Proptech panel: Planning, proptech and big council data
Urban planning in Australia can feel stuck in the filing cabinet of 1979 – one council development control plan alone runs to around 500,000 words across 1,800 pages.
In this Proptech Association Australia panel, host Kylie Davis brought together three founders working at the coalface of local government digitisation – Dr Benjamin Coorey of Archistar, Will Sullivan of Propcode and Tom Young of uDrew – to explore why planning data is one of the last digital frontiers.
The panel unpacked the vast datasets locked away in unstructured council PDFs and development control plans, and how rules engines and generative design tools could move Australia's planning approvals out of the paper age. While councils are risk-averse and resource-stretched, the panellists argued that machine-readable planning rules would benefit everyone – from homeowners to council planners themselves.
On the panel:
Kylie Davis – Proptech Association Australia (host)
Dr Benjamin Coorey – Founder and CEO, Archistar
Will Sullivan – Founder, Propcode
Tom Young – Founder, uDrew
The conversation covered:
(00:06) Introduction to the local government proptech panel and acknowledgement of Country.
(02:33) Why urban planning is one of the last datasets to be digitised across Australia's 500-plus local councils.
(04:19) How state-level open-source data compares to highly localised, non-digital council rules designed to preserve neighbourhood character.
(06:03) The reality of processing development control plans stored in unstructured PDFs and printed on massive drawing sets.
(08:06) Tom Young on Western Australia's slower digital adoption and the patchwork quilt of disparate council regulations.
(11:36) The concept of 'rules as code' and why a North Sydney Council RFP asking for an AI-ready DCP is a watershed moment.
(13:15) Will Sullivan introduces Propcode and its focus on fast-track CDC eligibility and machine-readable planning engines.
(18:08) The hidden scale of council regulations: Sutherland's DCP reaches 500,000 words across 1,800 pages.
(20:04) Tom Young outlines uDrew's end-to-end collaborative platform servicing the entire building lifecycle from homeowners to councils.
(26:11) Overcoming early industry pushback and the perceived threat of software to local government job security.
(29:13) Dr Benjamin Coorey traces Archistar's decade-long journey from streamlining architectural design to generative property assessment.
(36:03) Why unique sites, unique designs, and bespoke council formats make automated planning compliance such a formidable challenge.
(43:37) Will Sullivan on the urgent need for statewide planning reform and template standardisation like New Zealand or South Australia.
(48:36) Drawing the parallels between structural engineering's reliance on digital analysis and the future certainty of property planning.
(49:51) Differentiating Propcode from other platforms and addressing subjective planning parameters like heritage conservation.
(51:15) Tom Young on achieving a record approval time of 90 seconds and why New Zealand's amalgamated council structure puts them years ahead.
In their words:
“Every situation is a rare situation, it's just that there's 10,000 of them.” – Dr Benjamin Coorey
“You don't study for four years to approve a swimming pool, you want to be doing smart cities, better urban areas and working on what's important.” – Tom Young
“If we put software in people's hands that knows the regulations better than any of us do, better than council themselves knows it, then everyone benefits.” – Will Sullivan
About the panel:
Dr Benjamin Coorey is the founder and CEO of Archistar.ai, an architect by background, and a pioneer in generative design and automated property assessment. Will Sullivan is the founder of Propcode, a former urban planner with deep expertise in statutory planning frameworks and fast-track approval pathways. Tom Young is the founder of uDrew, a geologist and structural engineer by training who built a collaborative platform that streamlines building compliance from start to finish.
Transcript:
This is an automated transcript of the panel, lightly edited for readability. Please excuse any errors.
Kylie Davis: Hey, everybody. Kylie Davis here from the Proptech Association. Uh, and it is great to see you here for our, um, proptech panel on local government. Now, I'm actually here on Yuin land, home of the Bundja Yuin people, on the very beautiful far south coast of New South Wales. I'm actually in a place called Bingie Corner, which was named after the Bundja, um, Yuin people. Uh, and before I begin, in the spirit of reconciliation, the Proptech Association Australia acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia and their connection to land, sea, and community. I was telling the fellas before, I've got kangaroos on the lawn, I've got an echidna in my rockery, and I've got a frog in my letterbox. So there's lots going on down here. Uh, we pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people joining us here today. So the digitization of local and state planning regulations is creating massive data sets that are transforming, or should be transforming, the way that we plan, design, and approve new homes and build new communities. And my panel of experts in this area is Dr Benjamin Curry from Archistyle, Will Sullivan from Propcode, and Tom Young from uDrew. Welcome, Drent, gents.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Thank you for having us.
Kylie Davis: Um, so look, uh, what we're gonna do is a little bit different this time. We're going to dive straight in with some general questions, 'cause I wanna set the scene of what's going on in local government and, and what the kind of space is that we're playing in here. So urban planning, from my sort of very top view, feels like it's one of the last data sets to be, have been digitized in Australia. Do, d- who wants to go first on, is that true, and, and why is it the case?
Will Sullivan: I can start. So I would say one of the key reasons, uh, is that, um, a lot of urban planning information and, and therefore the data sets that contain that information is, of course, owned and maintained and created by local councils, uh, of which there's over 500 around the country. And, um, you know, data is not necessarily the expertise of local councils, right? It's, it's-... you know, service delivery, it's, um, kind of maintaining, uh, uh, uh, great communities. Um, and so those are things where they're really focused on their, their customer being their residents. Uh, data sets are obviously somewhat of a newer, I won't say brand-new, of course, um, um, data set's been around for a few decades, um, as a concept. Uh, but it is a thing that councils have kind of slowly, um, made their way into and, and kinda recognizing, um, it's more, uh, they're gonna be more effective and more efficient in their own service delivery. Um, but then also there's obviously an ecosystem, um, especially more and more with technology, where people wanna use that data. Um, and so there, there's creeping, um, improvements in, in, you know, councils working with data sets and creating data sets. Um, but you know, they're somewhat risk-averse. Uh, they're not necessarily on the front foot of technology a lot of times. Um, and so, yeah, in contrast to other fields and other, um, sectors, I would definitely agree that local governments are probably not as advanced when it comes to data sets.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Look, councils are often quite small too, aren't they? And they're often-
Will Sullivan: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... very pressed in terms of their resources. So, um, and investing in data is actually, you know, often can be quite, quite a big undertaking. So do, are they... What, out of the 500 council areas that we see out there, what proportion are being proactive in this space? Ben, do you wanna give us an insight into that? I think-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah. Uh, so I would say that, um, it's a small number, um that are being proactive. Um, and, but if you look at kinda like the state level, um, like in New South Wales, a lot of planning data is available open source, um, and that's mainly around zoning, heights, floor space ratios. So there's quite a lot there. Um, but what you do start to see is that every council localizes their requirements, and those aren't necessarily digital. So it's, there's, it's kind of a mixed mode. Like you do get, there's quite a lot of base data out there, but once you get into the details, that's council by council, and it's local rules that are designed to keep within the character of that. You know, like every council's like slightly different and the, the community moves into that location expecting, you know, that kind of look and feel and that's what they like. So, um, yeah, so every council's kind of got these, these localized rules that are designed to kind of keep that character. That by nature is not very digital, you know, or data-centric. Um, and that's, you know, you do, you are starting to see some councils say, "Well, how do we make that more digital, easier to ingest, and, um, I guess more objective and less subjective?"
