Retirement Housing Review

We completed a review of our retirement housing portfolio in 2020. You can read our full Retirement Housing Section 17a Review here.

As the first major review of the portfolio completed in over ten years, it assessed the future maintenance and financial requirements of the retirement housing units to ensure they were sustainable for the future.

Supported by Council’s Housing Strategic Framework developed in 2019, a key priority from the review was understanding how the portfolio could best support retirement housing and what opportunities there were for expansion of the portfolio.

The review identified that if Council did not increase rental fees and continued status quo, within two years we would need to use ratepayer funds to offset the costs of the retirement housing activity. We would not have sufficient funds to plan for upgrades or renewal of aspects of the existing flats over their life. In the status quo scenario, Council was providing a $200,000 subsidy at least each year in rental income.

As socially responsible and financially prudent landlords and owners of social housing, we explored the options available to assess how we could best serve the existing tenants, ratepayers and the wider community going forward. More than ten different long-list options were considered, including transferring the portfolio to a community housing provider; investing in new units; and selling the units and investing in new housing in the district. 

Council settled on the option that aimed to ensure the long-term sustainable viability of the existing flats, without adding additional burden to ratepayers and attempting to balance as best as possible the affordability challenges and disruption for residents. This was in the context that over the life of the Long-Term Plan 2021–2031, the community was already facing a significant burden of rates increases from past deferred investment in infrastructure. This option also provided for limited upgrade and renewal funding over the longer term, for things such as replacing carpet and upgrading kitchens. While it was recognised that there will unfortunately be affordability challenges for some tenants, those most in need of Council's housing could access the accommodation supplement to offset the increase by up to 70 per cent in some cases.

We recognise that any increase in rental charges is difficult and great consideration was given to all options before deciding to increase rental charges to ensure the best outcome for our community in the long term.