We are growing and building for what comes next

We work in some of the highest growth and thriving regions in the country and our consenting and subdivision pipeline is full.

At the same time, resource management reform is arriving. From 2027 the regional spatial plans get drawn, and we are building a team that can work confidently in the new system rather than react to it, including engaging in the spatial planning process on behalf of our clients.

We are looking for a Principal Planner to join our team as a leader through this exciting period of change.  Senior technical leadership on complex work today, and a hand in shaping how planning gets done in our regions tomorrow.

What you will actually be doing

You will lead complex planning processes and the advice that sits behind them, leading engagement with regulatory authorities during the plan making processes as well as fronting planning applications, across a genuinely varied workload. Residential subdivision through to regional planning matters. District and regional plan provisions. Feasibility work, development contributions, scoping. Some weeks that means strategic advice to a landowner deciding what to do with a block of land; others it means leading a hearing and presenting expert evidence.

You will be the senior planning voice with clients and councils, building the kind of long relationships that make the work easier for everyone involved. You will lead engagement with councils and regulatory bodies across our regions, and coordinate the external agencies and specialist consultants who sit around a complex application.

Just as importantly, you will mentor and be a leader in an ambitious and growing planning team. Our senior, intermediate and graduate planners need a technical leader they can learn from.

You will have real autonomy in how you do all of it. We are a firm that trusts experienced people to run their own work.

What you will bring

Ten or more years in the planning sector in New Zealand, with a track record of managing complex projects to good outcomes. A relevant tertiary qualification, and deep knowledge of the Resource Management Act 1991, RMA resource consent procedures, and the council processes that sit around them. Experience at hearings, including presenting and leading expert evidence.

Residential and regional planning expertise matters here, as does experience managing either a portfolio of smaller projects or something substantial. The credibility and composure to hold a well-reasoned position in a contested room, and the judgement to balance competing interests.  The regions we work in are facing real growth and infrastructure challenges, so we need someone who can think strategically and bring an enabling mindset. Someone who cuts through to a solution.

Beyond the technical, we are after a self-starter who enjoys client work and is proactive about where their own career is heading.

About Patersons

We are a multidisciplinary surveying, planning and engineering consultancy working from offices in Dunedin, Queenstown, Wānaka, Cromwell, Alexandra and Christchurch. Planners here do not work in isolation. Surveyors, engineers and GIS specialists sit in the same team, which means a plan can be grounded in real evidence about the land rather than a desktop assumption, and infrastructure realities turn up early instead of unravelling a concept at detailed design.

That breadth is also why the work stays interesting and why the firm has held steady through more than one cycle. We operate across enough sectors, and with enough agility, that our people are not exposed to the fortunes of any single one.

We are ambitious about where we are heading, we take our innovation seriously, and we know this part of the country as well as anyone. If you want your fingerprints on how planning is done here as the system is rebuilt, this is the seat to be in.

Keen to hear more?

Have a confidential chat with Ben Sewell, our People and Talent Business Partner, on 027 950 9297. No CV needed to start with, and every conversation stays between us.

Not quite at principal level yet? If you are a senior planner ready to stretch into a role like this, we would still like to hear from you.

Apply direct to Patersons, not via a recruiter or agency, and you could receive a welcome sign-on bonus.