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📆 Fri, 5 SEPT 2025 | MLB | Fine 12°​
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🖐️ Good morning

The Pipeline Is Moving.

From service approvals unlocking hundreds of new licensed places, to fresh DAs surfacing in key growth corridors, and potential sites hitting the market, the childcare pipeline is firing on all cylinders.

Layer in operator consolidation and planning reforms, and it’s clear: the next wave of centres will be shaped by those who secure the right sites now, before competition and compliance catch up.

But remember this...
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🚦 In childcare development, waiting for perfect conditions is a myth.

The edge comes from acting on the best intel you have today.
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​🧭 In Today's CREW

✂️ G8 Trims The Fat, Amps Upgrades
📍 TAS: Latrobe Faces Childcare Gap
🏗️ Field Guide: Finding the Right ELC Site
📏 NSW Childcare Planning Guideline
🧩 ELC Floor Plan Fundamentals
📊 NSW: Childcare Market Update
🚀 VIC: Beveridge North West
🆕 New DAs and SAs

✂️🏗️ G8 Trims The Fat, Doubles Down On Upgrades

Seven centres sold in HY25 as $40–45m is earmarked for quality, tech, and growth plays.

What’s new: G8 continued to reshape its network in HY25, offloading seven centres while earmarking $40–45m in FY25 capex for upgrades, tech, and growth.

Why it matters:

• 🏢 Portfolio discipline → Divestments reflect G8’s push to exit underperforming or non-core sites.
• ⚙️ Reinvestment signal → The capex commitment suggests a pivot toward quality uplift and digital infrastructure, even as occupancy pressures weigh on earnings.
• 💵 Capital allocation lens → Balancing buybacks, dividends, and targeted growth shows a cautious but shareholder-aware stance.

Zoom out: 📉 Occupancy remains soft at 64.5% (down 3.7% YoY), but management is leaning into selective investment while pruning the tail. The market will watch whether these moves translate into sustainable occupancy gains and margin stability.

CREW takeaway: 🔄 Expect ongoing consolidation across the sector. Operators are trimming weak assets and doubling down on quality. For developers and investors, undersupplied catchments with strong fundamentals remain the real prize.

Opportunity lens: 💡 All of that means, that beyond greenfield new builds, there’s room for a childcare version of the BRRR play:

• 🛒 Buy underperforming Gen-1 centres
• 🛠️ Refurbish to modern standards
• 🤝 Re-lease with stronger operators
• 💳 Refinance once stabilised

👉 A repeatable model that can deliver private equity–style returns while recycling capital for the next deal.

Optivest play: 🚀 It’s a strategy we’re pursuing over at Optivest. Join us.

📍 TAS: Latrobe Faces Childcare Gap

What’s happening: St Patrick’s Child Care Centre in Latrobe, TAS will close on 24 Dec 2025, after Catholic Education Tasmania confirmed it will exit long-day-care.

The centre, located on the grounds of St Patrick’s School, will no longer operate once CET refocuses solely on K–12 education.

• Families are already being pushed onto waitlists across the North-West Coast.
• Latrobe Council has received a DA for 88 Cotton Street to build an Educational & Occasional Care centre (119 places). Public submissions closed 27 Aug 2025.
• Lady Gowrie Tasmania is separately negotiating to purchase land from council to deliver another new centre.

Why it matters:
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👶 Immediate undersupply: The closure removes ~100+ licensed places, tightening an already constrained market.
📊 Catchment data: Current ratio is 3.41 children per place, indicating undersupply even before the closure.
📉 Socio-economics: SEIFA 2.1 marks Latrobe as a significantly disadvantaged catchment; average fees are $117–119/day, well below national levels, limiting rent capacity.
🏗️ Pipeline mismatch: Cotton St and Gowrie projects could take years to deliver, leaving a 2026–27 gap.
📊 Investor/operator lens: High demand is offset by low fee ceilings, which restrict achievable rents and yield.

🏗️ Behind the DA: 88 Cotton Street, Latrobe

Ref: L-DA087/2025
​Proposal: Educational & Occasional Care – Childcare Centre
​Location: 88 Cotton Street (Lot 5), Latrobe
​Capacity: 119 places
​Status: Public exhibition closed 27 Aug 2025
​Applicant: Not disclosed in public notice

Why it matters:

• Could replace St Patrick’s lost capacity.
• Timing critical; earliest likely opening 2026–27.
• Economics will be challenged by low-fee market dynamics.

