The Golf Club in Red Hill is taking the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal’s (ACAT) decision to rescind an approved development application for its proposed retirement village by the retirement living operator to the ACT Supreme Court in September.
On 18 November last year, the Planning Authority approved the lease variation for the retirement village proposal for 125 dwellings, comprising 77 single-storey houses and 48 apartments across six three-storey buildings, as well as a health and wellbeing centre for residents on six hectares of the course.
Even with the lease variation, Mbark has still required approval for seven development applications and two amendments in the nine years since the development was first mooted.
The Golf Club’s board originally signed a 99-year peppercorn lease with Mbark, which owns and operates award-winning The Arbour, Berry, and Wivenhoe Village, Kirkham Rise, in October 2015 to develop a retirement village with amenities to provide an on-going revenue stream to keep the Club in operation.
In April 2025, ACAT Senior Members David Kerslake and Lincoln Hawkins set aside the planning approval and refused the development application, arguing there was an administrative mistake on the DA – it only carried one signature, the club president’s, when two directors or a director and company secretary needed to sign.
However, the ACAT stated they would have sent the DA back to the Planning Authority due to the environmental concerns raised by community group Friends of Federal Fairways (FoFF), which would have seen the Conservator of Flora and Fauna reviewing its original conditional green light for the proposal.
The Golf Club remains undeterred, telling members in its latest newsletter that the Club and Mbark are committed to the development and are advocating for their best interests and the Club’s long-term future. The article describes the development as inevitable and accuses FoFF and a small number of members of jeopardising the Club’s future by delaying the proposal.
“The Board’s primary focus over the coming weeks is to devise strategies to mitigate the significant financial risks that are a consequence of the delays in progressing with the over-55 development,” the newsletter says.
A virtually identical DA for the retirement village submitted under the new Planning Act is still being assessed.