Kylie Davis: I mean, 'cause it was a big undertaking for a lot of councils to actually move from paper files to just PDF-ing things, right? So like e- I'm assuming that a lot of that data is sitting in PDFs and in shared drives and just in really unstructured data sets. Is, is-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... is it, sorry.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah. I, I would say that, um, like, probably, like for, for prop tech companies to ingest that data, you know, a lot of it's geospatial. So you wanna be picking up GIS layers, um, or APIs, um, that you can kind of read those rules, um, and do something with it, whatever, whatever you're doing. Um, the, the nature of, like, if you look at, you know, development control plans in New South Wales, um, they're done council by council. It's typically a Word document where they describe all the things-... that they would like. It's PDF-ed, and you've got that PDF to work with. Um, if you try and throw one of those into ChatGPT, because they were built so long ago, it's like, can't compute. Doesn't understand what-... you know, the structure of this is. Um, there's quite often diagrams in there, you know, like, to show you what that design should look like, which is very difficult to interpret out. So it's... And every council can kind of do it in their own way. Um, and so, so there's no standardization across that. So PDF is there. When you're submitting your drawings for the council to check against that, you know, traditionally that's a paper submission. And, you know, my background's an architect, and one of my first jobs, you know, starting off in architecture, was printing out the drawing sets to submit to council. And that was like a day, you know, took you a day to print, because you had to do eight sets. Because everyone, you've gotta give it to all different agencies and departments within the council, um, and each set is like, you know, 100 pages on A0 or B1 paper. So that's, like, literally a whole day, and if you get that wrong, you've gotta reprint and... So we've moved a l- you know, most councils and most cities around are moving past submitting a paper, but you'd be surprised. There are still some cities around the world that they still accept the paper.
Kylie Davis: Wow.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Um, and yeah.
Kylie Davis: T- To- Tom, what's the, what's the status in, uh, WA?
Tom Young: Uh, look, I'm getting all nostalgic, Ben. Um, so, so when I was, um, in my early career in, in engineering world, I spent half my day printing out bloody plans and-... I just threw one of them out the... Oh, it's just, that's hilarious. But yeah, WA, it literally stands for wait a while, so we're probably five years behind you guys on the East Coast. But we still deal with a lot of, um, paper submissions here, sadly. Um, COVID has accelerated that. Um, if there's one benefit out of it, it's the digitalization of, um, these types of processes. But similar, it's a patchwork quilt. Um, each region is different formatted. It's not standardized. So if you come up with a solution for one area, it's gonna be different in the neighboring area a lot of the time. Um, so we need that sort of central communication to come up with a smarter way before we state by state start coming up with the best way to, um, to capture these details. With the urban planning aspect, um, of your question, there's a lot of sub-, uh, topics that do come off that are, that are also relevant that tie into that. So it's not just the regulation itself. Um, Ben alluded to the spatial aspect, so you've got, um, things like environmental, um, uh, physical parts about that, um, location as well, such as the jurisdiction, the governing body, um, geographic area. So we're talking, you know, external factors that affect these regulations, like the wind and the soil. It all ties in together, and they're very different, um, sets of regulations, often recorded in completely different ways. And so you've gotta marry all these other aspects within to get these, um, urban planning results sort of machine readable. And, um, that was a bit of a challenge at the start. So, um, when first started, um, PDFs were the absolute most common for a progressive council to accept, and they're just flat, dumb documents. They, they weren't-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Tom Young: ... metadata PDFs. So I'm hoping at least this year we'll start seeing the, the metadata coming through, because the, the goldmine that that releases as data to future analytics and capability is what I find really exciting. And we will get there, and un- until that day, we'll be sifting through, um, leaky basements for boxes of PDFs-... to try and figure out-... clever ways to digitize and capture that information. But we are going the right direction. It- it's just slow. It is the final frontier, I feel. Um, and there's some great solutions out there. Like, look at Will and Ben, what they've developed. This is fantastic. And the more of this data that becomes available, the more of these innovations will be possible. And, um, we've just gotta bring it all together and-
Kylie Davis: So I w- yeah, so I was gonna ask whether there was a central database of, of local government, um, data, but I think we've conclusively answered the ans- that that is, the answer to that is no. So maybe we need to be lobbying the land registry officers to make this one of their projects.
Tom Young: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: When they make it, it'll be called Nirvana.
Kylie Davis: And we've got Utopia. Oh, well, no, Utopia's-
Tom Young: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... so that just sends a whole different, a whole different message, doesn't it?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah. Nailed it.
Kylie Davis: What, um, what, uh... So, like, step one, if you're a local council, um, on the call, curious and interested about how you can take the first step towards innovation, upgrade your Adobe software to the latest so that the PDFs become, get a bit of metadata in them? Would that be, like, a really easy first step? So that they run a search.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: I, um, I would say, like, there's, there's a concept that's been around for a bit, um, called, like, rules as code. Um, you know, and that's, that's kinda trying to take planning rules or rules and structure them in a way that's kind of more machine readable. But, you know, it doesn't have to be that. But it's really about how do you... What are the parts that are objective? What can you pull out? How can you structure that in a way that-... that company's prop tech software can read it. Um, and I don't think there's any one answer. Um, but it's, it's about kind of pulling that in. I suspect that you're not gonna get one kind of standardized system that everyone uses, but as long as councils are preparing their documents and their work in a way that, you know, it starts to be machine readable and, um, I recently saw, I'm not sure if you guys saw, there was a, um, RFP from, um, North Sydney Council, um, that said they wanna make their DCP AI ready. You know, and that was interesting and-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... you know, that's a big, that's a big step for a council to make and it's probably the first council I've seen that is actively trying to make their DCP AI ready. Um, I suspect off the back of that there's probably gonna be a lot more councils that say, "How do we do it?" And what's the you know, what's the process. But it's, it's good to see, you know, that direction happening.
Kylie Davis: Fantastic. Well look, the three of you are all doing kind of aligned but different things in this space. So let- let's dive into, to each of you individually. Will, I'm gonna start with you. Tell us, um, what does Propcode do?
