Commercial & Retail

We use our extensive experience to navigate increasingly complex regulatory environments, ensuring that you have a permit in your hand as early as possible.

Our town planning team are experts at approval strategies for all types of projects. With a deep understanding of the planning process, we know where to push boundaries and where there are risks. We can provide clear advice on the prospects of permit success.

We regularly obtain planning permits for every type of project. We've helped gain planning approval for everything from childcare centres to educational facility masterplans, gaming and licensed venues to residential and commercial projects.

Expert witnesses and panel representation can be critical in achieving permit success. That's why engaging Ratio can make a huge difference to your project.

Honed by hours under cross examination, our expert witness planners and urban designers regularly provide trusted and convincing advice across a range of specialties.

We are talented advocates, able to put your case forward strongly and persuasively for Civil and Administrative Tribunal appeals, mediations, planning panels and consumer affairs.

Our extensive expert witness and advocate experience means that we can provide reliable and informed advice, guiding your project's success.

We identify planning issues early and advise on the best way forward.

Ratio's due diligence assessments combine our planners' comprehensive understanding of planning controls with the project's commercial viability.

As an essential first step in any project, a Ratio due diligence assessment provides a clear vision of the opportunities and risks of any potential site.

We're here to help bring projects to life, even if that means guiding you through the often-lengthy planning scheme amendment process.

Ratio has extensive experience with changing property zones and adjusting development controls for projects constrained by the existing planning scheme.

With our network of connections across local and state government, we're here to ensure that everyone works together for the good of your project.

Our planning team are knowledge specialists when it comes to gambling, gaming and liquor licensed venues.

We regularly manage applications for gambling, gaming and liquor licenses. We provide an experienced and authoritative voice as experts in this space. Our team are often called upon to give expert evidence for these matters and provide social and economic assessments that can determine a net community benefit.

We are valued for the intelligence of our people, the ingenuity of our approach, and the years of knowledge embedded in our organisation.

Our comprehensive transport impact assessments provide a detailed document that addresses all relevant statutory and policy requirements.

We start with your requirements and work with you to develop a clear strategy for your planning application. We support you throughout the permit process and assist with any post-submission issues.

Every site is unique, and so is every Ratio transport impact assessment. From collecting relevant parking and traffic data to providing meaningful analysis and sound technical advice, we work across every sector to deliver an assessment tailored to your project.

We understand the importance of independent and trusted expert witness testimony. That’s why we’re so proud of our large team of respected, reliable and evidence-based transport experts who regularly appear at Civil and Administrative Tribunals, Planning Panels and in Supreme Court matters.

We offer representation across sectors, from small scale transport, planning and environmental matters to large strategic and major infrastructure projects.

Transport design requires big picture thinking and an eye for detail like no other. Our team of transport designers and traffic specialists bring a vast amount of knowledge, experience and highly regarded design abilities to your project’s transport needs.

We offer a full suite of transport design services, creating innovative and refined designs for everything from car parks to road network plans, swept paths, traffic signal plans and road safety audits.

We take the time to understand your requirements and apply progressive thinking to ensure we design a holistic and economical transport solution.

At Ratio, we work together and with purpose towards a more sustainable, liveable and positive future for all.

We combine specialist knowledge with innovative thinking to plan and recommend sustainable transport solutions for your project. We help to create transport environments that encourage access by foot, bike, car-sharing or public transport.

Ratio regularly works with government agencies to guide transport policies that work towards a sustainable future.

Ratio’s transport team bring a vast amount of specialist knowledge and hands-on experience to your car parking project.

We’re industry leaders in designing parking precinct plans, parking layouts and mechanical car stackers, lift and hoist parking systems.

We’re proud of our innovative car park designs, and trusted partners in shaping car parks for all types of developments.

The depth of knowledge and experience at Ratio uniquely qualifies us to provide comprehensive Due Diligence Assessments for our clients.

