RCI Planning is the consultancy of Stephen Rowley, an experienced urban planner with extensive industry experience. He also works part time as a Senior Associate at SGS Economics and Planning.
His background includes:
- More than twenty years of planning experience, gained at both state and local government, and as an independent consultant. This includes time at multiple councils, and in the planning systems reform team at the former Department of Planning and Community Development.
- Author of The Victorian Planning System: Practice, Problems and Prospects, an accessible guide to the planning system, and the standard text on Victorian planning used in university courses.
- Planning Editor for the Victorian Planning Reports, the leading reporting service for decisions of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
- Experienced planning educator, teaching in the planning program at RMIT University from 2013 to 2020, and currently Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Monash University.
- Former Vice President and Policy Convenor of the Victorian division of the Planning Institute of Australia.
- Former co-editor of the industry journal Planning News.
- Regular commentator on Victorian planning issues, with his writing on planning issues having appeared in The Age, Crikey, Planning News, and on his own website.
- Regular invited speaker on planning matters, presenting at sessions organised by The Planning Institute of Australia, The Victorian Planning and Environmental Law Association, RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research, The Victorian Greens, and the National Trust.
- Holder of a PhD from the University of Melbourne, in addition to a Bachelor of Planning & Design and Bachelor of Arts (Honours).
- A Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia.
Stephen’s second book, The Victorian Planning System: Practice, Problems and Prospects, has been published by Federation Press. It is aimed at both urban planners and users of the system and gives comprehensive coverage of how the system functions. In November 2017 it received a commendation in the Cutting Edge Research and Teaching category of the Planning Institute of Australia’s Victorian awards for excellence. The comprehensively revised second edition is to be published in April 2023.
Stephen’s first book, Movie Towns and Sitcom Suburbs: Building Hollywood’s Ideal Communities, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in October 2015. In November 2016 it won the Cutting Edge Research and Teaching Award from the Planning Institute of Australia’s Victorian Division. In 2017 it received a Commendation in the same category at the Institute’s National Awards.
In 2019 Stephen was appointed to the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Planning Mechanisms for Affordable Housing.
The following was published in the February 2022 issue of Planning News, after Stephen was made a Fellow of the Institute:
Over the first 20 years of his career Dr Stephen Rowley has made a very significant contribution to planning as an inspiring and passionate lecturer, through his publications, his engagement in planning debates, and his continued advocacy for planning reform. Stephen is one of the profession’s leading voices on the operation of the Victorian planning system. His critical insights into the structure of the VPPs and their intersection with planning practice are highly valued across the sector.
His comprehension of complex matters and his representation skills before VCAT are often sought by communities, colleagues and clients. Stephen has a reputation as a skilled critical thinker, with an ability to cut through traditional planning issues. Through his work Stephen has demonstrated the opportunity for planners to take a more central role in their profession, rather than being sidelined in decision making and the interpretation of the planning system ad its policies. Between what has passed and what is to come, Stephen’s positive, reforming influence on planning within Victoria will be for decades to come.
Stephen’s LinkedIn profile is here.
His personal website, with archives of his writing, is here.