Will Sullivan: Yeah, so our vision is right in this topic that we're talking about. It's building software to understand and analyze these regulations, these, these ones we're discussing, and whether they're in DCPs or whatever other form they take. And, um, our goal really, our vision is we're building technology that can go, you know, take in these documents wherever they exist, uh, in any jurisdiction. And, um, with the right amount of setup and, and the local expertise, um, to kinda build into the system could then power products to give people really solid answers around what does that mean I can do on this site, um, what are the rules that apply to this project, uh, and eventually helping, uh, make the assessment more efficient. Um, so we've started in New South Wales. I've worked in planning in New South Wales, so, um, that's kind of our, our obvious starting point. Uh, and we've got a tool that analyzes CDC eligibility. Um, so if you don't know New South Wales, that's a fast-track approval pathway for certain, um, types of projects, especially residential, small residential projects. So that's the first thing we put out and we are working e- really hard in the background, um, doing stuff that we've just been talking about just now, um, around getting some of those existing documents, which are definitely not really machine readable-... to be, uh, something we can take into a, a platform and an engine. Um, and then get, uh, put out a tool, uh, or tools based on that that will give people really great answers, um, for their projects. So stay tuned. Uh, we are gonna put out something really exciting, um-
Kylie Davis: Cool
Will Sullivan: ... in the, in the latter half of this year.
Kylie Davis: So who are your primary customers? Are they councils or are they other prop techs or who, who's using what you're producing?
Will Sullivan: Yeah, so it's, so it's the end users are who we're, we're targeting. Uh, so not necessarily sort of a, that we're a data provider to others, but, um, the, the architects, the developers, um, we, we do expect to get councils, uh, and, and even state government using our products, um, eventually. And we've had, you know, quite a few discussions already with councils. Um, have a council using the CDC tool that's already out there. Um, so, so yeah, across the ecosystem would be our, our vision. Um, and indeed, each of those segments will have different needs. Uh, so the, the homeowner wanting to do a renovation or expansion of their house, um, that's quite a different use case and need than, uh, the high-end developer who looks at, you know, 100 sites a week. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... so the, the engine and the technology may be the same, but the way that that product is shaped, um, that what they say a report or whatever looks like could be quite different. So lots of opportunity-
Kylie Davis: So-
Will Sullivan: ... for innovation there-
Kylie Davis: Sure
Will Sullivan: ... at that end as well.
Kylie Davis: Sure. So if I'm a, if I'm a homeowner looking to do a renovation, what would Propcode tell me? Or what, how, how would I use Propcode?
Will Sullivan: Yeah, so eventually the goal is we would have, let's say a report that you just get sort of one click and you find out here's the rules, um, that apply to your site. So not just a list of documents and good luck understanding them. But the, but the actual rules, uh, here's what you can build on your site and your zone given your shape and size of lot. Uh, you know, potentially we can take in some existing, um, you know, let's say LIDAR scans of buildings, 3D building data and say, "Here's your building footprint, and so you've got this space in the backyard for a secondary dwelling," for instance. Um, so there's a, there's a lot of things that we're really dreaming of, um, and working-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... toward, uh, that could be really helpful for that person who knows probably nothing about their planning rules.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Look, I'm laughing because, um, the, the, the house that we're in at the moment, we actually built it about, uh, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. And council had a draft, uh, a, a draft plan for the color of the property to make sure that people weren't building things that were, you know, splats on the landscape. But it was a draft plan, so when we put our application in we got told, "Well, if it's the wrong color it won't get approved." And we said, "Well, well, what's the right color?" And they said, "Well, we haven't got an approved, a color plan yet, so we can't tell you."
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Nice. Nice.
Kylie Davis: And so I chose something off the, off the draft plan and I said, "Well, this is what we've chosen." They said, "Oh, well, that's no guarantee." It's like oh, but God, like... It's not purple.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Is that good?
Will Sullivan: Yeah. Yep. Yep. And if we know-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: We don't know, we don't know if we're gonna like that color yet. So just-
Kylie Davis: We don't know if we're gonna like that gum tree green color
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... we're not sure.
Will Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.
Kylie Davis: No, we're not sure.
Will Sullivan: Yeah. And-
Kylie Davis: We can't promise
Will Sullivan: ... you know, that may not be, you know, it may not, may be something unreasonable thing for council to wanna control, as Ben was saying. There's a look and feel that they want and character and et cetera. But man, some of these DCPs or, or whatever the local plan format is around the country really spiral out of control in terms of what they're, what they're addressing. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... I saw one little thing in Wangan, they've got a chapter for firearms stores. Um, how many of those are there in the Wangan LGA? Probably not a lot.
Kylie Davis: Probably not. Well, well, we would not wanna, we would not wanna, we would not wanna minimize that. Who knows, it could be m- maybe they've got one 'cause it was an issue. So-
Will Sullivan: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... so in the future, so Will, you guys are really new. How, how old is your prop tech?
Will Sullivan: Uh, we've actually been building for a couple of years now already-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Will Sullivan: ... uh, with a bit of venture capital and investment. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... but doing some pretty intense building. And so, um, we're excited for what people are gonna see us put out, uh, very, very soon.
Kylie Davis: So in a couple of years-
Will Sullivan: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: We, we... Yeah, okay. So in a couple of years, what do you see the universe looking like in this space?
Will Sullivan: Yeah. So-
Kylie Davis: What, what does utopia look like?
Will Sullivan: I, I think in... Soon, very soon, um, I expect that people in the ecosystem will think, you know, "I can use technology or, or software or tools out there, online probably, tools, um, to help me get these answers." So it's not a case of I have to go dig through the documents myself to, to find the answer first. Or not even I'm gonna call council to find it first, 'cause I've heard so many people say it's actually not helpful to call council because, um, they-
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Will Sullivan: ... take forever to, to, to... Yeah, to get someone on the phone or, um, they... not or they don't know. Uh, hopefully they know, but sometimes they don't know. But often they actually don't wanna give a really good answer for sort of liability reasons or, or, you know, they don't wanna be pinned down on, "Oh, someone told me this on the phone a month ago, and so that means that I..." You know, councils are very risk-averse. Um, and so I think... I've- I'm a believer that if we put software in people's hands that knows the regulations better than any of us do, um, better than council themself knows it, uh, then everyone benefits.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. I mean, look, there are too many regulations for any human brain to remember, right? Like, th- they're just-
Will Sullivan: Yeah. There's- I literally just did some calculations. The Sutherland DCP is, just to pull out an example, half a million words. Um-
Kylie Davis: Wow, okay
Will Sullivan: ... 1,800 pages. For one- 1,800 pages.
Kylie Davis: No wonder, no wonder council workers are so -
Will Sullivan: Yeah, yeah
Kylie Davis: ... have such a hard time. Tom, let's move over to you. Now, you guys were the winners of the Proptech Awards back in 2021 and 2022 from memory. Um, tell us about h- how you... what the problems are that youYuju is solving and, and how you guys are working in the space.
