Another week, another story of residents fighting an aged care development.
This week, it’s Calvary Health Care’s plan to demolish its existing Bethlehem Hospital in Caulfield South, 10km southeast from the Melbourne CBD, and replace it with a $90 million development including a nursing home and retirement village in an 18-storey tower – making it one of the highest apartment complexes in Melbourne’s suburbs.
Needless to say, the proposal’s been hit with over 300 submissions against it.
“We’re not interested in having a city skyscraper in the middle of a residential zone,” resident Kelvin Cope told the Herald Sun.
“It’s obvious that this is a high-rise apartment block pitched at wealthy retirees, it’s not your standard low-rise retirement village designed for your grandmother.”
The way of the future
The fact is we don’t have the space for ‘traditional’ (horizontal) retirement villages any more.
The parents of the objectors don’t want to travel to the city fringe to retire either. And the objectors won’t want to travel to visit their ‘grandmothers’ in nursing homes hours away.
We’ve already see some operators developing apartment block-style villages. Australian Unity was one of the first to go ‘vertical’ with their six-storey Rathdowne Place development in inner-city Carlton.
Aveo’s 10-storey Bella Vista tower at Sydney’s Norwest Business Park will eventually be home to 449 village units and a 144-bed nursing home.
Tell ‘em they’re dreaming?
Calvary is investing $90 million in this project – not a small sum for a Not-for-Profit. They say this model will meet the growing aged care needs of the community with the added benefit of keeping couples together, even if one partner has different care needs.
Around 20 per cent of Caulfield South’s population are older couples according to realestate.com.au.
Most of us want to stay in our homes as we age. We won’t get the chance unless developments like this get the green light.
