Kenepuru site for retirement village
Retirement village developer Summerset Group Holdings has purchased land in the northern Wellington suburb of Kenepuru.
The 6ha site in Bluff Rd is located within the Kenepuru Landing development, a joint residential housing project between developer Carrus Corporation and local iwi Ngati Toa.
Plans for Kenepuru Landing indicate there will be up to 800 dwellings on a 50-hectare site transferred to Ngati Toa in a Crown land settlement.
Summerset’s Kenepuru village will be its fifth in Wellington. It has villages in Paraparaumu, Trentham and Aotea and a proposed village in Lower Hutt.
Chief executive Julian Cook said suitable, well-situated land in Wellington for a retirement village was scarce, and Kenepuru Landing was close to public transport and a shopping mall.
The proposed village will have more than 290 homes, including two and three-bedroom villas and apartments, one-bedroom serviced apartments and high-quality resthome and hospital care.
The village will also include a ‘‘memory care centre’’ offering 20 one-bedroom apartments for people living with dementia.
Cook said the care centres were a first in this country in terms of using apartment living for dementia patients.
‘‘Last week we won an Aged Care Association award for the design of our first memory care centre in Levin, which we opened last November.’’
Cook said Summerset would be building memory care centres into all its future villages, allowing residents to have their own home within a secure centre.
About 11,400 people in Wellington and Porirua are thought to be 75 years or older, and that number is forecast to rise to about 15,300 by 2023.