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The Property Council of Australia has said the assessment time frame for retirement villages is taking too long – calling for the government to be “retirement ready”.
The Retirement Living Council (LRC) – a subcommittee of the Property Council of Australia – has revealed a national planning report card it calls Retirement Ready.
That report ranks state-based planning systems and recommends practical reforms, with the report finding 67 per cent of development applications for retirement villages are taking more than 12 months to receive a determination.
A further 23 per cent are taking more than two years. In NSW, the statistic is even worse, with 33 per cent of villages taking more than two years to be determined.
The report conceded that retirement villages do struggle to compete with other land uses; that’s due to higher upfront costs and complexities in their design and built form requirements, which also lead to lower financial returns for operators.
The authors also flagged “a distinct lack of understanding of the retirement housing product”, pointing out that 70 per cent of operators believe assessor understanding is poor or very poor.
According to RLC executive director Daniel Gannon, the report’s findings come as Australia is “in a race to house the nation”.
“Given the number of Australians aged over 75 will increase by 85 per cent over the next decade and a half and retirement villages are effectively operating at full capacity, this is alarming and unacceptable.”
Gannon quipped: “In many ways, this report card represents a ‘fail’ for most jurisdictions that are seemingly ignoring Australia’s demographic changes and what it means for housing supply.
“It’s now clear that planning systems aren’t ‘retirement ready’ at the same time that 710,000 Australians are preparing to retire within the next five years.”
The report did place South Australia at the top of the ranking report card, scoring 58 points out of 100. It beat out NSW and the ACT, which came in second and third, respectively.
Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia were less than stellar performers, between fourth and seventh.
Gannon conceded that “governments are crying out for more housing supply while at the same time holding it back”.
Stressing “you can’t make this stuff up”, he said more red tape and complexity within Australia’s planning systems won’t help build the homes needed by older Australians, but “can dampen supply very easily”.
“Given the proven benefits that age-friendly communities deliver for older Australians, governments should be throwing the kitchen sink at approving more of them – and fast,” he continued.
According to Urbis associate director, Kylie Newcombe: “Planning is a critical enabler for delivering the housing that the retirement living sector provides for older Australians. However, a significant 70 per cent of the industry feels let down by the system, citing that authorities have a ‘poor’ understanding of retirement living.”
With Urbis assisting in the report’s development, Newcombe stressed that “as our ageing population continues to grow, it’s more important than ever that retirement living is addressed in strategic plans and policies by state and local governments”.
She believes “a promising starting point could be setting explicit targets for retirement living, backed by a consistent set of controls and design guidance for application across the state”.
In total, 12 practical recommendations were put forward by the report to make planning systems “retirement ready”.
Some of those recommendations included the establishment of minimum land allocations for the development of retirement communities in under supplied areas, the incentivising of retirement village development through zoning or development bonuses, and the establishment of clear policies for increasing age-friendly developments.
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