The Spoonbill project was our 5th Opening Doors project and is one that had not been planned for.
It came about in June 2022 when a local couple offered to donate land and cash, to enable us to create another Opening Doors Project. This local couple had decided that they wanted to bring benefit to our community, and they very generously chose to do this with CLRS.
The land that was available was in Moama and was large enough to accommodate either one house or two units.
When the offer of the donation was made CLRS was supporting a young man who was about to turn 18 in our residential care home for young people. The rules require any person who turns 18 to move out of these homes the day after you turn 18. This young man had significant support needs, requiring around the clock support, and had been in the care of CLRS since the age of 6. We were working with his care team to try to find him a suitable place to live locally but there was nothing available. It was looking like he was going to have to move away from all his supports, and the community he knew and loved.
After reviewing the last four projects, the people who had expressed interest in the most recent project and knowing of the urgent need for housing for our young person, the decision was made to build two two-bedroom units. These units would enable a more flexible model, where two people with disability could live together or one person could have staff support 24hours a day 7 days a week.
CLRS again appointed a project control group which consisted of:
Leanne Willis – Board member
Elaine Hamilton – Board member
Leah Taaffe – CEO
Lauren Davy– Director – Operations
Nicolina Devitt – Services Manager
Damien Higan – Maintenance & Property Coordinator
For this project EDG Projects Australia (known then as EDG.Space) were again engaged to complete the design.
We received a generous offer from Alistair Morrisson to volunteer his time to project manage the development. Alistair is very experienced, had built several local businesses, was involved in local developments and had a significant number of local contacts.
CIB Constructions were appointed as the builder and construction commenced in June 2023 and was completed in November 2023.
Thanks to the generous donation received CLRS did not have to pay for land for this project which meant the costs to be covered were construction costs.
The cost of construction was estimated to be $1,300,000.
As part of the donation, we had also received $750,000 in cash. This meant that we needed to raise $550,000 to complete the project.
To raise these funds we decided to do a call out to local businesses and trades to help us maximise the donation we had received and asked for their help in keeping the cost of construction of this project to the $750, 000 we had received as the donation.
The response we received was incredible. More than 50 local businesses and tradespeople responded and the construction cost was kept to $750,000. This equalled $550,000 worth of donations in time, equipment, skill and expertise.
It was incredibly humbling for our organisation to receive this support in making sure that the donation went as far as it possibly could.
CLRS engaged EDG Projects Australia.
We had the fantastic expertise of Alistair Morrisson as Project Manager, who volunteered his skill and knowledge and encouraged his contacts to support the project.
In the Barry Street Project, we had engaged Cerno as project managers and had seen the benefit of their expertise. The Barry Street project had been our highest quality build in the shortest time yet. But Alistair, with his laser focus, managed to outshine this and delivered the fastest ever build CLRS has been involved in at 5 months.
The design of this project was quite different to all of our previous projects. This project was being built for people whose independence would be supported by a quiet, relaxed environment with space that could absorb noise and manage some knocks to walls.
Key Design Features
CIB Constructions, a local firm run by a young local builder, won the tender, and construction commenced in June 2023 and was completed in November 2023.