Our Due Diligence Assessments identify all relevant traffic and transport-related issues, concisely conveying the potential risk, opportunities and constraints that may occur during the development process.

Our clients particularly value our ability to provide considered potential solutions to any issues identified during the due diligence process, saving them both time and money.

We're here to help bring projects to life, including planning your traffic management.

Our transport specialists undertake extensive analysis of your project before devising a traffic management plan. Working with local authorities and engineers, we collaborate to create a seamless journey for road users.

We know that traffic management is a critical part of constructing your project. Our transport engineers have extensive experience creating traffic management plans that consider both safety and every facet of construction-related traffic. As requirements often change throughout a project, we provide ongoing support to ensure traffic continues to flow.

We specialise in local area traffic management plans that address traffic, safety and amenity issues for residential areas. We’ve created innovative traffic solutions for highly sensitive and complex projects such as schools and childcare centres.

We regularly assist landowners and potential developers to explore the development capacity of their site.

Testing site capacity helps overcome the challenges of finding a site for your project, assessing the feasibility of an existing site, developing a planning approval strategy, and providing clear design direction for the project architect.

Working alongside our Planning and Transport team, we analyse the potential of your site, and provide advice on possible risks and opportunities to inform an achievable development outcome.

We prepare urban design statements to accompany a range of planning applications.

An urban design statement can assist to represent a site, its context and design influences, set out the design rationale for the project and discuss its merits with visual support.

This also allows for design issues to be anticipated at outset of the planning approval process.

Our expertise across a wide variety of development types and scales forms a strong foundation of knowledge that is regularly sought for the purpose of expert testimony to Civil and Administrative Tribunals, Planning Panels and Advisory Committees.

Our urban design experts regularly provide specialist urban design analysis and advice at the RFI stage of the planning application process as well as for the settlement of plans at mediation or compulsory conferences.
Prior to forming advice, we undertake site and context analysis, and a detailed assessment of the architectural plans is to inform our expert opinion.

Built form modelling can test the capacity of the site and potential impacts, and demonstrate the effect of a proposal as part of an urban design statement or expert evidence report.

We use a range of 3D techniques to explore the form of buildings on a site and to place them within a built form context.

Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) is a multi-step systematic process used to evaluate the potential visual impact of proposed built forms on their surrounding environment.

Our VIA services assist our clients in ensuring that proposed developments contribute positively to the urban fabric and maximise objectivity throughout the decision-making process.

New developments require waste management plans to accompany the town planning process.

It is important to design the waste management system during the early stages of the design process to ensure the layout is functional and compliant.

Our advice ensures that waste management systems are designed appropriately before a waste management plan is submitted.

Design advice and waste management plans include a summary of recommended equipment, spatial requirements, and proposed collection methodology for the architect to design into the plans.

Our waste management team can go one step further and prepare waste management drawings and waste swept paths assessments that provide a complete solution to expedite the approval process.

Ratio's environmental consultants offer practical and economic design expertise, ensuring that your bins and waste management equipment are easily accessed and manoeuvred with sufficient circulation for the area.

Ratio’s multi-disciplinary consultancy enables us to prepare our own waste truck swept path assessments to accompany waste management plans.

Creating our own swept path assessments allows us to ensure that appropriate vehicular access and circulation is provided for waste vehicles, without any project delays.

We provide our clients with recommendations and spatial advice for a range of waste management solutions, including chutes (dual and single plus diverter), organic processing units, carousel and compacter systems.

Our environmental consultants provide strategies to minimise landfill and maximise the recyclability of the various recycling streams.

We understand the importance of the separation of recyclables into distinct streams to reduce contamination rates and damage to recyclables and we possess an in-depth knowledge of systems available for on-site management, processing and re-use of food organics.

Long-term strategic document identifying an organisation’s Circular Economy vision, future-facing targets and means to achieve across the business (1-2 weeks).

A detailed plan of the project site guides landscape management and informs project scale for stakeholders.