THE building sector might be heading into a predicted downturn, but there is plenty of activity in the seniors market, with large-area sites being used to develop "resort-style" living in residential settings.
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Most if not all of these projects are being built in accordance with two State Environmental Planning Policies or SEPPs. One SEPP was introduced in 2004 to encourage housing for the over-55s, including residential care facilities. The other, more recent policy, for manufactured home estates, allows for the "lease/buy" arrangements that prevail at many resort-style developments, such as Tallowood Lifestyle Resort at Medowie, and Ingenia Lifestyle's Latitude One development at Anna Bay.
As brochures for both these developments make clear, the houses in each estate can be bought and sold, while the land the houses stand on is leased from the owner of the site. The advantage of this arrangement, as Tallowood points out in its advertising, is that "leasing the land enables a lower purchase price than what the equivalent residential home would cost".
This is certainly in line with one objective of the manufactured home estate SEPP, to provide "affordable housing in well-designed estates".
In the sector's early years, tenancy disputes had led to accusations of lease-holders being unfairly forced out of their homes, but government intervention in the form of the Residential (Land Lease) Communities Act of 2013 appears to have smoothed out those problems.
There are a number of reasons why such residential communities are proving popular. For some, the prospect of a longer and healthier retirement means that moving into a community of like-minded people is an appealing prospect. Others may be selling the family home and downsizing in order to help their children buy a home.
In the Hunter, Port Stephens and Lake Macquarie especially have seen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of seniors developments in recent years. While most are single-level dwellings, a 223-unit project at Wallsend and RSL LifeCare's 13-storey Long Tan tower at Newcastle West have been designed as "vertical villages".
The Wallsend development looks to be good use of an infill site, while Long Tan adds another chapter to the inner city's residential renewal.
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