Disability services provider Rocky Bay has restarted the search for its new home after deciding against building a facility in Belmont.
Disability services provider Rocky Bay has restarted the search for its new home after deciding against building a facility in Belmont as originally planned.
The fifth biggest charitable organisation in WA, according to Data and Insights, has been looking to relocate for the last couple years from its current position in Mosman Park to a more contemporary and fit-for-purpose facility.
Rocky Bay’s proposal to build a $78 million state-of-the-art development was approved by the Metro Inner-South Joint Development Assessment Panel in May 2023, but Mr Tait said the organisation has walked away from those plans.
"Effectively, we’re not convinced Belmont is the right spot,” he told Business News.
“We have done an awful lot of work in these past two years into getting better insights, the NDIS have finally started to give us some data, we’ve got some great people working internally.
“We now have the Mosman Park property on the market, that’s going through a scheme amendment at the moment with state government, but we anticipate getting that early 2025 and what that will do is give us confidence of potential purposes of the sort of things they can build on this land [where Rocky Bay is currently based].
“Where to next, we’re not sure. We might look at the conversion of a building, so we’re working through where that might be but there’s still work to be done on that.”
Despite the setback of Rocky Bay’s main facility relocation, its Lady Lawley Cottage development in Cottesloe has gone ahead smoothly.
In December 2022, Rocky Bay entered a 20-year peppercorn lease with Australian Red Cross to provide services at heritage-listed Lady Lawley Cottage, which had been closed for more than two years.
The site is being transformed into a hub for children and young people with the first stage expected for completion by the end of 2024.
“[T]hat’ll be one of the key paediatric centres for children with disability and general life-limiting conditions within Western Australia … but we do need to invest a couple million dollars in the site because it's quite tired and not as contemporary in its built form as it needs to be for child services today,” Mr Tait said.
“We're spending quite a bit of time and effort at the moment on getting that ready.
“First stage will hopefully be open toward the end of this year, and then another six months to open up the child respite holiday spaces, probably in April or May next year.
“We have very good support and continue with very good support from various philanthropic foundations like the Perron Foundation and Lotterywest and various smaller philanthropies.”
Mr Tait said the past few years have been tough for the wider not-for-profit sector and Rocky Bay was not immune to the challenges.
“We’re being prudent while the market is being quite difficult,” he said.
“We've had to make changes to our organisation to be what we're deeming as being match-fit, and so that’s just making sure we've got our processes in place, we've got a good customer journey in place, we’re in a space where we can deliver the best possible services and so that's been our key focus.”
Rocky Bay celebrated its 85th anniversary last year.
