Crows Nest community housing project approved by Toowoomba council, funding needed for $8.2m first stage

It’s a project that could create and support affordable housing for hundreds of residents in a small town. Now it’s been approved, but there is still a major stumbling block.

The first stage of a major community housing project to support a growing town north of Toowoomba could move ahead soon — if it can secure its remaining vital funds.

Crows Nest Community Solutions Ltd received approval from the Toowoomba Regional Council in January for an ambitious seven-stage housing project on 45ha of land off Creek Street on the outskirts of the town.

The development, dubbed Chaseley Park, would feature a range of accommodation options to support residents battling homelessness, living with disabilities or on the NDIS, in insecure situations and seeking extra support due to old age.

The approval from the council is primarily for the $8.2m first stage, which includes 14 dwellings (such as duplexes and detached housing) with 36 bedrooms along with a community centre featuring meeting rooms, kitchen, dining room and library.

Crows Nest Community Solutions Ltd directors Jeff Close and Baden Brown surveys the plans for a new community and affordable housing project at the end of Creek Street in Crows Nest, dubbed Chaseley Park.

The final development could having accommodation for more than 130 residents and feature other services like a GP clinic and pharmacy.

CNCS, which has been progressing the project over nearly a decade, has already raised $2.5m towards construction stage one (37 per cent of the cost) thanks to an ongoing community joint-partnership between its parent organisation Progressive Community Crows Nest and Heritage Bank.

Organisation committee member Baden Brown, who is one of seven on the board, said the project had been staged to ensure it could be scaled based on community demands for a wide variety of housing requirements.

“We’ll build the first stage, see where the need is and build further stages on the basis of need,” he said.

“We won’t have committed ourselves to one thing — we’re giving ourselves the latitude to diversify as we move forward.

“What we are doing is providing the infrastructure so it can be realised.”

Sue Wegner, who is acting as a consultant to CNCS, said she was in negotiations with a number of housing and service providers to operate the site.

“We have a couple of community housing providers who are local to the region that we’re in negotiations with,” she said.

“We’re hoping to secure an arrangement for services out here — what comes with that is services to Crows Nest.”

Mr Brown said the organisation was now exploring funding options, including from state and federal government sources.

“Being a charity, we’re in a position to accept funds from other places — we are looking at a number of different sources,” he said.

“We are now concentrating on the community housing funding — we are looking at associations with other government agencies to fund these projects.”

Mr Brown said he and CNCS believed it would not only attract services to town but ensure people who didn’t want to leave the area could remain in the community they loved.

Anyone wanting to learn more about the project can email Sue Wegner at [e-mail].