My husband and I have been having the same conversation for ten years.

It goes something like this: we’re sitting on what is, for most people, the single biggest investment of their lives. Our girls are growing fast; the house feels like it’s either shrinking or not working as hard as it could; and surely, surely, there’s a smarter way to use the space we have.

Could we subdivide one day? Add a granny flat? Create an income stream down the track when the girls have flown the nest? The ideas have evolved and multiplied over a decade’s worth of what-ifs and maybe-thats, and we’ve never quite managed to land on a plan.

So when Siobhan Goodhew was suggested for this month’s column, I didn’t hesitate for a second. She’s the founder of TerraiQ, a Hervey Bay-based planning and approvals consultancy, and she’s spent more than two decades working inside local government. If anyone could help me make sense of our sprawling wishlist, it was her.

Inviting her to the house felt like the obvious move. A property tells its own story, and Siobhan is exactly the kind of person who knows how to read it.

She arrived warm, composed, and ready to work. She’s generous with her time and her thinking from the moment she walks through the front door. There’s a quiet effortlessness to the way she operates. The manner of someone who has assessed a thousand properties and knows exactly what she’s looking for. I was immediately filled with a shared sense of confidence in her abilities and knowledge.

I started by sharing our current thinking, then took her out for a full lap of the property. We crept through the jungle of tropical plants that is my front yard (sorry neighbours!), past the veggie patches and what we lovingly call the orchard, a cheerful collection of fruit trees in various degrees of health and ambition. Out the back, we have a sprawling space, with the back third still very much left to the imagination, even after nearly ten years of living here.

Siobhan had a particular interest in that back section and what could yet be made of it. She also had a sharp eye for things we’d long since stopped seeing. A plant, for example, sitting rather too close to our septic tank was flagged and, I’m pleased to report, removed promptly after she left. 

Across the road, an entire new neighbourhood is currently being developed, with more than 600 plots in the process of becoming somebody’s home. She caught sight of that too and had plenty of insights into what that process still holds for the nearly 600 neighbours we’ve yet to meet. It was a small but telling reminder that her knowledge doesn’t just apply to the block you’re standing on. It extends to everything happening around it.

Then we settled out the back, and that’s where the real education began.

What followed was a thorough breakdown of how best to use our space, now and into the future. An L-shaped building here. A shed there. Options I hadn’t considered, configurations I wouldn’t have known to ask about, with the reasoning behind it all laid out clearly so I actually understood the thinking, not just the conclusion.

She had, with great kindness and zero sugarcoating, identified about ten reasons why our latest iteration of The Plan wouldn’t work. And then, almost in the same breath, came back with what felt like twenty ideas that would.

What struck me most was how quickly she grasped not just the practical question, but the spirit of it. We weren’t just talking about approvals and paperwork. We were talking about our home, our family, our future. She understood that, and she worked with it.

That balance is, I think, Siobhan’s particular gift. She’s not in the business of simply telling you what the rules are and sending you on your way. She looks at the whole picture, the zoning, the overlays, the site constraints, all the invisible layers that shape what’s actually possible on any given piece of land, and then she helps you find the path forward. Even two properties in the same street can have completely different development potential, which is not something most of us would ever think to ask about.

Her approach reminded me of a good improvisation rule: yes, and. She didn’t just validate the dream. She expanded it. Made it more grounded, more achievable, and frankly more exciting than the version we’d been vaguely sketching for a decade.

Her whole philosophy, as she explained it, is about reducing the friction. Fewer hoops to jump through, fewer dollars spent in the wrong direction, less time lost to confusion or missteps. After more than twenty years on the inside of local government, she knows exactly how councils think, what they look for, and where projects tend to come unstuck. That knowledge is what she now brings to the people on the other side of the process.

Will my husband and I act on what we’ve learned? Almost certainly. Will we dither a little more first? Probably. But I left that conversation genuinely curious about what’s possible, which is a different feeling entirely from the vague, circular wondering we’ve been doing for years. And I have a sneaking suspicion that the best next step involves a Friday night, a good steak, a decent glass of red, and a proper conversation about what comes next.

Some of the best decisions, after all, start exactly like that.

With thanks to Siobhan Goodhew of TerraiQ for her time, expertise, and refreshingly straight-talking advice. You can reach Siobhan at terraiq.com.au or on 0417 422 004.