Mosaic Property’s Brook Monahan says community “rightfully suspicious” of developers

One southeast Queensland developer has urged the industry to do better at engaging communities, while revealing which parts of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast where people want to live.

From subdividing homes in suburban Brisbane to getting luxury beachfront apartments across the line on the Sunshine Coast, Brook Monahan has seen enough of the development industry to give some brutal assessments.

“There’s been too many examples in the past where we as an industry we haven’t done it well enough,” Monahan says.

The crash of Blue Sky Alternative Investments has not come as a huge shock to Brisbane stockbrokers and financial analysts

South Brisbane apartment tower plans resubmitted four days after council green light, adding 10 storeys, 66 units

“Hence why the community in some instances are rightfully suspicious of density,” he says.

“You can’t just afford to stuff it up over and over again.”

Monahan, who founded Mosaic Property Group in 2004 and is its director, openly admits that some sections of the development industry have taken the public for a ride.

“I think too much in the past, industry has waited for government to take the lead on how we engage the community,” Monahan says.

“Opportunity is finite,” he says.

Mosaic Property founder Brook Monahan says the development industry “can’t afford to stuff it up over and over again.” Picture: AAP Image/Attila Csaszar

Monahan says Mosaic, which has developed over $1 billion since 2012, has made community consultation a centre-focus of his company, “not just a token vision,” and points to their luxury, 56-unit development ‘Drift’ on Coolum’s beachfront.

He claims to have spent months consulting with the community before the project was even put before council, with changes based on feedback including improved landscaping and privacy.

Despite a project from another developer on the same land being knocked back previously, Mosaic managed to get Drift off the ground and is now planning a second tower in Coolum.

This mentality, Monahan says, has gone right across the company, with a special unit within Mosaic specially dedicated to talking to communities about projects.

“We still invest heavily from the early stages in trying to understand what the community would want from this development,” Monahan says.

“Their voice is considered before that design is finalised, not after it, when the developer is trying to get the community onside so they can get their application through,” he says.

“This is what we’re trying to prove as a precedent for other private developers to follow.”

Monahan made his start in property development subdividing suburban lots in the early 2000s, before focusing on a mixture of affordable and luxury apartments.

Mosaic now has a turnover of $250-300 million a year, with emphasis since the global financial crisis on places “where people want to live.”

For developments on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, that means beachfront apartments,.

In Brisbane, Mosaic looks for projects in so-called “middle-ring” suburbs, two-to-five kilometres from the CBD, which Monahan calls the “sweet spot” for desirable living.

‘Bulky’ tower at Park Ave, East Brisbane rejected by Brisbane City Council

Vandalised car sits on Lutwyche street for three years, since owner is paying rego

The company, which now employs 120 in southeast Queensland, has ambitions to build and manage another $1 billion in residential projects by 2025, including Sinclair, on the East Brisbane site formerly subject to a dual-tower proposal by failed developer Blue Sky.

Mosaic’s proposal is for 122 units across two towers, 34 units less than Blue Sky’s plans, but Monahan says the units are larger and the twin buildings fitted with more shared facilities.

“We looked at that site a long time ago, including when Blue Sky looked to purchase it initially,” Monahan said.

“What was designed for that site (by Blue Sky) was not what the site demanded, nor what the local demand was asking for. The reality is Blue Sky designed product that is predominantly for investment and rental purposes.”

The "Sinclair" development by Mosaic. The company’s new proposal is on the site of Blue Sky’s former proposal at East Brisbane. Picture: Mosaic Property.

“That’s why their formula didn’t work in the end, because that market had come off so hard in Brisbane in late 17-2018,” Monahan says, referring to the apartment glut which hit Brisbane around that period.

“(Investment and rental) completely evaporated, whereas our business (owner-occupier) has grown quite substantially in this market in Brisbane over the past two years.”

Focusing on the middle of the market was itself a lesson Monahan learnt during the depths of the GFC, when Mosaic reduced its focus on both lower-end and very high-end apartments, instead consigning itself to the “middle” of the market.

But he says Mosaic would continue to alter its strategy, insisting any developer that claimed to have solved the puzzle of market demand wasn’t telling the truth.

Rooftops at Mosaic’s Sinclair project in East Brisbane. Picture: Mosaic Property.

“You have to evolve really quickly because the demands of our staff, the demands of the community, the demands of the industry and the demands of our clients are growing at such a rapid rate,” Monahan says.

And despite the lower margins and greater competition the development industry faces in southeast Queensland, he says Mosaic had no ambitions to try have a crack at the southern capitals.

“There’s no doubt if we’d invested the same resources and money into Melbourne and Sydney in the last eight years, we’d have a substantially more profitable business,” he says.

“However it’s not where we want to live.”

“That opportunity (of Sydney and Melbourne) is coming to southeast Queensland in the next five to seven years.”