Tom Young: Yeah. So we, we do solve quite a lot. Um, so a very high-level pitch is that we are a collaborative platform that, um, services the entire building life cycle from start to finish. So you've got a variety of different customers and stakeholders along the way. So an example of that, it starts off with, um, a homeowner considering building something. So much like Will, you can type in an address and see everything you can and can't do on a location. And so it provides that education before they start going out to get quotes and whatnot. When they're ready to do that, we've also got some, um, sales lead generation software that embeds on building companies and products and suppliers and retailers' websites. It shows their products. They can drag and... allow people to go onto their websites, drag and drop onto their properties, and get, um, some calculations and quotes instantly, um, that hopefully will convert to a sale. Then that company can, um, open it up in our professional design software to create council-ready, um, documentation plans, um, do all the structural engineering instantly, and, um, get that through to their compliance officer who does their part, who then eventually gets it through to the local council. So by the time it's got to the local council, everything's completely digitalized. Um, everything's fully auditable. All the s- the geotechnical's done, the engineering's certified, um, all through this platform. And, um, in theory, someone can start building straightaway. And we also then go back around to the start when it's the, the decommission of a project, when it needs to start again. And so it's like a infinite sort of loop. And I mentioned at the start we're a collaborative platform. So we work with companies to, um, to add to the system. So every company or government or whoever that signs up, they've got the ability to share their catalogs with buddy companies or put in their own rules and regulations and manage those internal aspects to add to the sort of, um, thoroughness of it. So, so the result is quite a confusing pitch, but it is -... quite a large covering, um, market. So our typical clients... Well, just some example clients at the moment. So homeowners. Um, we've got tradespeople, like bricklayers and so on, who are using it to do instant quotes. Um, retail supply, um, products and building companies and modular companies, pool companies, governments. Um, and we're also working with a few state governments around the world as well to, um, hopefully incorporate that aspect and create this sort of centralized engine that they can use for, um, analyzing which policies are working, which aren't working, and help shape that direction. So every collaborator that adds into it, it gets more powerful, and it creates that sort of snowball effect that benefits everybody. Um-
Kylie Davis: Okay
Tom Young: ... so that's what we're going for.
Kylie Davis: So, so I love this because we've got Will, who's a urban... who's got an urban planning background. We've got Ben, who's got an architecture background. And we've got you, Tom, who's got a structural engineering background. So, like, this is where it-
Tom Young: Well, geo-
Kylie Davis: ... this panel is where it's- Geotech. Okay, sorry.
Tom Young: I like geo.
Kylie Davis: And this is kind of where it all... This is where it's all coming together. But, but what I'm hearing is that... Because the, in the, the, in the old days, like last week, w- the way that you would do a council application would be you would des- you would design it, or you would come up with your best design. And then you would take it to council, and council would decide whether it was or wasn't in the m- match the code or whatever. And then you would decide the products that you would use to execute that, unless your architect had d- defined them. But what you're saying is that y- you've now basically pushed all of that right to the front. So you're designing and choosing products knowing that what's going in is going to be, is going to match the... or, or most likely to match the code and to work within. Is that right?
Tom Young: You can do it both ways.
Kylie Davis: Okay.
Tom Young: You can do it both ways. So, um, you can either design it all from scratch within Yuju, where it will automatically generate things. We're finding we're getting better industry trac- traction allowing their products to go in, but they're all custom as well. So it's, it's not a precast, um, you know, uh, hard-coded, um, rule check for their structures. It's checking everything dynamically based on the location, the geography, the soil type, the- Um, it's all very bespoke, every site that it's, um, calculating and checking.
Kylie Davis: So-
Tom Young: So you can do it either way.
Kylie Davis: Yeah, okay. But, so how, how... Y- you got... You're based in Perth, but how, how many states are you covering now?
Tom Young: Uh, we cover-
Kylie Davis: How many are you covering?
Tom Young: ... all of Australia and New Zealand. Um, we've got a few states in the US covered at the moment, but we're not live there. Um, same with the UK and a few other places. It takes us about three weeks to get up and running live anywhere in the world. So we've built the rules engine. Um, we've invested huge amount of research time and, um, come up with this very scalable, adaptable rules engine that learns. Um, so we're about to go to the next level with that rules engine and, um, it should bring it down to couple of hours per region, but, um, that's still probably six months away, if I'm gonna be honest. So-
Kylie Davis: Right.
Tom Young: ... work in progress. Need some capital.
Kylie Davis: The whole six months, okay.
Tom Young: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Uh, you heard it here, folks, they need capital. Um, so l- send your, s- send your check to. Um, so, it's... Do you find it a... Like, you've obviously worked with a lot of councils then. Um, have you... What's their response been and, and how challenging are they to work with?
Tom Young: Yeah look, in the early days, so, um, you know, pre-COVID, we'd often just get laughed out of rooms. They're saying, um, "It's too complex to ever be able to do it in a computer." And I'd bring out my laptop-... I'd show them, I'd do it in front of them, and they'd say-... "Oh, it's a nice demo, but it'll never work." And it's like-... this is... I just did this in front of you. Um, so attitudes have changed and, um, they're, they're beginning to understand the capability and the power that you can do. However, there are certain, um, instances which I wouldn't be confident in ever capturing. Um, and a typical planner would say to me, "What if I'm building a daycare center on a volcano in a cyclonic wind region? What would your system do then?" So they throw the very rare chances-
Kylie Davis: Um-
Tom Young: ... situations to sort of-
Kylie Davis: No
Tom Young: ... validate why not to do it rather than why to do it.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Every, every situation is a rare situation, it's just that there's 10,000 of them.
Tom Young: Yeah, yeah. So they'd often look for reasons why not to do it, rather the fact that we could filter out 95% of, um, applications with absolute confidence. Then the 5% that are on v- active volcanoes and bloody-... shark infested waters. They can still do that. So-... the big problem we had, um, which has got better with time, um, was the, the, the perceived threat to job security as well. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Tom Young: ... but we've learned, maybe I've just got better at articulating with them, but, um, it's, it's not a job taker. What this is, it's like when CAD came out for, um, the design industry. There was a bit of, you know, fear, like, "Oh, geez, am I gonna lose my job?" But a lot of, um, designers quickly realized that, hey, I can do 20 times more jobs. If I screw something up, I can just press Control Z. Don't have to go through a pile of erasers, and you can make multiple versions. So it's actually really increasing the efficiency and getting rid of the, the shit that people don't want to do. People don't go to university to study-
Kylie Davis: The hamster wheel stuff, right? Yeah.
Tom Young: Exactly. You don't, you don't study for four years to approve a swimming pool, you know? You wanna be doing smart cities, um, better urban areas and working on what's important, and maybe getting that high-rise approved, you know, in two months as opposed to nine months in your scenario. So the efficiencies can be passed on and shifted. It's, um... Yeah, it, it was interesting though to, at the start, the, um, the wall that came up from the perceived threat. But now whenever they embrace it, they just love it and they become the biggest fans. But it takes-
Kylie Davis: Yeah, cool
Tom Young: ... a bit to get that embracing happening sometimes.
Kylie Davis: Cool. So, so how many council areas are you, uh, are using you guys now? Is that the-
Tom Young: Yeah, we haven't got as many-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Tom Young: ... as we'd like, but, um-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Tom Young: ... you know, probably half a dozen. Um, but-
Kylie Davis: Right
Tom Young: ... um, in Australia, that is. Yeah, there's a fair bit more overseas and things, but yeah.
