In the future they will be known as the women who fought the Aveo retirement "bombshell".
Aveo, the company that owns their Newmarket retirement complex in Free Street, wants to demolish the 74 ground-floor villas, and replace them with 300 units arranged in buildings up to seven storeys.
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Tim Allerton helped his aunt try to sell her Aveo retirement village unit, and despite his best efforts, his family had to surrender $150,000 in various fees on the way out.
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'Look very carefully at the contracts'
Tim Allerton helped his aunt try to sell her Aveo retirement village unit, and despite his best efforts, his family had to surrender $150,000 in various fees on the way out.
These women and other residents, who had each paid between $330,000 and $430,000 a villa, discovered in January 2015 their homes were to be demolished.
That was their "bombshell" moment.
The Brisbane City Council in January rejected Aveo's seven-storey idea, but the company – identified in a joint Fairfax/ABC investigation this week – has continued to push ahead with modified plans.
Maree Beare, the daughter of 77-year-old resident Patricia Dunne, said many residents felt trapped because the only people who would buy one of the villas if they moved out was the Aveo Group.
"There is no longer anyone to sell them to," Ms Beare said.
"So it's an entrapment. They are trapped," she said.
Aveo Group chief executive Geoff Grady said the company had a community responsibility to upgrade its Newmarket facility because it was built between 25 and 30 years ago.
"What has happened around them is that the density and the population around them has progressively increased, to the point where the demand for independent retirement living is much greater than when the village was originally put there," Mr Grady said.
He said Aveo believed the company had faced two choices.
"One is the village stays exactly as it is;Â we can't meet the increasing demand (in the inner city) and most of the suburb gets built out," he said.
"Then, if I'm 75-plus and I'm looking for a retirement village – and we adopted that policy – people would have to shift out of their communities and move out to the fringe of the cities.
"We don't think that is a viable alternative."
Who are the retirement battlers?
"We call January 22, 2015, the Bombshell Day,"Â Ms Dunne said.
 "That's when we had Aveo's plans confirmed."
Ms Dunne and her daughter, Patricia Windsor, 84, and her daughter Elizabeth Bell and Newmarket's Save Our Space community group representative John Pye met with Fairfax Media on Tuesday night to tell their story.
Other residents in the room were too nervous to be identified, feeling bullied and betrayed.
"We want to be treated with respect," one of the women said.
Ms Dunne and her husband Brien moved down from Emu Park near Rockhampton in May 2014 to be near their family because Brien has serious eye injuries.
They love their Newmarket villa, its small backyard and garden just as it is and do not want to move.
"This was a fully-occupied, functioning village prior to 'Bombshell Day'," she said.
"The heart and soul of this community has been utterly shattered."
Nearby, Mrs Windsor moved into her villa in 2013, after her husband died. She wanted her own villa, on the ground floor, with room to walk her dog. She does not want to live in a unit and have to deal with stairs or lifts or underground parking.
"We had a family home at Nundah and I chose to move to what was the equivalent of a little house," Ms Windsor said.
"I chose it for the lifestyle, with garden space around. It's a beautiful village. It still is."
Her family also lives nearby.
Elizabeth Bell said the heart of the community had changed since the plans to replace the villas with units had been announced.
They individually moved into Aveo's Newmarket complex between 2011 and 2014.
When Aveo's plans were revealed, there were 506 submissions to the Brisbane City Council. Only four were in favour.
The "bombshell ladies" subsequently discovered that Aveo's end-of-year financial statements for 2013-14 year referred to a development of 100 units at Newmarket.
Two residents – one with legal experience – who signed contracts in late 2014 managed to break their contracts and shift after learning of Aveo's demolition plans.
Another resident said she had been told  that while she could remain in her Newmarket villa it would be divided in half, her carport would be removed and the centre's new main entrance to the retirement centre would be "one metre" from her front door.
What does Aveo say about its newest plans for the site?
Geoff Grady understands the residents – and the council – have rejected Aveo's January 2017 plans for seven-storey living on the Newmarket site.
He said the modified plans would strike a balance between what the existing residents want, what the future residents would want and what the council wanted to see.
"But understand this: we can't compel people. We can't make this redevelopment happen, unless they are agreeable in the village," he said.
"We can't ask people to move. We can't develop certain areas unless they are agreeable to it."
Mr Grady said residents may have moved in before redevelopment plans were firm enough to make public.
"So there will be people buying in before we have made that concrete decision about whether or not we are going to redevelop."
And he said residents who did not want to deal with stairs could live in ground-floor units, or shift to other villas away from the development to be phased in over seven years.
What does the Brisbane City Council say?
Brisbane City Council has approved 2016 new retirement beds or units in 19 new retirement centres in Brisbane since September 1, 2016.
It now has an incentive scheme in place with lower infrastructure fees to encourage companies to invest in aged care accommodation.
The Aveo Newmarket site is one of nine retirement centres with a development assessment plan being considered in Brisbane.
BCC city planning chairman Julian Simmonds said the council rejected seven storeys and told Aveo a maximum of three to four storeys would be "more appropriate" for the site.
"Additionally, council has indicated that where the proposal adjoins homes along the northern boundary, and along Free Street, should be a maximum of two storeys in height," Cr Simmonds said.
He confirmed more than 500 members of the Newmarket community had made submissions to the development.
"Council is now waiting for the applicant to respond with amended plans to address council's concerns."
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