After five years of waiting for various approvals and procedures, work has finally started at 24 Angas Street, Ainslie. We are very excited about the future but are also remembering the old house.
24 Angas Street in 2018
In the 1940s, many cottages were moved to Canberra from the World War 2 air force base at Tocumwal, NSW. Most of them ended up in O’Connor where some are heritage listed, but others came to Ainslie.
Our architect Brett Lowe has pointed us to the Property and Tenancy Register showing B. Hall as the tenant at 24 Angas St from 13 December 1947. Tony Trobe wrote a short piece on the History of the Tocumwal house for Allhomes in 2019. You might also be interested in Geoff Goodall’s pictorial review of RAAF Tocumwal.
2018 Marketing Video
We formed a company in 2018 and Stellulata Pty Ltd bought the property and rented the cottage for 4 years. Thank you to Paul & Robyn Sutton for managing the rental and to all the great groups of tenants who cared for the cottage during that time.
Asbestos removed and wrapped ready for disposal, 18 Oct 2023
But now the time has come to create the new homes for our small cohousing community. We investigated moving the cottage (again) but the asbestos construction material meant it wasn’t feasible. The shed and the garage had no such problems and are now being successfully reused elsewhere. (Thank you to everyone who helped with that research and reuse.)
Excavator loading house remnants onto a truck, 26 Oct 2023
Peter Angelos and his team at Alliance Building Group - ACT have taken control of the site and begun the process of building for Stellulata Cohousing. They discovered yet more asbestos sheeting buried under the concrete slab of the old garage. After safe disposal, we are nearly ready to lay the foundations!
Clear block, nearly ready to build, 3 Nov 2023