Job Description

Position Overview

The Senior Urban Planner is responsible for overseeing complex professional planning activities at both a regional scale and at a detailed master planning level. He/she will actively engage with the Client’s senior management, operations team, contracts and procurement, and other departments as required; leadership to a multi-national, multi-disciplinary team members, providing guidance and work assignments to both client and consultant staff in a clear and concise manner; and ensuring quality reports, presentations, concepts, etc.

Additionally, he/she will maintain contact and coordination with the multiple external agencies involved in the regional and metropolitan planning to establish and maintain strong and healthy working relationships with the planning approval bodies; assist in effecting timely planning approvals; assist third party developers approval process and ensure compliance with stakeholder master plans, design guidelines, etc.; and provide guidance to external parties regarding development around the Client's airports related to noise, safety, security, and height limitations.

Role Accountabilities

Role accountabilities summary include:

Urban Planning, Transport Planning, Project Briefs

• Perform and manage complex and sensitive professional planning projects, research and analysis. Reviewing consultant work and ensuring satisfactory quality.
• Prepare scope and manage transport master plans and traffic impact studies.
• Monitor and ensure the master planning work is compliant with local standards and regulations.
• Oversee and manage consultants gathering, compiling, and analyzing data on economic, social, cluster planning, and physical factors affecting the developments, ensuring the consultant’s work quality.
• Develop concept plans and technical input to support the delivery of high-quality plans, reports, and presentations.
• Confer with local authorities, civic leaders, public policy experts, and land planning and development specialists to devise and recommend arrangements of land and physical facilities for developments. Ensuring all anchor, follower, and enabler land use activities are afforded in the plans.
• Develop recommendations based on governmental measures affecting land use, public utilities, regional and local planning strategies.
• Provide accurate plot allocation plans for third party developers.

Project Management and Implementation

• Write technical and project briefs that can be readily adapted into scope of work and schedule development (project justification & budgeting) for design purposes.
• Write and prepare tender and contract documents including tender evaluation criteria, scope of services, deliverable schedule, payment schedule, etc.
• Lead procurement exercise, namely the technical evaluation, and present findings and recommendation to senior management.
• Prepare work programs to translate project objectives into detailed plans, including the subdivisions of workstreams (tasks) to staff and consultant team members.
• Implement required measures during the project management process and lead the team by resolving any problems, technical issues or deviations from plans to ensure that project progress is maintained as per plan.
• Report on a regular basis the progression of master planning projects to senior management and stakeholders, and where issues arise provide meaningful mitigation strategies to unblock progression.
• Ensure adherence to safety and quality requirements.

Strategic – Technical Experience

• Producing master plans, conceptual designs, illustrative layouts, and project briefs.
• Strategic and regional planning.
• Airport planning, with understanding of Obstacle Limitation Surface planning.
• Land-use, transport and traffic planning.
• Developing, implementing and enforcing urban planning regulations, development guidelines, development control regulations, and writing technical manuals.
• Assessing third party developments from a master developer perspective.
• Enforcing development control regulations and design guidelines.

Strategic – Business Experience

• Developing strategic and tactical advice related to phasing developments and utilizing development fronts and clustering, being mindful of commercial imperatives, orderly planning, and physical / engineering realities.
• Creative thinking and in depth understanding of current best practices especially related to industrial / logistics and cluster developments and hubs, urban planning, office development, and the aviation industry.
• Preparing market study briefs and scopes.
• Master planning for economic generating clusters.
• Stakeholder requirement analysis

People

• Setting departmental goals and objectives
• Setting priorities and directing resource deployment
• Setting and maintaining planning standards and SOP’s
• Inter-departmental and external stakeholder coordination
• Staff performance review and career development
• Defining requirements for outsourced consultancy services

Experience, Qualifications, Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

Minimum Experience & Essential Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• A minimum (15) fifteen years of progressive urban planning experience, with experiences in the context of infrastructure design, planning and development in and around airports.
• International experience, knowledge of project delivery methods and Middle East works practices is preferred.
• Strong background in Master Planning and other planning studies related to small/medium/large airports.
• Knowledge and understanding of ICAO/IATA regulations, as well as other international standards, for ensure compliance with national laws and regulations.
• Must be a self-starter and able to work productively and efficiently within a large team environment.
• Capable of adapting to demanding project conditions.
• Ability to adapt to new situations and to react objectively and expeditiously to critical works.
• Computer literate Office package, AutoCAD/REVIT.
• Bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, or degree in Architecture with post-graduate degree in Urban Planning from an accredited university.
• Professional registration required.
• Knowledge of airport planning is highly desirable.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills.
• Fluent in English, ability to communicate in Arabic preferred.

Skills Required

• Airports