Kylie Davis: In A-
Tom Young: We are-
Kylie Davis: I know, I would've thought, is it built on a volcano? Yes, no. No, tick.
Tom Young: I like it.
Kylie Davis: I just thought-
Tom Young: I know
Kylie Davis: ... that would've been really AI-able.
Tom Young: Well, that's the thing. Yeah. We, we flag all these situations and then we can refer them to the right person to go speak to.
Kylie Davis: Ex- exactly.
Tom Young: So it just makes it more efficient.
Kylie Davis: Yes.
Tom Young: Rather... Yeah.
Kylie Davis: To please talk to our volcano expert in the, in room C79D.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: You'd guess that there, there, there are volcanoes in Western Victoria.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Or Western WA.
Tom Young: Yeah. Not so many here.
Kylie Davis: No. Um, Ben, look, let, let's move over to you. So, um, uh, the, now the thing we've been talking about, um, CAD drawing and, and, and architects. Um, you guys took home multiple awards at the proptech, uh, Awards this year, so congratulations. And you're going from strength to strength, not just in Australia, but also globally. So how, how do you describe Archistar these days, or does that depend on who you're talking to?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah, I think it, um, it depends on who we're talking to and, um, it's, it's evolved over time. So I kind of look at where we started and, um, as you noted, like, I'm an architect by background, so my natural... When I started this, um, essentially I think it's, you know, close to 10 years ago, um, our key focus was on design and how do you streamline design and how can you use systems to help you design faster? Because as an architect, you know, you're drawing out all of these details and all this information and it takes a long time to do. Um, and I remember in university, showing my age, um, I, they probably still make you draw in first year. Like, you're not allowed to use, you weren't allowed to use computer. Um, and in second year they says, you know, "You're still not allowed to use computer." And, um, I'm like a tech person by nature and I'm like, "No, I'm gonna use CAD. I'm gonna teach it myself, um, and just figure out how to use it." And I did a terrible job in second year and I almost, I think I almost failed um, in second year because no one showed me what to do, you know? And it's like- But by third year when they said everyone can use CAD, um, they actually reached out to me and they said, "Can you teach the others how to use you know, how to use CAD?" So I like kinda got into that kind of technical stream there. And you know, I think Archistar, if you get down to the crux of it, you know, this is a complicated space. There's a lot you need to know. And as an architect, you're meant to kind of pull all that together and coordinate, but you know, you're kinda like the, the um, the big collaborator and coordinator, and you bring all those pieces together. But that's really hard to do, and there's so much information you need to know. So at Archistar, I think what we're trying to do is we're just trying to make that process easier and educate people, you know? And how do you pull this information together in a really user-friendly way that you don't need degrees to figure this stuff out. You know, if you own a property, you should be able to know what you can do on that property without having to read thousands of pages of document and trying to interpret that. So if we can make that easier for you to understand, "Hey, this is my property. What's the highest and best use? What can I do with this? What are my options?" Um, everyone's, you know, property obsessed in Australia. It's like, let's give the people what they want, you know? And, and people wanna know what they can do. And um, you know, you start with that, but then it's like, well, if we know what you can do on one property, you know, these systems know what you can do on every property. How do you make the process of finding those opportunities easier? Um, and we try to tie in as much as possible and bring forward as much as possible the different stages. So we brought in generative design so that, you know, theoretically it says you can do this, but what can you design, you know? And quite often at that point you go to an architect and, "Oh, I wanna put an apartment building on this. What can I do?" Might take them a few weeks to come up with one or two concepts. You know, the idea that we brought to the table was, well, could you get 100 concepts in three seconds? You know-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... that check all the different options. Um, and if you wanna try and go higher, you know, type the number and go higher. If you wanna go lower, if you wanna change, you know, things like can you go more strategic and let the computer do a lot of the grunt work. So um, yeah, I think our journey has been all around how do you get the people the right information, you know, upfront as early as possible so you can make better informed decisions. But it's been a long journey. Um, and I think Will or Tom was saying that, um, you've, you've gotta get the trust of the industry. And this industry is, like if you look at property developers, they're pretty switched on. Um, and even you look at architects, um, I feel like the barrier to like for people to adopt this, it's so high because people expect so much. And you know, if you're like one inch out, you know, um, it's like, oh, that doesn't work. And they... And I think Tom was saying like, people are looking for reasons why it shouldn't work, you know?
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Um, so it takes a long time to build trust. Um, and there's a lot of things you've gotta get right-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... uh, for people to adopt this technology. Um, because, probably because it is so complicated, you know, and people are aware that this is a very complicated thing, and like a surface level solution won't cut it.
Kylie Davis: No. No, no. No, the devil really is in the detail in this space, isn't it? So, so you've got developers who are very savvy and, and who you now, w- who I imagine you're starting to convert because you're able to show them quite quickly what's possible or, or what, what's possible. Then you've got the architects who are... Are they anxious that you're, that you're like either, um, s- taking jobs or dumbing down design or like what's your response to that?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah. They, um, like we originally thought at the start like, oh, we'll make software for architects. Um, and it didn't really work out that way. Um, like I think that um, you know, like developers saw it as an opportunity to quickly assess, um, and architects were very like, "It needs to do all of this list of 200 things before we even look at it." Um, so you know, I think the... And then, you know, there, there's a whole range of like commercializing with architects is also hard too. Um, but the... I think people, you know, at all stages of this you get that, "Is technology gonna take my job?" You know?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: And I think that's a pretty standard response that the first time someone sees something that, you know, starts to automate parts of a job that they would do, it's natural to say, "Oh my gosh, like that's taking over my job." Um, in reality, it doesn't happen that fast and it's a process and, you know, your job evolves as you do that.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Um, and it's, uh, it's just that, that fear that this is gonna take over. You know, we launched Generative Design like eight years ago, and you can like pop up buildings instantly, but there's still architects around designing buildings, you know? And it's... There are parts of the process that now architects are using and say, "Well, I, I mocked that part up using Archistar to quickly get some suggestions. Then I do, you know, this and that." And I think that's gonna happen. You know, developers are just doing more. Councils are using these tools to, to, you know, check things. And um, it's, it's not something that is wiping out jobs like today. I think over time definitely as this gets more advanced and more things are automated, it'll evolve and shift, but it's not like a you turn up to work tomorrow and the, the AI has taken over and- You know, no one's got a job anymore. It's much more-
Kylie Davis: No
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... I think much more gradual.
