Canberra as the Seat of Government of the Commonwealth of Australia is a planned city. The National Capital Development Commission was one of the bodies involved in this process.

Seat of Government Planning Bodies
The planning bodies were:
•	1913-1920: Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction
•	1921-1924: Federal Capital Advisory Committee 
•	1925-1930: Federal Capital Commission 
•	1938-1957: National Capital Planning and Development Committee 
•	1957-1989: National Capital Development Commission including the National Capital Planning Committee
•	since 1989: Australian Capital Territory Planning and Land Authority 

National Capital Development Commission
The NCDC was established in 1957 by the National Capital Development Act 1957 (Clth) and was responsible for the “Development of the City of Canberra as the National Capital of the Commonwealth, and for related purposes”. 

The functions of the NCDC were
•	Planning
•	Construction
•	Urban development, that is provide or arrange for buildings, roads, bridges, water and electricity supply, sewerage and drainage
•	Consistent with the lawfully modified plan of lay-out of the City of Canberra as gazetted in 1925
•	Grant consent to leases
•	Take advice from the National Capital Planning Committee
•	Completing the transfer of the Commonwealth public service to Canberra from Melbourne
•	
National Capital Development Commissioners
The Commissioners were:
 1958-1972: John Wallace (later Sir John) Overall
 1973: William Charles Andrews
 1974-1985: Anthony John Walker (Tony) Powell
 1986-1989: Malcolm B M Latham

Location of NCDC archives
The NCDC was abolished after the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988, and most of its functions, staff and files passed to the new ACT government.  These files are owned, cared for and stored by a variety of ACT Government departments and are open to public use, unless there is a Territory Records Act 2002 section 28 closure in place.

The National Capital Authority  (NCA) was established under the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988 to continue the Commonwealth role in the development of the national capital as the Seat of Government. Those files relevant to the Parliamentary triangle and Commonwealth buildings were passed to the NCA. Commonwealth archives older than 30 years are held by the National Archives of Australia.

Further information
Indexes for the minutes of these committees:
Federal Capital Commission Development Committee Meeting Index 1927-1929
National Capital Planning & Development Committee Meeting Index 1939-1957
National Capital Planning Committee Meeting Index 1959-1970

For more information on the founding documents of the Australian Capital Territory see:
http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?sdID=114

For more information about the archives of the relevant Commonwealth agencies see the National Archives of Australia website: http://www.naa.gov.au. To find archives on these agencies, search RecordSearch under agency number CA 279 (NCDC), CA383 (National Capital Planning and Development Committee) or CA292 (Federal Capital Advisory Committee).