I posted a Rant a while back. About the 5 storey, 40 unit public housing project on our back fence.
We live in Aitkenvale - a fairly quiet residential suburb in Townville.
In August last year, there was a bit of publicity about a new "Youth Foyer" to go into Aitkenvale. No location, no mention of size.
They showed TV footage of the Youth Foyer at Logan - a quite nice looking two storey 17 room apartment complex.
So nobody was particularly concerned at the time. It was to provide housing to disavantaged youth at risk of homelessness. All good right?
Then a few nice ladies walked up the driveway in January, happily telling us about the 5 Story, 40 unit complex they were going to build on our back fence corner. Right behind my neighbour. Full of 16-25yo youth.
WTF? No consultation, kept it a secret. Surprise!
Many of my neighbours are in their 70s - 80s. They are seriously worried. There are already problems with youth at the nearby shopping centre on a thursday night, Not unusual to see multiple police cars and dog squad fully occupied.
One lady is now legally blind and will need to sell her house to get into a nursing home. How much will her house value drop with word that behind her will be a 5 storey public housing complex.
The proposal did not need council approval but actually fails five of the Council's planning requirements for a building of that size. So they are on our side.
There are at least two more appropriate blocks of land this could be built on within 2km of this location.
The government tells us that our house values will not drop, that Mission Australia can successfully manage 40 disadvantaged teens & young adults in a high density environment, that there will be no noise, they will be all well behaved, they won't have cars.... all sounds like a Disney movie?
Anyway, we are looking for more support. If you agree , feel free to sign.
https://www.change.org/p/donna-larsen-townsville-youth-foyerPS. The Logan Youth Foyer and others around the country seem squeaky clean - nobody has any bad reports. This seems rather too good to be true. Off the record conversations with law enforcement would indicate that smaller facilities than this one are not easy to manage and do have problems. If anyone has any real world stories about these Youth Foyers, please PM me.