This course provides a critical overview of property development in relation to planning controls. It examines the range of factors (economic, social, environmental, political, ideological) which operate within, or impinge upon, the ‘planning system’, and which in turn affect and regulate urban development possibilities. Understanding the relationship between processes of urban development and the regulation of this development through statutory planning systems is central to urban design. Hence, this course deals with the nature of planning systems, planning controls and property development processes, as well as the ways in which they interact at the scale of the urban project.