Bushland Proposes 200-Duplex Seniors Village for Taree

Retirement and aged-care developer Bushland Health has filed a $133-million proposal for a regional seniors community on the NSW Mid-North Coast.

The proposal for a site at Taree, 320km north of Sydney, is before the Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel.

It is seeking concept approval for the overall development masterplan, as well as detailed consent for the Stage One development.  

The site, which is identified as bushfire prone, is to the west of Taree’s centre at 494 Wingham Road. 

It abuts a general residential area and another retirement village, also operated by the Bushland Health group. 

The group has several such facilities in the region, including Bushland Place at Taree (pictured at top), and Banyula Village at Old Bar.

The proposal comprises 207 seniors ‘self-care dwellings’, in duplex typologies of two or three bedrooms.

Recreation and support services, such as 24-hour support and emergency response, nursing-care arrangement and home-delivered meals, would be provided with Bushland’s Warrana Place village. 

▲ The proposed village would share amenities with Bushland’s facility next door.

It would also be able to offer help with house and garden work, as well as lifestyle and wellness programs and facilities. 

The village would include parks for each cluster of homes, a community centre and cafe, communal sheds and barbecue shelters.

The staged masterplan would deliver the homes in tranches, and also includes an area in the south-eastern corner next to the properties on Wingham Road identified for future development use but not subject to the current DA.

Retirement living has been in the spotlight this year as a means to diversify housing types but there have been concerns that retirement planning assessment times are blowing out, particularly in New South Wales.