Villawood: a developer with a difference

Armstrong Mount Duneed developer Rory Costelloe sees housing and lifestyle as two inseparable entities. For him, they’re a grafted hand-in-glove association.

So, too, housing and a personal sense of belonging, and likewise also, building communities for the future, the long-term future.

The executive director of Villawood Properties, Mr Costelloe believes in gearing up his group’s communities to last, under their own steam, long after the developer’s finished his job.

“Communities don’t just occur by accident or pure chance,” he said.

“It’s always been clear to me that they are made; either literally built from scratch or through decisions people make to congregate.

“Yes, there’s an element – more in some than others – where they develop organically but essentially they are brought into existence through acts of will.”

So Villawood has acted, very willingly, to draw a line in the sand, its developments are focussed on people and their community first and foremost.

The Armstrong community at Mount Duneed, between Geelong and Torquay, is a typical case.

The developer spent $10 million on a community centre/hub there which has become a thriving, buzzing centre.

It has gymnasiums, tennis courts, swimming pools, cafes, adventure parks, sports grounds, meeting places.

Armstrong has all manner of walking tracks, river trails, environmental contingencies – it even recycles the rocks it unearths – giant steel sculptures of pelicans and eagles, a signature of Villawood estates, and much more still to come.

Armstrong holds the Urban Development Institute of Australia’s Best Master Planned Community title – one of some 20 odd industry gongs Villawood has to its credit – and there are still schools, a waterfront dining precinct and retail precinct being built.

Villawood keeps blocks aside for people who will help nurture its communities. Care workers such as nurses, firefighters, paramedics, teachers, police, child and aged care workers can apply.

“Creating a community is not a task to be grasped lightly,” Mr Costelloe said. “It takes extraordinary amounts of time, effort and resources to conceive and deliver a master-planned community with a community centre run by an owners corporation.

“It takes commitment to fund a multi-million-dollar building and hand it over to the residents to run, subsidising the operating costs until the community develops the critical mass of population and expertise necessary for self-sufficiency.

“But I believe that it’s incumbent on us who work in the industry to make addressing this need for community our priority.”