for housing abundance
YIMBY
Melbourne
Australia's foremost voice for abundance policy.
YIMBY Melbourne started in early 2023, when volunteer members began going to local council meetings to advocate for more homes to be built where people want to live.
This was a new and unique voice in the landscape: a grassroots group of ragtag individuals, advocating for change, rather than against it.
The organisation has grown quickly since those early days, and now in addition to grassroots advocacy delivers the policy analysis and digital tools required to move the needle on Australia's housing crisis.
Our staff
Jonathan O'Brien
lead organiser
Jonathan O'Brien is the Lead Organiser of YIMBY Melbourne. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of long-form policy journal Inflection Points, and a Queensland Literary Award–winning writer and publisher. He is a 10% pledger with Giving What We Can, and an extremely uncompetitive triathlete.
ethan gilbert
Deputy lead organiser
Ethan is the Deputy Lead Organiser at YIMBY Melbourne. He is also a founding editor and head of digital at Inflection Points. Ethan lives in Melbourne, where he grew up, and has aspirations to one day be a historian.
Our board
Tom Pisel
president
Tom Pisel is a founding member and inaugural secretary of YIMBY Melbourne, and longtime advocate for housing density and affordability with a breadth of experience across architecture, data science, and Australian emerging technologies.
In 2012, and in response to growing dissatisfaction with Melbourne’s public transport, Tom founded Tramsurance, a fare evasion insurance scheme that made news around the world. Tom has served as interim CEO at tech startup Macropod Pty Ltd, where he negotiated and enacted a buyback of investor shares, returning it to founder control. Then, as managing consultant at RSF Consulting, Tom advised on research and development across the Australian technology sector. Tom now works in health data and research for SiSU Health, a Wesfarmers Health company.
Tris Layton
vice-president
Tris Layton is a planning lawyer and founding member of YIMBY Melbourne.
As a planning lawyer, Tris is at the coalface of Victoria’s broken planning system and brings an important insight as a practitioner to YIMBY Melbourne.
Prior to his admission to the legal profession, Tris worked as a staffer and policy advisor to the Victorian Liberal Opposition. He believes that any effort to build a better Melbourne requires bipartisan consensus, and is working to advance a pro-housing, pro-growth and pro-abundance vision among the Australian centre-right.
Tris served as YIMBY Melbourne’s inaugural treasurer.
katie roberts-hull
Secretary
Katie Roberts-Hull is passionate about allowing more homes where people want to live. Katie is an education researcher and became a YIMBY in part because of the strong connection between housing policy and school equity. Katie was the face of objection to heritage-listing a concrete carpark in Carlton, and she wrote for the Guardian about the tension between heritage policy and housing supply. Katie was one of the original YIMBYs profiled by The Age in 2023. She is also an urbanist parent with two young children and cares about making the inner city a better place for families to stay long term.
Katie has served as the CEO of an education sector not-for-profit organisation and on the local school council. Katie holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPA from the Kennedy School at Harvard University.
romeo takafuma
Treasurer
Romeo is a Chartered Accountant (CA), Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) and Associate of the Governance Institute of Australia (AGIA) with more than 15 years’ experience in strategic finance, corporate governance and M&A across SMEs and listed. As a long-standing virtual CFO and board adviser to multiple mid-sized Australian companies, he is known for translating complex financial issues into clear, community-focused action plans that unlock growth and manage risk.
Romeo joins the YIMBY Melbourne Board to bring rigorous financial stewardship to the movement’s mission of housing abundance and a fairer, more liveable city.
Brendan Coates
committee member
Brendan Coates is the Housing and Economic Security Program Director at Grattan Institute, where he leads Grattan’s work on housing, retirement incomes, and superannuation.
He is a former macro-financial economist with the World Bank in Indonesia and consulted to the Bank in Latin America. Prior to that, he worked in the Australian Treasury in areas such as tax-transfer system reform and macro-economic forecasting, with a strong focus on the Chinese economy.
Brendan holds a Masters of International Development Economics from the Australian National University and Bachelors of Commerce and Arts from the University of Melbourne.
dan mckenna
Committee member
Dan McKenna is a passionate advocate for transforming Australia’s housing sector. As CEO of Housing All Australians, he is dedicated to addressing the nation’s housing crisis by pioneering innovative solutions that challenge traditional models and drive meaningful change. Through strategic partnerships with the private sector, Housing All Australians works to create sustainable, scalable solutions that tackle the housing challenges facing the country.
Before taking on his current role, Dan was CEO of Nightingale Housing, an award-winning not-for-profit organisation committed to developing socially, financially, and environmentally sustainable homes. Under his leadership, Nightingale Housing set new standards for responsible development, combining design excellence, community building, and environmental stewardship. Dan played a key role in expanding the organisation’s influence and impact in the housing sector.
In 2023, Dan received Monash University’s Distinguished Alumni Award in recognition of his leadership and contributions to the industry. Despite the ongoing challenges within the sector, he remains steadfast in his commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, working tirelessly to create inclusive, forward-thinking solutions that address the urgent needs of Australian communities.