I’m delighted to be able to report that we’re seeing really strong interest in the 30 new one and two-bedroom apartments we’re building on Kerikeri Road. Construction is coming along in leaps and bounds and we’ve now sold ‘off plan’ the Occupational Rights Agreements (ORAs) for 12 of them.
There is exceptionally strong interest in the remaining 18; we had a significant number of walk-in enquiries over the Christmas and New Year break. What is particularly attractive for them is the continuum of care that we offer - from Independent Living through to bed-based care. I wrote about this in my November column (see ‘Thoughts from our CEO’ in the News section of our website), and I’ll refer to it later in this column.
We get the sense, though, that people are wary about project completion dates when it comes to residential construction projects and, understandably, want to see the finished product before putting existing homes up for sale and committing to moving-in dates.
Our target completion date is May this year. So - only three months to run!
I’ve been asked if we are building these apartments for out-of-District folk. Well over 50 percent of sales enquiries have come from people in living in Mid and Far North communities. That said, we’ll sell ORAs for the apartments to anyone who meets our Independent Living criteria for retirement accommodation, regardless of whether they’re from Auckland or Ahipara, Helensville or the Hokianga.
The overwhelming demand for retirement accommodation is a national issue and we’re in the business of meeting this demand as part of our drive to provide bed-based Care facilities for our residents. The more ORAs we can sell, the better able we are to expand our Care facilities.
Speaking of which, I wrote in my November column about the need for local government to compel the provision of bed-based aged-care facilities by retirement accommodation providers. I said Resource Consents should be made dependent on this. We cannot keep bringing elderly people into our communities without expanding the infrastructure required to care for them.
I said it was ridiculous that a community-led charitable organisation like Kerikeri Retirement Village should be one of very few providers of long-term, bed-based care in the Mid-North. And one of only a handful of such providers in the whole of Northland.
I warned that we would become increasingly less able to provide Care beds for people who are not residents of our Village. And that the seemingly universal reliance on Kerikeri Retirement Village’s care facilities had to change.
We have had overwhelming support for this message, both from among our own residents and from the wider community. We haven’t decided yet on how we will implement this new approach but, as and when we do, we’ll be sure to communicate it.
