, General Manager) – is responsible for issuing all licences and permits as well as developing City standards and policy across key compliance functions including local laws, parking and environmental health.
  • City Inspectorate (Luke Connery, General Manager) – this newly centralised branch is responsible for enforcing the City standards and local laws across building, community, public safety and environmental health compliance. The City’s development compliance unit now sits with this branch.

Transfers to other departments

The following functions from the former Planning and Environment directorate have been transferred to other departments:

  • The environment planning and assessment unit, which includes environmental conservation, environmental policy and planning, catchment management, natural hazards engineering and planning, and the Our Natural City strategy, is now located in the new Environment, Heritage and Resilience department.
  • The City’s contributed assets unit, which is responsible for construction supervision of developer contributed assets (from prestart to handover at off-maintenance), is now located in the Engineering, Design and Standards branch in the new Infrastructure Gold Coast department.

Importantly, our commitment to providing a seamless service for our industry partners remains a high priority for the City.

For more information about our Executive Leadership Team and the new departments, visit cityofgoldcoast.com.au/councilstructure