WA’s Planning Commission boss talks housing, density – and pushback

It was never Emma Cole’s plan to become the head of WA’s Planning Commission, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I really liked geography, and perhaps that should have been a bit of a clue,” Cole tells this masthead as part of a series of sit-downs with the decision-makers guiding WA’s future .

Cole credits her time in local government for her success over the past 2½ years at the helm of the government board that has statewide responsibility for integrated urban and regional land use planning and development.

“What really got me interested in planning was joining local government because I’d been a public servant, I just had young children, I was working part-time, I was feeling like I needed something new,” she said.

“There was a development on my laneway, and it was really interesting that all of my neighbours hadn’t been consulted, even though we were really close to it.

“It was an apartment building, and it was quite a new departure for our suburb. I didn’t have a problem with that, but I thought, ‘This is really odd that we haven’t been consulted’.

“So, that got me quite interested in local government, and somehow, I found myself in that space, and I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll have a go’ and ended up running for council and being elected to the City of Vincent.”

Cole remained on the council for a decade, and for 6½ years stood at the forefront of the local government as mayor before stepping down in 2023.

“I had the opportunity to apply to the WAPC while I was the mayor of the City of Vincent, and the passion for planning just grew and grew,” she said.

“I ended up finding myself back at uni as a mature-age student, I did a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning, which I absolutely loved.”

Cole joined the WAPC in 2020 as the metropolitan representative for local government before being reappointed as former chairperson David Caddy’s deputy.

“Then six months later he announced pretty quickly he was retiring, which was a bit of a shock, and then I was appointed to the role in January 2024 as chairperson.”

While many people think of the WA Planning Commission as the people who approve development applications, Cole says it goes far deeper than that.

“I think some of the things that people think about when they think ‘What does a planning commission do?’ They think of us approving development applications. But that’s at the pointy end and almost like the last stage of planning,” she said.