Social Housing Feasibility Queensland

The need to capture data quickly and accurately was paramount in assessing the feasibility of high-quality social housing as part of a stimulus funding project across Queensland, during the time of the pandemic.

The short timeframe required ‘out of the box’ thinking and a fresh approach to reporting that would be both efficient and maintain the integrity of the data. The brief was to source sufficient information to be satisfied that a desired social housing product could be accommodated on each nominated site. This required a two-week turnaround for the feasibility reporting for the initial tranche of 30 sites across a wide geographical spread.

It is worth recognising that that the development of housing isn’t a one-time project, but an opportunity to create legacy outcomes that provide increased economic and social equity.

Within a short timeframe GHD was able to capture accurate data information through a whole of State team-based approach that was optimised by a new digital delivery workflow. This was underpinned by leading edge geospatial technologies such as Esri mobile field app Survey123, our enterprise Atlas web map, and operations digital dashboard enabled by the GHD Digital Location Intelligence team.

This key technology enabler and collaborative team ethos provided a central point of truth, consistency and real-time representation of the field collection activities and status. This managed the increased risk of a loss of data integrity that a traditional approach would entail.

Our novel approach allowed to act as a trusted advisor to our long-standing government client and position ourselves as a key partner to develop their broader strategic vision for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Our timely and innovative delivery of this project has contributed to long-lasting community impacts in Queensland – with an additional 215 new social homes being constructed as a result of the study. This was a much-needed boost to the social housing stocks in regional Queensland and helped provide homes for those in need.  

The efficient and collaborative roll out of this program provided small to medium businesses in the construction sector with a timely boost in activity during a time of economic uncertainty. Our ability to meet the strict timeframes and deliver accurate and reliable information about varying site conditions was integral to being able to dispense this stimulus funding efficiently and maximise the community impact.  

The project is representative of the fresh thinking and teamwork that will be applied to project delivery between now and the lead up to the Brisbane 2032 Games, which will be the first distributed event model of its type, incorporating all of Queensland.