Where will our retirees live?

More retirees are moving further away from their families as the squeeze is put on retirement village accommodation.

A ‘‘slow-moving iceberg’’ of retirees set to hit the country in 25 years, could leave a shortfall of such homes in the Wellington region.

The Retirement Village Association predicts the amount of people aged 75 and over in the region will more than double by the year 2043, to 78,400. Nationally, that figure will rise from 306,730 to an estimated 783,600.

Those involved in the industry say Wellington needs a lot more retirement villages if it is to cope with the increase in demand.

They also want more flexible planning rules around building such villages to meet the future population explosion of over-75s.

Summerset chief executive Julian Cook said meeting the demand in Wellington was an ongoing challenge.

‘‘There are not enough being built right now and I think generally, unlike other areas of New Zealand, there is quite a longterm potential shortfall.’’

Ryman’s David King believed there was a lack of understanding about how quickly our population was ageing. ‘‘There is a population explosion coming ... it is like a slow-moving iceberg coming to get you.’’

At an open day for a potential new village planned in Karori, a lot of people asked ‘‘how fast can you build it’’, King said.

In 2014, Ryman’s then managing director, Simon Challies, said research had showed there was an urgent need for 1000 extra beds in the Hutt Valley.

The company had built a large retirement facility in Petone but demand remains high.

Summerset has been trying to build a $150 million village in the Lower Hutt suburb of Boulcott since 2013. Although that project is still in the resource consent stage, it already has a waiting list of 350 people.

Cook said that those on the list were mostly aged in their late 70s, or older, and wanted to downsize.

Many residents in the company’s homes in Wellington, Upper Hutt and Aotea were from Lower Hutt. That they were prepared to move away from friends and family, showed how desperate they were, he added.

A spokesman for Minister of Seniors Tracey Martin said she was ‘‘absolutely’’ aware of the rapidly increasing number of New Zealanders over age 75.

She was developing a positive ageing strategy that would look at a range of issues facing the

‘‘... unlike other areas of New Zealand, there is quite a longterm potential shortfall.’’ Summerset chief executive Julian Cook on the state of retirement villages in greater Wellington

elderly. It would include retirement villages and what the Government could do to ensure older Kiwis had appropriate housing.

Retirement Village Association executive director John Collyns said providing facilities was an on-going challenge.

In Wellington City, it revolved around finding flat land that could be built on at an affordable cost.

The association had asked Wellington City Council to change its District Plan to make building retirement homes easier, especially in the city’s residential zones. These villages were an efficient form of land use and councils everywhere should be encouraging them, he said.

Councillor Andy Foster, Wellington City’s urban development manager, is aware of the issues surrounding retirement villages. The District Plan was being reviewed and he expected that changes making it easier to build retirement villages in existing residential areas would be looked at.

Hutt City Council’s general manager for city transformation, Kim Kellym said the council was ‘‘committed’’ to providing a wide range of housing, including retirement villages.

A proposed plan change would ‘‘simplify’’ the resource consent process by making villages a discretionary activity for both general and medium-density residential zones.

Its Urban Growth Strategy states there is an ‘‘unmet demand for between five to 10 retirement villages’’ which equates to a shortfall of about 1000 retirement village units in Lower Hutt.

Pete Matcham, who chairs Grey Power’s local government and housing policy group,

would also like to see the Government take the lead by encouraging and consenting kitset homes to reduce the cost and time required to build new retirement villages.