Kylie Davis: But it... But we are seeing it able to do a lot of the grunt work and to help you like hone in on what the options are. I know, I know, um- There, there's kind of s- there's kind of almost like the... Well, there's like little silos, aren't there, i- of data that sit inside this process? So there's, there's data inside the CAD drawings, there's, there's, um, data inside all the PDFs and things like that. But they're not necessarily all joining up. Are you g- are you doing any... And, and I know that, uh, when I spoke to Anisi ages ago, she was saying that, "Look, if you can come up with all these designs and then you're, you know, matching them up to the code, you're sort of coming up with the best designs, and then you can actually globally start to identify, well, what are the best designs, and therefore you can start to iterate off the best designs." Have h-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... is that, is that actually happening? Is there a, is there that Luke like Tom's seeing?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Well, with, like, generative design, every design comes out structured and formatted in the same way. So you are getting that standardization of this is how they're coming out. Um, when people... One of the biggest hurdles, I think, with council and why it's a big issue is that, um, everyone's s- like, every architect has their own style of drawing, their own format. Like, there is no standardized way that you submit exactly like this into the council and, you know, it's the same for everyone. Like, there are things you need to submit. You need to submit a site plan, a floor plan, sections, elevations, but how you put that on the paper is up to you.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: What details you include is up to you. Um, you know, some really experienced architects or designers, they'll put all the information the council needs to see in, like, a little checkbox table here, and this is the summary. You know, like-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Um, others won't do that. You know, so... And every design is essentially, you know, relatively unique. So every site is unique. So it's kind of when you get something into council, it's like unique site, unique design, and unique format, you know? So it, it... And then unique rules for different councils. So it's a very challenging problem, um, to solve. And, you know, if, like generative design builds these designs out in the same structure and format every time, it's kind of on the other side when you submit your drawings. You know, getting that structured in the right way that you can pull out the data and read it in a similar way, you know, that's, that's the next part of the, the puzzle that we're looking at with our, our eCheck software and, um... But it is a, it's a, um, it's a challenging space. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Okay
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... and so you can see why it's not that easy to automate, um, because everything is so unique.
Kylie Davis: Ev- It's all so unique.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Tautology, but, uh-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: But we'll roll with it. So-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... so, so you're also doing some work overseas in Canada and the US now. Are you working more with local government there, or are you doing-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah. Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... more global?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: So, so if you look at all the stuff we've done to date with the core platform where you find the sites, you look at the rules, you generate designs, it's all about giving you that information up front so that by the time you submit to the council, you've got the best chance. Like, you've done all your research, you've ticked all the boxes. Um, and I think it's, like, similar to, you know, Will and Tom, you know. Can we give you as much information up front so that you're reducing your risk and you know what you're going into? Um, I think there's still the barrier that you do all this research and you do all this stuff and you prepare everything as best you can, and then you submit to the government or the council and, um, you know, there's a different interpretation of what you thought it was to what they thought it was. And I kind of liken to it that it's, um, like these rules are gray by definition, like there's subjectivity in it. Um, I think the industry, like, wants black and white, you know, what's the answer? Um, and even if you try and get that answer, like, it still could be interpreted differently. So the work we're doing on the government council side is around checking those drawings and getting to kind of like a, a common understanding of what is, what do they mean and what, what do you need to design to to get it through council. So we're doing pre-checks on the drawings to tick the boxes and make sure that you're getting those drawings correct according to the council. So we're doing a lot of work with the cities on that.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: As to, kind of other side of the... You do all the work up front with the developers, the designers, the architects, but you kind of really-
Kylie Davis: At the back end
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... need council on the back end coming on board too.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Cool. So, so, and look, this isn't just an Australian problem, right? This is globally. Like, every-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Global problem
Kylie Davis: ... every... Global-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... global problem.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Um, so, so, you know, and so sending all of our best wishes to all of the council workers out there across the, across the globe, 'cause you guys do great work building local communities. Um, so what, what does amazing look like? Like, let's throw ourselves, how far into the future do we go to g- do we need to go to get to amazing? Are we talking three years, five years, 20 years? Um, something in between? What, what, what does a seamless experience look like, and, and what could that empower for our communities, or what would it, how would it change?
Will Sullivan: Yeah. I'll jump in. I think that when I... The biggest factor or the biggest variable, the biggest thing that can change is actually how the planning framework is set up, so at that statutory level to begin with. Um, if we all kinda muddle along with the way things currently are, and it's, and it's sort of like we're hacking together better and better technology to work with terrible formats-... um, that doesn't look like the best, you know, the best outcome, um, nirvana. Uh, what really needs to happen, and, and has happened on, you know, many rounds prior to today and will happen, is just planning reform. So, um, changing the way that, uh, the, the... So usually s- in Australia, states, um, create the planning frameworks, and then local governments fill it in, and there's a balance, right, of, of how much control each side has, um, each level has. But, um, there's been, there's been changes, you know, prior to today. So in New South Wales, the local environmental plans were not standardized prior to about 2006. Uh, and then the, the state government said, "Okay, you keep— We're s- we're standardizing them. You have to write them in this template. You have to use these zones. You have to include these permitted uses in, in each zone." Um, and within that, the, the local government could paint what they wanted and, and write extra controls, but from a template starting point. Uh, and there's murmurings that, you know, development control plans in New South Wales are gonna go that way as well. And, you know, all of us on this call would be, um, cheering that on. Uh, so-... um, in other states, um, they've gone further. I think South Australia has essentially a wholly statewide written, um, planning system, and the local governments just kinda pick and choose the aspects they want from the state-level, uh, documents. Um, and, and, you know, the spectrum, uh, of where the different states in Australia and, and overseas are on that. Um, but that, that to me is the biggest thing, you know, I'm thinking with my planning hat on is, um, the planning system is not set in stone. It, it can change. Uh-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... and, and certainly for us now on, the three of us on this call are hopefully on, you know, the leading edge of technology trying to bring this transformation. But really, there's probably a pushback from us, um, and, and from our users to say to the governments, "Hey, let's actually design a better planning system, uh, because technology is not gonna go away. It's, it's increasing. It's, it's, um, gonna get more and more embedded in the way everything works because it's the, the better way for things to go. Let's make a planning framework that is actually 21st century, um, that's, you know, not written in 1979 like the New South Wales one." And that, and that's like technology first.
Kylie Davis: Not, not-
Will Sullivan: You know, written, written in a way... And we talked about machine-readable as a concept. Um, you know, can the state government create a DCP template, uh, where you could still sort of write anything you wanted as a council, but it's, it's a machine-readable template or, or format expectations. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... that sort of thing. Uh, and, and as I said, hopefully, hopefully bringing down some of the overall complexity, um, so that there is more standardizing of what the actual content is. Um, and, and gosh, don't even get me started on GIS files and formats and-... the mess, the mess that is, uh... You know, I worked with flood data for a long time in insurance, and you would think, like, a river flooding and, and a GIS data set of that, that can't be that much variation, right? But there sure is. Uh-
Kylie Davis: Yeah, right
Will Sullivan: ... it's wild. Uh-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... so, so, you know, the states, um, in the, in the sense that they've got that legislative authority to be the leader on setting those standards, they absolutely should, and, and we as the ecosystem should push for that. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... and, and the benefits, you asked about the benefits, what does that cause? Um, everything works better. Everything's works more efficiently, more effectively. Um, the actual policies the government wants to implement, state or local, are going to be more likely to be realized because people actually know that that's there in the rules, um-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Will Sullivan: ... when you have a simpler system and, and technology that can operate easily throughout the system. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Will Sullivan: ... so it's in everyone's interest.
