How 41 people came together to build their own community

On a leafy block in Melbourne’s north-east, a new kind of housing development is taking shape.

Along with the construction of 20 small-footprint homes, there is a common house, plenty of shared spaces (including sheds and a studio in retained mud-brick structures) and garden beds built to be worked on and eaten from together.

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The Brougham St project is a co-housing community years in the making, and one of the largest of its type in the country. The project is a considered and intentional alternative to the isolated living that defines modern life.

Owner Helen did not want to move into a retirement village and was drawn in by co-housing’s model of “multigenerational” living: “young kids as well as older people living in the one community.” 

She says co-housing is about “knowing your neighbours, sharing things with your neighbours and supporting each other, because they will support me too.” 

How the group formed

The project began in 2021 when a group of 10 people (comprising two family groups and their friends) shared an ambition to build a community together, but weren’t sure how. 

The group engaged Property Collectives, developers who specialise in resident-led builds.

“Over the last 15 years, we’ve been helping groups of citizens come together to build developments that are a bit more intentional in their purpose,” says Tim Riley, the MD and co-founder.

Property Collectives found the Brougham St site – centrally located and right beside the local leisure centre – and secured a Bank Australia impact loan to purchase it and finance the build.

Meanwhile, fortnightly open days in the area saw the owner group eventually grow to 20 households, housing 41 people in total. 

Because the owners invested equity early, they get a vote in all decisions from the outset.

“The Eltham Collective is a joint venture that very much runs like a co-op,” Tim says. “That gives them agency over the whole process.”

And while it hasn’t always been a straight line – including a council dispute that went to VCAT and was ultimately decided in the group’s favour – the community’s resolve has kept the project moving.

Built for connection and efficiency

The design choices that define Brougham St highlight the communal way of living:

• A shared common house, held equally by all owners and set up for regular meals or visiting guests.
• Cars pushed to the edges, freeing up valuable space for shared, productive gardens and composting across the community.
• Small footprint homes positioned and built with an eye to orientation, sun shading, high-performance glazing and a shared solar solution.
• Retained heritage buildings kept as shared spaces.

Bank Australia’s impact lending team believed in the vision from the start. “Impact lending at Bank Australia works to give life to our aim to be a force for good in banking,” says Ross from the bank’s impact lending team. 

This is the second Property Collectives project Bank Australia has funded. “The bank was flexible in how they were dealing with this project because it is a different sort of development model,” Tim says. “They ended up offering us a really strong competitive deal compared to the market, and have been a good, practical bank to deal with.”

The impact beyond Brougham St

For Bank Australia, projects like Brougham St Cohousing show that there are different solutions for the challenges of housing affordability and supply.

"It really proves that there's an alternative model of how we can create housing," says Ross.

"We need as many viable solutions as we possibly can to tackle that problem."

For owners, the site is building towards one final outcome: a home of their own, inside a cohesive community they helped build.

As Helen says, “I’m looking forward to having my own place and my own community”.

Learn more about Bank Australia’s impact lending.