🔄 Alternative Path: Reusing St Patrick’s

• Repurpose vs lease: CET may retain the building for school or parish use. If not, it could be leased to a third party.
• Community-positive lease: An investor could fund compliance upgrades and sublease to a not-for-profit operator.
• Win–win framing: CET keeps ownership, families keep a childcare service, and an operator can deliver continuity faster than new builds.
• Council role: With demand pressure, Latrobe Council may support such an arrangement to avoid a service vacuum in 2026.

💰 Rent maths @ Latrobe (12% Rent to Revenue)

• Fee: ~$118/day
• Occupancy: 95% · 250 days/year
• Revenue/child: $28k/year
• Rent cap @ 12%: $3,360 per place
• Total (119 places): ≈$400k p.a.

⚠️ Still 20–25% below metro benchmarks; suits mission-driven operators (Lady Gowrie, Goodstart) more than yield-focused investors.

The bottom line: Latrobe is in demand shock now, but fee ceilings suppress rent. The race is on: whether council-backed greenfields (Cotton St, Gowrie) or a quick re-use of St Patrick’s fills the gap first.

🏗️ Field Guide: Finding the Right Childcare Site

Why it matters: Councils consistently refuse centres on small, constrained, or poorly located sites.

Winning sites share a clear pattern: bigger lots, good access, and ample space for landscaping.

📍 Location First

• On the map: Target sub-arterial or collector roads; not cul-de-sacs or local streets.
• Corner advantage: Dual access reduces traffic pressure on locals.
• Context counts: Sites near schools, shops, or community hubs get easier runs through planning.
• Rule of thumb: Sub-arterials and collectors are the sweet spot; strong visibility, legibility, big enough for access, small enough to avoid heavy road authority pushback that arterials may provoke.

🏡 Site Shape & Size

• Land area: Look for 1,800 to 2,500 sqm+ (or consolidation potential).
• Setbacks: Varies between Councils, but allow for 6–7m+ at the front and 3–5m on sides to help match residential rhythm.
• Slope & easements: Avoid sites where topography or services eat up buildable area.
• Rule of thumb: Bigger, squarer, and flatter blocks = easier approvals and better design outcomes.

🌳 Green Credentials

• Tree retention: Councils typically want to see canopy trees saved and new ones planted.
• Garden suburbs: Some precincts are more demanding, with higher expectations for landscaping and treed character.
• Landscape buffers: At least 1m to the street, 2m+ around carparks.
• Rule of thumb: Keep a big tree or plant a bigger one — canopy cover buys credibility.

🚗 Traffic & Parking

• Safe access: Left-in/left-out onto main roads = tick.
• Better: Safe manoeuvring with turns in all directions is preferred, ideally at a signalised or controlled intersection.
• Watch-outs: Corner sites on busy intersections can trigger gap acceptance and queuing conflicts — red flags for traffic engineers and councils.
• Network effect: The surrounding road network ideally delivers efficient, convenient movement throughout the Main Service Area. The more families with 0–4 year-olds you can reach per minute of drive time, the better.
• Screened carparks: Avoid dominance in the streetscape—rear courts or basements preferred.
• No on-street reliance: Parents expect drop-off convenience, councils expect compliance.
• Rule of thumb: The fewer uncontrolled turning movements, the stronger your planning case.

🚦 Neighbourhood Fit

• Compatible context: Streets with medium-density housing or other institutional uses (schools, churches, medical centres) are often stronger bets — they establish a precedent for community-serving uses.
• Avoid: Intact single-dwelling streets, heritage precincts, or residential pockets already saturated with non-residential uses, where cumulative traffic, parking, and character impacts are more likely to tip Council against you.
• Rule of thumb: A little institutional or non-residential presence nearby helps; too much concentration hurts.

✅ CREW Checklist

When scouting, ask:

• Sub-arterial/corner?
• 1,800–2,500 sqm+?
• Setbacks workable (6–7m+ front, 3–5m sides)?
• Trees/landscaping feasible?
• Car parking can be screened?
• Context compatible?
• Conservative drive-time test: How many 0–4 year-olds within 4 minutes?

⏱️ Why 4 Minutes?

ELC demand is hyper-local.

Parents rarely tolerate more than a 4–7 minute detour from home or their commuting route.

In metro areas, centres outside that window risk lower utilisation, regardless of catchment size, because families will usually choose an intervening centre.

Think of it like supermarkets: most people won’t drive past a Woolies just to get to a Coles.