Kylie Davis: So, so Ben, you mentioned before too that, like of the four things that can be, you know, the four levels of it that can be different, one of the things that seems, you know, perhaps the easiest or the first step to change would be the, the, the format that things get submitted in. Like if that became unified, then, then suddenly it, the information you put into it can be, you know, unique and special and, um, and, and, and different, but it, but just the format of it would, would be super-
Will Sullivan: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... helpful.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah, I think, like we've, we've looked at, you know, how do things standardize and, you know, can you get, like, a common environment? And, uh, and I think the more you look at it, like every council is so unique and every area is so unique and every, like, and you know, it's a battle that's a very difficult battle to try and say, "Everyone, like, look the same," you know, or, "Everyone be the same." So-
Kylie Davis: Well, that's the fear, isn't it?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: I think you've gotta... Yeah. Well, you've gotta embrace-
Kylie Davis: That everyone's worried that they'll go down the little boxes path and-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... if you go down this path, everything's gonna look the same and-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Everything's gonna be the same. You know
Kylie Davis: ... Warringah will look exactly the same as Balmain and-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Exactly
Kylie Davis: ... or Balmain would look the same as Warringah, and we can't have that.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: And so I think you need a solution that allows the differences and the local differences, and I think if you try and do anything but, like you're gonna get a lot of pushback on that. So you need to embrace that. What I think, you know, the ultimate would be is, um, it's, you know, as a, as a property owner, as a homeowner, as anyone who wants to do something with their property, you, you can understand in human speak, you know, this is what I can and can't do, and you know what those limits are. And when you get that design made, you've got certainty and transparency. Like, I know I'm designing it right, and that's gonna get approved, you know? And I think the process to go from start to finish could be three months, six months, nine months, a year. I've heard, you know, like high-rise developments take multiple years to get approved. If you can shrink that right down because everyone's on the same page and we know a good application should get approved. And you know, good examples in New South Wales, like the CDC compliant developments, you know. You meet the rules, it's gonna get approved. Like it's transparent, it's very black and white, you know. A lot of the planning codes are not like that. So I think the more that we can get to, hey, you know, follow these rules, you do the, you do it right on your side, you get your ticks and, you know, you can get your approval, it, it puts a lot of stability into everything. And I think if you look at the housing crisis, we need to deliver, you know, a lot of housing. If at every step you're uncertain or there's no transparency or you don't know if you're gonna get forward or back or you don't know how long it's gonna take, that all adds instability into the framework.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: So the more... And it will rely on- You know, digital systems, you know, digital checks, you know, digital processes because at every point on the way, you know. And people that get scared of that, you know, you think about engineering, you know, um, no building, high-rise building goes through an engineer without running, you know, digital structural analysis checks. You know, like you run it through the computer, you do your analysis checks, and it comes out with a report and says, you know, "This is, this is gonna stand up." Um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... "Or you need to increase the structure over here."
Kylie Davis: Right.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: You know? And like they- it's relied on, you know.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: But you get, you get an answer, and I think it's that transparency and that certainty that I think will sta- like based on what everyone's doing here, it's gonna start to get more and more certain over time.
Kylie Davis: We're gonna join the dots. Yeah, we're gonna sort of-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Sure
Kylie Davis: ... just start to, to join-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... those dots.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Tom, before I go to you, I'm just gonna put a call out to everybody who's on the call. If you've got any questions, please pop them into the chat or into the... Well, chat is easier than questions, if that's okay. But, um, that would be, that would be great. Oh, hang on, we do have a Q&A. Um, how does Propcode differ from Can I Build, Will?
Will Sullivan: Yes, thanks for asking. Uh, Can I Build, as I understand, and maybe this could be said a bit of uDrew as well, that it's focused on the builder as the user, and the builder ecosystem, and, and indeed there's an ecosystem, it's not only the builders. Uh, and so there's kind of a lot of tools in a toolkit there. Um, Propcode is going very deep on the planning roles themselves, and so like this whole conversation we've been having today. Um, we're not necessarily gonna try to be an all-in-one platform, you know, touching every step in a workflow per se. Um, but what we do wanna do, and we talk about job placement, and I'm not trying to replace town planners necessarily, but, um, wanna answer a lot of the same things that the, the, the town planner expert would be answering on a, on a project, on a site. Uh, and so I see a lot of opportunity in, in Propcode, um, today and, and what we're gonna be releasing, uh, as we go forward in the future. Um, serving that really important function of giving the really deep and complex, and, and hopefully authoritative answers on what do the planning rules say about that situation, that project, um, and how does that carry forward through to the assessment and approval.
Kylie Davis: Awesome. Awesome. So Tom, just-
Will Sullivan: So that's the difference.
Kylie Davis: Yep. Awesome. So Tom, just to go back to you, what do you... Like have you got any examples of how much faster things are able to be approved or, or put in, like go from start to finish through using, um, uDrew?
Tom Young: Yeah, look, um, my record is one minute and 36 seconds to get-... a project, um, started-
Kylie Davis: I was like, "Well, we've been doing for nine months."
Tom Young: ... from scratch and-
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Tom Young: ... and digitally submitted. But, but in fairness, you know, I'm, I'm the founder and I built the bloody software, so I know how to use it. But, um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Tom Young: ... but I did, um, a pitch deck a while ago. So this is when we were still very much start-up. Um, somehow, I can't remember the logic, but we calculated, um, the Australian building industry would save 27,000 years of downtime per annum, um, if we got-
Kylie Davis: Per annum.
Tom Young: ... rid of those, if we got rid of those bottlenecks and unnecessary delays just by streaming up the process. Now, I can't remember the logic behind that, so I put a big asterisk next to that. But it's, um, it's a phenomenal-
Kylie Davis: Oh, great
Tom Young: ... number nonetheless. And to, um, to Ben's point earlier when we were talking about, you know, all the different combinations and structures, that also gave me a nostalgic flashback to our first prototype, which was all about, um, front fencing, um, believe it or not. Very exciting.
Kylie Davis: I remember. Yeah.
