Resort style for pensioners

By Bob Dey.

Plenty of New Zealanders have gone to Queensland to buy a resort apartment, or at least one overlooking the ocean, and the planeloads of tourists who head to Fiji every year can attest to the value of unwinding on a small island resort.

But getting old and having the same kind of facility at home? In West Auckland?

As the more publicised apartment blocks on Auckland's waterfront near completion, the first stage in the Waitakere Gardens retirement village at Henderson will offer some of the highest-quality facilities to residents who start moving in next week.

The New Zealand standard tends to be meaner than what you can find overseas. Pools are common facilities in Australia, but if we provide one it will be small, or a lap pool not designed for relaxation. Some of the new apartments are spacious, but many come with a balcony of frustratingly tiny proportions.

A pleasing feature down on the Viaduct Basin and on Princes Wharf is the generous dimensions of many apartment decks. These two new residential neighbourhoods also come with an enticing range of bars and restaurants, and the old city tepid baths are there.

Can a development built on four levels for old people, slotted on former vineyard land between a police station and a creek, compete with the vitality of the new Cup Village atmosphere?

Not surprisingly, its developers and owners have not tried to match that feel. What they have aimed for is a style and a standard which will last well into the next century.

Ted Hewetson of Silvercare, operator and part-owner of Waitakere Gardens, says accommodation provided for the elderly so far has been "adequate."

Features incorporated in the Henderson project's units include a series of security measures, one of the highest levels of acoustic standards in the market, piping and wiring ducts within the bounds of each unit instead of being placed in the inter-tenancy walls, and a ground floor with the services expected in a resort hotel - a hairdresser, shop, pool, restaurant and separate cafe, large conservatory and adjoining courtyard, library, computer room and "blokes' shed". This streetscape is behind the hotel-style foyer, beneath a four-storey atrium.

"We believe that as the market matures these are features the sophisticated buyer will want. It's no good in five years finding you're not up to speed," says Hewetson.

Peter Bourke of Arrow International, the developer and a partner in the project, says people moving out of stand-alone houses are often unaware of differences in the closer apartment environment which can make their lives hell.

"They don't want to hear the bathroom upstairs or the toilet flushing next door." Bourke says most modern apartments have a noise rating between units of STC 51 to 55, but Waitakere Gardens has achieved a rating of STC 57.

Residents in these units may be used to taking a bath, but in their new apartments they will only have a shower.

Hewetson says the main reason is safety - and if they really want a bath there is a spa bath available on every floor.

Many new serviced apartments have baths, with a high step up, and many New Zealand hotels which rate themselves four or five-star premises offer shower/baths, some supposedly on the basis that this is what the Japanese want. So why is Hewetson so vehemently opposed to bathtubs?

"Stepping into a bath is the cruellest way to get a hip injury," he says.

The attention to detail is evident from the Hinuera stonework at the entrance, part of a welcoming landscape which has a $100,000 price tag. Another $250,000 will be spent on the village's boundary and across the creek to the Pak N' Save carpark, where walking paths will be created in a generally upgraded and replanted area.

Says Hewetson: "We told them to expect something great. I believe we exceed their expectations. In most cases we'll improve their lifestyle. I don't want to go down the path of builders who survive despite mediocrity. I want the residents to be amazed. Most developers wouldn't look at what we're doing because the margin is not in it."

The argument is that the joint venture developers, Waitakere Group, are building value into the village, not taking it out, so that the property will perform well for a long time and its value will be enhanced.

Bourke says a retirement village's value to the developer is in the reversions of the residents' licences to occupy.

"You're looking at a 25-year horizon to value a village, so a lot depends on quality and the ability to stand the test of time. I think some villages are going to suffer because they won't be able to complete the reversion."

But in any case, he says, "We would have great difficulty in taking the cheap developer's approach. I don't think members of the team would compromise themselves. We wouldn't have got this far using that approach."

Adds Hewetson: "Average is not what we want to do. If you do average, you are just doing what's been done before. We want to really stretch the stake for this industry."

Occupants of the village's first-stage 39 units move in next week and work has started on the next two stages, taking the village to 100 units on completion of those next May and eventually to 253 apartments. Older and less mobile buyers have been targeted for the first stage, but Bourke says that as later stages are built nearer the roadway, Sel Peacock Drive, amenities such as a residents-run clubhouse and facilities with a recreational emphasis rather than medical and healthcare needs will be built. A wide range of communal facilities is also available across the road at the Waitakere City Council's Big Top centre.