With rising competition, modelling beyond that 4-minute radius is risky.

That's because if the demographics support it, new supply will eventually arrive to fill the gap.

So the only truly defensible position is a hyper-local Main Service Area.

If you own the 4-minute catchment, chances are you'll control a defendable market.

⭐ The gold standard is a highly visible, controlled intersection site on a sub-arterial, district, or collector road that sits on a commute route to primary schools and major employment hubs. Locations like this future-proof a centre over the span of a typical lease: they’re rare, hard to replicate, and fiercely contested, as they often suit FSR and other higher-order uses.
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💡 Takeaway

Big enough, well-placed sites that respect streetscape, trees, and access almost always beat compact infill blocks.

If your site fails this filter, expect a battle, or a refusal.

📈 Market Signal: Haratsis on the Next 1,400 Centres

🔑 That’s exactly the play we’re running at Optivest.

We’re assembling a small and nimble team; operators, developers, and investors aligned on:

• Verified gaps
• Bankable opportunities
• Disciplined execution

By focusing only on decision-grade opportunities, Optivest increases your luck surface area, putting you in the flow of market intelligence, sites, and partnerships that others never see.

👉 Learn more​

🏗️ NSW Childcare Planning Guideline

Why it matters:
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NSW’s Child Care Planning Guideline (CCPG) isn’t just red tape.

It’s the rulebook shaping how childcare centres get approved and how they perform long-term.

For developers, operators, and investors, knowing where the Guideline bites (and where it creates opportunity) is critical.

🧭 Site Selection: Fit is Everything

• The rule: Centres must be safe, accessible, and compatible with surrounding uses. Avoid bushfire, flood, contamination, or traffic-heavy sites.
• The nuance: A “good fit” isn’t only compliance, it’s future-proofing. Sites near schools, parks, shops, and transport outperform.
• POV: Smart developers treat this as more than planning risk management. It’s tenant demand insurance, the right site = higher occupancy, smoother approvals, stronger operator interest.

🏘️ Streetscape & Neighbours: Design Beyond DA

• The rule: Centres must integrate with local character: setbacks, height, bulk, and landscaping all count.
• The nuance: Neighbour pushback is one of the top DA killers. Poor handling of noise, privacy, or bulk = appeals, delays, cost blowouts.
• POV: Design for the neighbour you don’t control. Build transparency, show acoustic mitigation early, and avoid play areas hard against backyard fences.

🌞 Building & Amenity: More Than Compliance

• The rule: 3.25m² unencumbered indoor space per child, 7m² outdoor space, solar access, ventilation, safety compliance.
• The nuance: The Guideline hardwires National Quality Framework requirements into planning. Miss the details and your service approval is at risk.
• POV: Don’t just meet the minimum — design for staff workflow, parent circulation, and learning outcomes. That’s what drives operator performance and resale premiums.

🚗 Traffic & Parking: The Silent Killer

• The rule: Parking ratios vary — typically 1 space per 4 children, unless near high-frequency transport. Safe pedestrian circulation is mandatory.
• The nuance: Traffic engineers often underestimate peak hour parent behaviour. Drop-off chaos is a reputational risk.
• POV: Over-provide queuing and kiss-and-drop. Basement parking can unlock yield, but only if safety and sightlines are solved.

🔑 Takeaways for CREW Readers

• Developers: Bake CCPG into feasibility from Day 1, it trumps DCPs. Get DA-ready design right early to avoid redesign costs.
• Operators: Push for sites that exceed minimums, parents notice design quality and safety.
• Investors: Scrutinise DA conditions tied to CCPG as they can signal latent risk (e.g. acoustic reports, air quality assessments, traffic studies).

Big picture: The CCPG is both constraint and opportunity.

Projects that navigate it well win faster approvals, smoother operations, and higher long-term valuations.

👉 Over to you: Do you see CCPG as a compliance hurdle or as a blueprint for better-performing centres?

🏗️ Floor Plan Fundamentals: 6 Must-Haves for Compliant Childcare Design

When it comes to childcare developments, the floor plan isn’t just a drawing.

It’s a determinant of project success.

Get it wrong and you’ll face delays, redesigns, lost tenants, and blown budgets.

Get it right and everything flows.

🎯 Here’s a developer and operator checklist to benchmark against. Practical, proven, and aligned with real-world best practice.

✅ 1. Regulatory Compliance = Non-Negotiable

Failure to meet National Quality Framework (NQF) and state licensing standards can halt a project before it starts.

