Is the ACT opening the door to retirement living?

Keyton Chief Executive Officer Nathan Cockerill touched on the ACT at the Retirement Living Outlook Conference in Sydney earlier this month.

“I met with the Treasurer six months ago. The government is looking to put sites to the market designated for retirement living,” Nathan said.

“We’ve proposed a number of sites to the government. They are going through a process now to say whether these sites are to be put out to retirement living specifically. They see the need - the growing ageing population in the ACT and the Housing Accord as well and the benefit the Accord gives them around housing supply.”

On Tuesday, 17 March, ACT Planning and Sustainable Development Minister Chris Steel said to make it easier to build retirement villages it would need to be tackled in “a range of different ways”, including land releases, updates to the Territory Plan, changes to the CZ6 zone and tax reform. 

He also said at the Property Council of Australia’s Planning and Residential Outlook that he would “take on board” suggestions that retirement village operators should be exempt from the ACT’s Property Developer Licensing Scheme in order to encourage developers. 

Canberra-based retirement village developer David O’Keeffe said an exemption would make a “huge difference” to the retirement living sector. 

“That will certainly ensure that there are developers available to provide that retirement village-type accommodation,” David said. 

“Then the issue is, if we don’t have any land, it doesn’t matter if you have any developers.”