New retirement village planned

25 Ulyatt Rd, Pirimai, Napier, site of a planned new retirement village. 24 November 2017 NEWS Hawke's Bay Today Photograph by Duncan Brown.

Plans by BUPA to build a new retirement village in Napier are being seen as a welcome chance to boost the city's depleted housing stocks but they will not happen without public consultation.

BUPA New Zealand lodged a resource consent application with Napier City Council to establish an aged care complex comprised of 49 care home rooms, 19 one and two-bedroom retirement apartments and 99 retirement villas within the city's Main Rural Zone on Ulyatt Rd.

Greypower Napier and Districts Association spokeswoman Maxine Boag said the plans, which include connected care home and apartment areas, were welcome.

"I think for Napier it's great we're getting a retirement village. We are an attractive city for retiree, with the climate and the cycleways and the fact that everything is very compact.

"I welcome it, what we do need to look at, some stage, is that retirement villages are only for people who own their own houses, because they sell their house and buy the retirement package. However, people who live on the pension are not able to do that."

Ms Boag said there was a growing need here for affordable rental properties for single income and fixed income pensioners.

"Perhaps another good thing to come out of this is that there are a lot of people waiting to buy houses that are still in rental accommodation at all ages but because there's not enough houses available they have to sit in their rental accommodation watching the prices go up.

"If more elderly people sell up it could release more houses for people to buy."

The 5795sq m village and complex would include kitchen, nursing station, communal dining and lounge areas, along with visitor, service, reception and administration areas.

The application also states Ulyatt Rd would be upgraded to a more urban standard.

The resource consent has been publicly notified.

Napier City Council said the proposal requires public notification and an assessment of the site's productive soils is also required (which either the Council can commission a report on or can be provided by the applicant with Council's agreement), the soil assessment can be carried out concurrently with the public notification of the proposal.