☑️ Minimum indoor and outdoor space per child
☑️ Age-group separation and safe circulation
☑️ Entry and exit points, cot rooms, staff and parent facilities
☑️ Approvals pathways vary by state. Know your rules early

🧠 Back-map your layout from licensing metrics like space per child, cot ratio, shaded area percentage to avoid redesign mid-DA.

🔄 2. Operational Efficiency = Tenant Magnet

The best floor plans don’t just satisfy regulators. They win over operators.

☑️ Logical educator-to-child ratios by room
☑️ Clear sightlines and supervision flows
☑️ Centralised kitchen, toilets, and staffroom
☑️ Outdoor access directly from each room

🧠 Operators care about staffing ratios, not just licensed capacity. A layout that enables flexible rostering often outperforms a maxed-out centre.

🔒 3. Safety Standards = Design From Day One

Design must reflect duty of care, not just building code.

☑️ Secure, non-climbable fencing with no footholds
☑️ Compliant emergency exits
☑️ Separation of car and pedestrian access
☑️ Lockable chemical storage, soft-fall surfaces, shaded outdoor zones

🧠 Safety oversights are the number one reason for licensing knockbacks. Get this right at concept stage.

💸 4. Financial Viability = Design for Density

☑️ Maximise licensed places within compliance
☑️ Avoid over-design that inflates construction costs
☑️ Plan for long-term operator adaptability
☑️ Eliminate constraints that limit resale or re-lease potential

🧠 Your valuation relies on licensed places. Your margin depends on cost control.

🗂️ 5. Faster Approvals = Better IRR

☑️ Present a compliant, pre-vetted plan at DA
☑️ Demonstrate rigour to councils and assessors
☑️ Minimise RFIs and approval delays
☑️ Reduce redesign costs and consultant rework

🧠 A well-documented plan is more than compliance. It signals professionalism and speeds up approvals.

🌱 6. Learning Outcomes = Embedded in Design

☑️ Light, ventilation, and comfort support retention
☑️ Layouts that promote autonomy support quality ratings
☑️ Zoning and noise control reduce staff stress
☑️ Visibility and flow enable natural safeguarding

🧠 Design isn't just form. It's function and learning outcomes

🏛️Design Leadership: What Influential Architects Are Teaching Us Right Now

Smart childcare design is more than box-ticking.

These recent projects and architectural voices show how thoughtful planning can unlock better operations, smoother approvals, and stronger outcomes for children, staff, and investors.

🧱 Good Design Pays Dividends

Sherif Saad, ArtMade Architects (Sydney)

🧭 A well-designed centre supports retention, ratings, and resale. When it blends into its neighbourhood and manages traffic impact, planning objections drop.

🧩 Regulation and Emotion Go Hand in Hand

Co-lab Architecture

🧭 It’s not just square metres. Consider child-height handle placements, flow from room to yard, and what the parent sees at drop-off.

🏙️ Designing for Density Without Compromise

Gardiner Architects (Melbourne)

🧭 Don’t let site constraints reduce quality. Elevated yards and double-storey layouts can still deliver vibrant, compliant centres.

🪟 Joyful, Inclusive, Practical

1 plus 2 Architecture – Alma Street Childcare, TAS

🧭 Natural light, inclusive circulation, and connection to community count just as much as room counts and rent per place.

🧗‍♂️ Built-In Challenge = Built-In Growth

Takaharu Tezuka, Tezuka Architects (Japan), via Emerald Place Melbourne​
(in collaboration with Milton Architects)

🧭 Outdoor spaces shouldn’t be flat or boring. Even small centres can include undulating zones, nature play, and challenge areas.

📌 CREW Takeaway

These architects aren’t just meeting code.

They’re shaping the future of early learning environments that are resilient, inclusive, and commercially sound.

🧭 Use their thinking to shape your next floor plan, site acquisition, or design brief. Your architect should be bringing this level of insight to the table.

📊 NSW Childcare Market: Stability + Selective Recovery

Why it matters: Childcare in NSW remains one of the most defensive property plays in 2025. Government backing, demographic demand, and disciplined development pipelines are reshaping the investment landscape.

🏛️ Policy Tailwinds

• $5B universal childcare funding in the 2025 Budget.
• "3 Day Guarantee" adds 100,000 families nationally → stronger occupancy certainty.
• $1B Building Early Education Fund for new centres.
• $3.6B for educator wages to ease labour constraints.

