Summerset Group's 330-unit retirement village approved in 117 days – why can’t this happen in Australia?

To quicken up development after the virtual freeze in building during COVID-19, the New Zealand Government passed the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act 2020. It has led to Summerset Group being given consent approval 115 days after lodging the plans to build and operate a retirement village of 217 independent living units and 103 care units on 2.8ha in Half Moon Bay, Auckland. Compare this to Australia, where retirement village operators are becoming increasingly frustrated with local planning laws and as The Weekly SOURCE reported last November it takes five to seven years for a plan to be “spade-ready”. Summerset Group’s first continuum of care retirement village in Cranbourne North, 39km southeast of Melbourne's CBD, took almost one-and-a-half years from lodgment to approval. The planning pathway required local Council approval together with multiple State agency approvals. Australia needs 60 new village projects a year to maintain 5% penetration of all people 65+ living in retirement villages. Mike Zorbas, Property Council CEO, is calling for housing land supply to be a Premiers’ and First Ministers’ strategic priority.

“Proper national settlement plans, including sustainability and insurance overlays, would help too,” Mike said. “State housing targets and planning reforms are essential. Only Premiers McGowan (WA), and to a lesser degree, Malinauskas (SA), seem serious about progress in these areas.”

For any retirement village operator to contemplate a Build to Rent (BTR), the Government needs to allow managed investment trust distributions that are attributable to investments in BTR housing to be eligible for the 15% withholding tax rate like investments in commercial property.