Nearly two years after a seven-storey retirement village in Joslin was rejected following a community outcry, a new $47.6M project has been approved for the site.
The State Government’s assessment panel on Friday approved Life Care’s plan to build a complex at 247-261 Payneham Rd.
It will house 28 one-bedroom and 13 two-bedroom units and have a 75-space basement carpark.
Originally known as Christian Rest Homes and later Churches of Christ Retirement Services, Life Care, still a not-for-profit organisation, had wanted to build a seven-storey complex on the site, but this plan — and a proposal to build two other towering retirement homes in Norwood and Glen Osmond — was abandoned in late 2017 following a relentless community campaign.
Within days of Life Care withdrawing the plans, then-planning minister John Rau declared rules that allowed aged-care projects valued at more than $20M to bypass the traditional assessment pathway would be scrapped immediately.
Life Care also received retrospective planning approval for an already-built aged-care centre, which has 96 one-bedroom units, next door to the site.
It had requested the panel consider the site as a whole and give the retrospective approval to “tidy up the applications”.
