Peta Charles

Background

About Peta Charles

Known as "the quirky planner", I am professional on the outside and slightly loco on the inside. Which means I am serious when I need to be, and lighthearted when I don't :DHow did I get here? Well, I did the degree at UQ (got "the piece of paper" with honours to boot), and then started my career working for Brisbane City Council. I started first on the grad program. then moved to being an Assessment Manager (assessing the applications on behalf of Council) in the west region. before ending up in what was called the Customer Liaison Officer or CLO role. CLO being the human version of ChatGPT. The person who took calls/sat on the front counter answering questions from the public about all things planning. Starting on "the other side of the fence" was the best possible thing for me. Firstly, it gave me exposure to some incredible mentors. People with a wealth of historical knowledge, who took a "we will chuck you in the deep end and see if you can swim" type approach to learning. Which put the skates on my learning process. Secondly, it gave me great insight into the pressures the various Council peeps are under and hence,"why" certain decisions are made. Often if you are responding to what is written on the page, you are simply wasting time treating the symptom and missing the root cause. So this insight is a massive help when it comes to negotiating outcomes these days. Thirdly, it gave me some great connections (many of whom are still working in Council etc today). From there, I was approached by ib. The opportunity of ditching the red tape and being more hands-on in what was a 1 man bandwagon show, was super appealing. Working under Ian, gave me a much broader depth of experience in both geographical and project scale terms. I went from working on predominantly resi projects in the west region, to working mines in regional areas in one fell swoop. After 7 years at ib, I felt the time had come to challenge myself in new ways. I had a burning desire to "do things differently", and to experiment with new approaches. So with that Brisbane Town Planning was born!To this day, after 10yrs, experimenting is still at the core of what I do. Whether it be in playing with new ways to automate the boring stuff behind the scenes (to free myself up to focus on the human aspects), be it in cracking out the costumes to help me illustrate a planning concept in our weekly videos, or. you get the idea. I love constantly asking myself "is there a different way, is there a better way" and I love to have a laugh (normally at myself) along the way.