BCC Retirement & Aged Care Amendments

Brisbane City Council’s latest City Plan 2014 amendment package is in direct response to the Council’s commitment to providing suitable housing for our city’s ageing population (supporting also Council’s recently released Future Blueprint, principle 8).  The ‘retirement and aged care amendments package’ is open for review and comment until 5pm 21^st September 2018.  Some of our key observations around possible opportunities provided by the amendments include –

• The lowering of assessment from impact to code in certain circumstances
• A new and specific ‘use code’ for retirement and residential care facilities
• Additional building height in Medium and High Density Residential Zones
• Additional site cover
• The introduction of a new co-located activity group definition to provide for the co-location of small scale retail and community activities with retirement and residential care facilities
• simpler conversion of retirement facility to aged care and vice versa

It is important to note that Council are no longer promoting the co-location of retirement and aged care facilities on privately owned recreation land (an announcement made by the Lord Mayor ahead of the release of the amendment package).

The proposed amendments include the rezoning of a number Emerging Community sites to a Community Facilities Zone, but generally to reflect already approved facilities.

In addition, the Council are promoting other incentives, including:

• Possible reduction in infrastructure charges
• More streamlined development assessment processes (already in play to a certain degree)

The full suite of amendments can be viewed online here. Whilst lengthy in detail, they generally include changes to the Strategic Framework, categories of assessment tables, the Zone Codes, Development Codes and definitions.

We would encourage our retirement and aged care facility clients to ‘take a look’ and prepare to make submission where appropriate. Saunders Havill Group – with extensive prior experience in the retirement and aged care space – would be happy to help navigate the details and assist with the preparation of a submission to Brisbane City Council. Now is the time to register your interest with Brisbane City Council in their planning for the future of retirement and aged care.