Tom Young: Um, I did the maths into that at the time, and, um, for, for our front f- uh, fencing, like generative software that would, you know, design the whole thing for you in a second. Um, there were 10 trillion trillion combinations in Australia just for a front fence. And so when you, you can imagine as the structure gets more complex and higher risk to human life, that number just goes straight up. So it does get pretty complex. But, um, to your query as well, Kylie, just a minute ago, um, uh, I, I really agree with everything Will and Ben have just said. Um, structure I find is, um, a really important one, and I think it should start at the top and trickle down, and allow for customization to take into account in these different regions, different policies, different regulations. So by that, I'm talking a bit broader because I'm also talking about engineering rules and things. But you've got Australia, we need the framework for an Australian-wide thing. Then we've got jurisdiction, which is state, local government areas, and then you can go infinitely deeper to development areas and funny little development rules. Um, but the framework needs to start at the top so you can build on that. And progressively, um, as each state or regional developer comes on, they can add and customize their own parts. You need to maintain that transparency and control for each of these areas, or you are gonna get a blanket solution across the whole country that won't necessarily work in every region because of some localized weirdness. Um, great example of a place that's doing fantastic things, and I reckon they're five to 10 years ahead of us, is New Zealand, I hate to say. Um, no, I do love Kiwis. Um, they're, they've put some massive planning and thought over the last five or 10 years into how to structure this and, um, get it standardized and rolled out nationally. Now, we've done a lot of work with the City of Auckland with this, and they do have a big advantage than, to what we do in Australia. They're an amalgamated group of about eight or nine councils from memory, and so they've got the clout. They've got, um, the biggest IT shop in all of New Zealand is the City of Auckland. Um-
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Tom Young: And they've got the foresight to be planning for this. And so it's resulted in this beautiful, centralized, pretty much open data for the whole country, um, which can then be built on to create that framework. And I'm very envious over here in Western Australia 'cause, um, they're about five or so years ahead of the East Coast, and probably 20 years ahead of us over here. So I, I salivate when I think about all that beautiful data and structure and framework that they've set up, and it's just getting better every year. Um, another thing to consider is it, it isn't so much just about making planning, um, easier, and it's not so much just a planning solution is what I should say. If you look at it more broadly, it's a economic development solution. So to my point earlier about saving 27,000 years, you know, who knows if, how accurate that number really is, but-... it's a big number. Um, that's just so much more development that could be happening. It's gonna result in cheaper, um, you know, building prices passed down to the end user hopefully, and, uh, more jobs, more... You know, it's just gonna be great for everybody, and it- it's a big task. It's gotta be done properly, and if that framework and structure is in place, then it sets us in a good position to do it properly, and it will be ever-evolving, ever-expanding. But a lot of, um, governments I've spoken to recently are very intrigued with the AI prospect of making an AI planner. Um, you know, it's a good short-term solution, although there's inherent risk if the AI hallucinates or if it's, um... We haven't quite got that control yet. And it will be good. We could filter out a big chunk with it, no problems. But I think it's a lazy solution. You need to get the structure and the framework set up right so that AI can be trained properly and be able to interpret, um, the rules and regulations accurately and to make sure it's safe for everyone, and flexible.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Tom Young: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: I, and because I, I was gonna ask that question too about what is the role of AI in this space, but where, really where we're sort of coming to is that AI only works as good as the data set that's driving it, right? And at the, and what we've identified as part of this discussion is the, the issues around collating that, that, that perfect beautiful data set. Now I understand your volcano obsession, Tom, now if you-... can take me to New Zealand.
Tom Young: I was-
Kylie Davis: The New Zealanders-
Tom Young: ... I was a geologist before, so I do like my volcanoes and dinosaurs, so that one's like-... basically a kid that didn't grow up.
Kylie Davis: So, so, so what we need, what, what, what need, what needs to happen in this space or what the, what the vision is for the space is that is, is a consistent, transparent set of regulation that sits over the top that is sophisticated enough to allow for grassroots s- be- you know, specialization that captures... Because what we're trying to capture here in local communities is the, the essence of it, what makes it our, what makes it feel like our place, right? Like, this is, the essence of place is captured in planning and regulations of what makes this feel like home to me, what, what, what looks and feels familiar, how do I, um, you know, what is the built environment that, that feels safe, that's, and, and local council regulation has sort of been designed to capture that, but then it kinda got a bit crazy and, and, and now it's built all of this complexity and opacity in it. Um-
Dr Benjamin Coorey: And the, the kicker on that, Kylie, is that it can all change. You know, like, places evolve-... and change all the time. So it may look like this today, but then they redesign it and in 10 years it's a completely different look and feel. So it's, um, yeah, so it's that preservation of, "This is who we are." It's like, "Oh, no, this is who we're gonna be," you know? So-
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Yeah, yeah
Dr Benjamin Coorey: ... you can never win with this. Um, but yeah.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I kinda feel like this is all tied into to the, the ability to... Because, you know, local councils are full of NIMBYs and now YIMBYs, but, um, but NIMBY, what does NIMBYism comes from? It comes from fear that my amenity is gonna be taken away from me in, in where I live. And, um, and so, you know, the ability to virtually walk through the design because it is compliant, and actually I can't see into your bathroom, so it's like my neighbors can't see into my bathroom, all of that sort of stuff, right?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Um, so, so look, um, um, we're, we're co- we're coming up to time, so I don't wanna, wanna hold everybody up. There's is... Oh, we've got a couple more questions, so let's just quickly bust them out. Um, when will your platforms and AI cope with more subjective planning parameters like heritage and be useful in the heritage conservation areas, and what are the limitations in planning that are difficult to crack?
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Uh, we could do a whole nother webinar.
Kylie Davis: On heritage.
Will Sullivan: My answer there is it's not, it's not a question of getting AI or the technology to do the subjective part. Um, and that's where it's not a question of job losses or, or, you know, eliminating jobs. That you, you will have planners and you will have, um, advisors and consultants, whatever, to, to talk about things like heritage, 'cause it's, that's, that's a huge thing.
Kylie Davis: Well, 'cause that's the complicated... Yeah, yeah, yeah, the compli-
Will Sullivan: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: We're, we're, we're basically, um, ta- yeah, doing the 75% of the heavy lifting so that the humans can focus on the 25%-
Will Sullivan: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... that actually requires, uh, you know, brain and context and, and, and concept. Fellas, it's been ab-
Tom Young: And feelings.
Kylie Davis: And feeling. And feelings about the area-... and connection and all of that stuff that we really, really value.
Will Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Um, fellas, it's been absolutely fantastic to have you on the call. Thanks, um, so much to Tom Young from Yuju, Will Sullivan from Propcode, and, uh, Dr Ben Curry from Archistar. Thanks for an awesome conversation. Um, I guess what we now need to ha- come out of this is a, uh, position paper from the Proptech Association on the need for a centralized data set or, if not, if not data set, then at least planning form that we can, um, start to work with local government on. Um, but look, let's follow this up at the proptech Forum, which is on, uh, scheduled now for the four- Thursday, the 14th of November in Sydney. So, hope everyone can make it along to that, and, uh, we can continue this and many other conversations. Um, grab your tickets online. Thank you so much, fellas.
Tom Young: Thanks, everyone.
Kylie Davis: Thank you.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Thanks so much.
Kylie Davis: Thanks, guys.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Cheers.
Kylie Davis: See you.
Dr Benjamin Coorey: Thanks.