👉 Net effect: predictable revenue + higher accessibility = safer asset class.

🏗️ Development Pipeline

• 669 projects in NSW: 343 DA approved (but paused), 44 under construction.
• Western Sydney dominates: Blacktown (67), Liverpool (61), The Hills (44).

📌 Insight for CREW readers: Approvals are set to convert to starts as costs stabilise. But location discipline is critical — oversupply risk looms where DAs cluster.

💰 Investment Activity

• YTD 2025 sales: $123.3M (vs $394.2M in 2024).
• Western Sydney = 34.5% of metro deals.
• Price tiers matter:
  • < $5M: most liquid, private investors dominate.
  • $5–7M: slower, narrower pool.
  • > $7M: extended timelines, higher operational risks.

📌 CREW lens: Sub-$5M deals are still the liquidity “sweet spot.”

📈 Yields Holding

• Metro: 4.74%
• Regional: 5.48% (74 bps spread = real risk premium).
• Net lease structures + land tax exemptions support stability.

👉 Yields are holding firm while other asset classes wobble.

🔮 CREW Take
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​Defensive + essential: Subsidy certainty + dual-income necessity = recession-resistant.
Western Sydney = epicentre: Young family growth underpins demand.​
Selectivity rules: DA expiry pressures will flush more sites to market, but only undersupplied catchments will stack up.
Reality check: Plenty of childcare DAs = worthless. Unviable schemes, millions wasted, and mistakes that were foreseeable.

💡 Developers/operators: streamline stalled approvals (single-level, basement-free).
💡 Investors: focus sub-$5M or premium metro covenant deals.

Source: RWC Western Sydney, NSW Childcare Report (Aug 2025)​

🚀 Beveridge North West PSP: 15k homes approved

Driving the news: Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny signed off on the Beveridge North West Precinct Structure Plan — gazetted 5 Aug 2025 under Amendment C158mith.

Why it matters: Victoria’s housing squeeze just got a new release valve: 1,275 ha unlocked for fast-tracked greenfield supply.

By the numbers

• 15,000 new homes → 47,000 residents
• 4 town centres | 8 schools | 5 community hubs
• Parks & reserves = 13 MCGs of open space
• 320 ha waterways / landscaping set aside
• ≈3,000 local jobs on full build-out

The fine print

• UGZ3 + Small Lot Housing Code now live — no permit needed for single dwellings <300 m² that meet the code, accelerating small-lot delivery.
• Staged rollout: first 2,400 homes start immediately; later stages hinge on the fully-funded Camerons Lane interchange.
• A quarry gets the go-ahead (with 2052 shutdown & rehab deadline). Expect early-stage dust + heavy truck traffic near Wallan.

🧮 Beveridge demand math — why it still fits 10-12 new centres

Build-out lens

• 47 k residents × 6.8 % (0-4 share in growth corridors) → ≈3,200 toddlers
• 60 % child-care utilisation → 1,920 kids enrolled
• 3.2 days / wk avg. attendance → 1,230 FTE places needed
• 120-place centre @ 88 % occ. = 106 FTE / centre

Translation
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1,230 ÷ 106 ≈ 12 full-size LDCs at maturity.

Even after counting the handful of DAs already in the pipeline, and projects under construction, the PSP comfortably supports 10–12 fresh long-day-care centres over the next decade.

📸📽️ Pics & Clips

Existing Aspire ELC and new retail centre (construction commenced this week with site establishment by Oreana)

📈 Childcare Pipeline Filling Fast

This week’s update spans the full spectrum: regulators signed off on new service approvals adding hundreds of licensed places, councils received fresh development applications across key growth corridors, and the market is testing fresh land supply with potential new development sites coming to light.

Together, these three pipelines signal where the next wave of centres will emerge, and who’s moving first.
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​📊 Download the full pipeline data → Excel spreadsheet​
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🎯 Optivest: From Signal to Site

We turn verified childcare gaps into tenant-led projects, cutting through the noise.

Why it works
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✅ Verified undersupply
🤝 Operator alignment
📊 Bank-ready numbers
🛠️ Disciplined execution

We’re assembling a small, invitation-only group of operators, developers, and investors. Membership means being inside the circle where verified gaps turn into tenant-led projects, and the best opportunities never make it to market.
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👉 Learn more​

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​CREW is published by Jeff Gardner​
​jeff.gardner@childcarerealestateweekly.com​
​See you next Friday @ 9am AEST