Zef Hemel (1957) is Deputy director of the Amsterdam Spatial Planning Department.

He studied human geography and planning at the University of Groningen. In 1994 he obtained his PHD at the University of Amsterdam with a dissertation on ‘The Landscape of the Ijsselmeer Polders. Planning, Layout and Design’.
 
In May 2002 he became director of the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture. Prior to that he worked as a senior planner at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) in The Hague, first as secretary to the Board for Spatial Planning, then as editor of the Fifth Report on Spatial Planning in the Netherlands, and finally as a member of the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment’s think tank. Zef Hemel is a member of the executive board of the Forum for Urban Renewal.
 
He is Deputy director at the Spatial Planning Department (DRO) since September 2004. The DRO is the policy department of  Amsterdam local authority that advises on the policy for spatial planning and open and public spaces. Employees from the department carry out planning research and make urban development plans. DRO works for Amsterdam and for partners in the region. Together with city districts and other local authority departments and businesses the DRO works on large-scale urban projects such as IJburg, the Zeeburgereiland, the IJ banks, the Centrumgebied Zuidoost, Parkstad, the WTCW Science Park and the Zuidas. 

At the DRO, among other things, Zef Hemel is involved in repositioning the planning function, intensifying regional contacts and the research function of the department.