Nightingale Village

Nightingale Village

About the project

Nightingale Village offers a world-first opportunity to understand the benefits of social and affordable tenancies within an owner occupier development. It features outstanding environmentally sustainable design, a development model delivering capped investor profit margins, low running costs for tenants and a community atmosphere promoting social and economic inclusion.

The Village is a collection of six neighbouring buildings, each designed by six award-winning architects using the social, environmental and financial sustainability principles of the carbon-neutral Nightingale model. Nightingale Village brings together 186 apartments, precinct scale transport hubs (500+ bike parking spaces) and sustainability solutions.

Nightingale Village benefits from proximity to the CBD, multiple public transport options and access to local schools, community groups, and parks. This development provides high-quality housing in a desirable location that has seen significant property price increases – well out of reach of social and affordable housing tenants.

Housing Choices has purchased 21 dwellings across all buildings. Residents will be selected from the Victorian Housing Register and include singles, couples and families on low incomes, and people with a disability.

  • Project overview

    Design features

    • Fossil fuel-free
    • Minimum 8.1 stars NatHERS rating
    • 5 Green Star rating
    • Low embodied energy materials
    • Embedded electricity network (100% GreenPower)
    • Embedded commercial-grade internet network
    • 25.6kW photovoltaic array
    • Rainwater collected for common area use
    • Shared rooftop with veggie patches
    • Energy efficient heat pump hot water system
    • Ample secure bicycle parking, close to public transport and car share options, no private car spaces
  • Project overview

    Key details

    • Completion – 2022
    • Location – Brunswick, VIC
    • Apartment mix – 17 x 1BR, 19 x 2BR, 1 x Commercial
    • Architects – Breathe, Claire Cousins, Kennedy & Nolan, Hayball, Austin Maynard Architects
    • Builder – Hacer Group
    • Landscaping – Openwork
    • Photography – Tom Ross

What is community housing

Community housing is owned or managed by non-government, not-for-profit, registered housing agencies like Housing Choices. We partner with a range of support services and community organisations, enabling us to meet the immediate and longer-term needs of our residents, so that they can thrive and maintain long-term tenancies.

The community housing sector is a long standing and vital component of the Australian housing system and receives government funding to help address affordable housing shortages across the country. Over 100,000 Australian households currently live in community housing-owned and managed homes with subsidised rent, based either on a discount to the market rent or as a percentage of household income.

Social housing involves some degree of rental subsidy and is an umbrella term for public or community housing. While community housing is run by not for profits like Housing Choices, public housing is owned by the state governments. Community housing providers are regulated by the state and hold specialist expertise in property development, property management, tenancy management and community development.