Brisbane City Council could prioritise development applications for nursing homes as part of a raft of possible measures to stop the drift of elderly people to the outskirts of the city.
Civic Cabinet today publicly released an independent report from the Lord Mayor’s Taskforce into Retirement and Aged Care which reviewed housing and the provision of services for older people in the city.
The report would be out for public comment for two months.
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman formed the Taskforce in September 2008 to find ways to keep older members of society in their own neighbourhoods as their housing needs changed.
He said cost and planning pressures meant retirement homes were often located towards the outskirts of Brisbane, which left elderly inhabitants many miles from family and friends.
“Quality of life is important to residents of all ages and I am concerned that people should not be taken out of their comfort zone just because they require aged care,” Cr Newman said.
“This report discusses the key issues of providing housing and services for older people in Brisbane, particularly in relation to town planning and the development assessment process.”
Some of the recommendations from the independent Taskforce were for Council to:
• Modify existing regulations and assessment criteria to reduce unnecessary requirements and encourage sufficient aged care housing
• Give assessment priority to applications for new accommodation for older people
• Work with local communities, through Neighbourhood Planning, to identify additional land suitable for retirement and aged care accommodation
• Better regulate the design of older people’s accommodation to ensure it is attractive and fits in with the surrounding community
• Promote the incentives Council already offers developers to build retirement and aged care accommodation
• Undertake a review of relevant infrastructure charges and policy
A full list of recommendations can be found on www.brisbane.qld.gov.au along with an online survey.
The independent taskforce comprised a diverse representation of society from industry peak bodies and community groups to retirement and aged care providers, the development industry as well as local, State and Federal Government.
It found that by 2026 almost 156,000 people in Brisbane would be 65 or older, an increase of 41,000 on today’s population.
Cr Newman said the report found older people wanted to stay in their own homes and neighbourhoods for as long as possible.
Many older people struggled to find a suitable aged care facility within their neighbourhood.
Other key findings were:
• Retirement and aged care accommodation was being pushed to the outer suburbs where land is cheaper and more available, but further away from vital services and facilities required by the elderly
• Existing facilities for older people were themselves ageing, and risked becoming unviable without significant re-modelling and improvement.
• The retirement and aged care industry was disadvantaged in the marketplace as it generally did not provide the same financial returns as other forms of development.
• Council’s planning scheme offered developers incentives to build retirement and aged care accommodation, but these were not well-known or utilised within the industry.
• Developers found it difficult to interpret regulations about housing for older people.
• Rules and regulations contained in the planning scheme treat retirement and aged care facilities the same as general units, leading to unnecessary requirements (e.g. excessive car parking rates) and made multi-unit residential buildings more profitable.
• Lengthy development assessment times added substantially to project costs and could result in projects becoming unviable.
• The time required to gain Council approval for residential aged care applications, such as nursing homes, was inconsistent with Federal government funding timeframes.
• Council’s infrastructure charges overestimated the impact of housing for older people and added significantly to project costs.
• Existing centres and many services and facilities in Brisbane were not designed with older people in mind.
Cr Newman said the Taskforce’s recommendations focused on changes that could be made to existing development provisions contained in Council’s planning scheme as well as the development assessment process.
He said the report would go out for public feedback, after which Council would then consider the recommendations as part of a review of Brisbane City Plan 2000.
A survey would also be available to assist in the process. Along with the Report, the survey will be available on Council’s website, Ward Offices and Libraries.
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