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Ozcare is planning to establish a new Retirement Living Community in West Mackay that offers a range of housing designs and options for seniors. This development is proposed to be co-located with Ozcare’s existing St Elizabeth Villa Residential Aged Care facility at the end of Anastasia Street in West Mackay on a currently vacant site that enjoys a long frontage to Lansdowne Road.
We have recently completed our consultation with the West Mackay community, asking for feedback on key elements of the proposal.
If you were able to complete the online survey or to visit us at our face-to-face touchpoints, thank you for taking the time to do so! We have gathered many valuable insights throughout this process and your knowledge and ideas have contributed to shaping the proposed Retirement Living Community.
We received 27 survey responses.
We spoke with 26 people at Ozcare’s St Elizabeth Villa and the Botanic Gardens drop-in session.
What We Heard
Look and Feel (Majority Responses):
46% said they would like to see the Pioneer River as a prominent local attribute reflected in the design.
46% said they would prefer the style of landscaping to be subtropical.
68% said their preferred look and feel for the built form was traditional Queensland/ weatherboard style design.
Overall feedback:
82% of survey respondents scored their support for the scale of development as high or very high (4 or 5 stars).
Other key feedback included accessible design, space for pets, consideration of access points and ensuring variety in the types of homes provided.
We appreciated the enthusiasm and interest by many of the people we spoke to in becoming a resident of this exciting new Retirement Living Community. We will keep this webpage updated so you can follow our progress.
For further details of the proposal, read the project background provided below.
Project Background
The addition of a retirement community of this nature in West Mackay comes in response to the significant growth and demand being seen within the region, and the identified need for increased housing diversity, availability and affordability for seniors. This location presents a unique offering for the community, affording residents easy access to local community assets such as the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens and health and community services including Mackay Base Hospital.
A key feature of the proposal is the provision of a range of residential lifestyle options for different seniors living needs. It is proposed this will include 71 independent living units (39 single-level duplex and townhouse-style homes and 32 apartments). A further 16 units are proposed to be located on a separate site to the south-east, adjacent to the existing aged care facility.
The proposed retirement community design will feature a range of facilities including an al fresco café; lounge and function space with catering capabilities; a library, and small cinema; fitness facilities, hairdressing salon and medical rooms, along with outdoor passive and active recreation spaces including BBQ areas, gardens, and swimming pool, all available to residents of the retirement community.
Master planning has been carefully considered to ensure a balance between integration of the built form and environment to provide increased age-appropriate residential options for older community members, enabling safe and secure ageing in place within the community.
This type of accommodation (and the proposed ancillary uses) are all generally in-line with, and encouraged within, Council’s zoning framework for the site.
The single level homes and duplexes will include 2 bedroom, 2 bedroom + study and 3 bedroom designs and will have appropriate acoustic protection from the railway corridor to the west and Lansdowne Road to the north, and will be clustered in small ‘precincts’ featuring extensive landscaping and interspersed with ‘pocket parks’ for passive recreation. This has been utilised in and has proven exceptionally popular with residents of similar Ozcare retirement living communities recently developed in Hervey Bay and on the Sunshine Coast.
The project’s apartments (offering an alternative lifestyle for residents) are intended to be provided in two ‘boutique-scale’ buildings of five levels each, on the north-eastern corner of the site. These buildings will feature:
• On-grade, undercover parking
• 4 x 2- and 3-bedroom apartments per floor in each building
• Views across the adjacent cane fields to the north and the Botanic Gardens to the east (with upper levels expected to have pleasing views across the Pioneer River to the coast)
We look forward to ensuring the Ozcare Mackay retirement living community can best meet the needs of our West Mackay community, now and into the future.