It is with great interest we are following the developments in South Australia regarding the planning classification of retirement villages as ‘essential infrastructure’.
The catalyst? Senior Australians locked in hospital beds with no place to go. We know this. Aged care is full. We know this too.
By classifying retirement living as essential infrastructure, with the caveat it is co-located with aged care - the South Australian government has signalled that housing and care for older South Australians is a core priority. They see what we see.
But it also exposes something else: the identity crisis that has long haunted the retirement village sector when it comes to planning.
Across the country, retirement villages still struggle to be defined within a single planning lens. Are they residential? Are they community facilities? Are they aged care? Or are they, as South Australia now suggests, essential infrastructure?
The answer depends entirely on which state you ask, and most times, which local council planner happens to be reviewing your DA.
This crisis of identity has been two decades in the making
A sector born from benevolent and friendly societies in the Not for Profit space — where the motivation was community care and social purpose — soon evolved into a property play through the 1990s and 2000s.
Retirement villages became investment vehicles, traded and valued on yield, rather than purely mission. And while professionalism has brought capital and innovation to the sector, consumer protection has kept up, the planning system not so much.
Today, that legacy still lingers. The language used in planning instruments (think “seniors housing” overlayed with “special use” zones) reflects a patchwork of old thinking.
In some states, villages are treated like suburban infill housing; in others, like institutional facilities. And now, in South Australia, we see a new label emerging: essential infrastructure.
On one hand, that recognition is welcome and a credit to the work the Retirement Living Council (RLC) has been doing to prosecute the value of the sector, including freeing up family homes, reducing pressure on aged care, and creating communities that support ageing well. On the other hand, another classification risks deepening the very identity problem that continues to hold the sector back.
By his own admission, the RLC Executive Director, Daniel Gannon recognises that more is to be done in other states to change how retirement living is identified across the various planning departments – and local councils.
In the end, success will come down to retirement villages having a single identity — one that communicates the sector is now care adjacent, and solves the catalyst that isn’t just limited to South Australia.