Anglican Retirement Villages (ARV) has commenced work on a $200 million seniors community at Warriewood on Sydney’s northern beaches, which it says will offer new options in retirement living and aged care.

The seven-hectare site will contain 260 independent living apartments and a 119-bed residential aged care facility, along with a community centre and a wide range of outdoor entertaining areas.

The new Warriewood Brook community will be located close to a local shopping village and a large shopping centre, with easy access to public transport.

ARV’s CEO, Ken Barber said the focus of the development is on fostering a sense of community and allowing people to age in place.

“Our strategy is all about ageing in place,” he said. “Everybody uses that phrase but I don’t think everybody actually understands what it means. For us, it is primarily about allowing people to stay in their own homes.”

“We know that a lot of people want that but we also know that people want a sense of security and community that retirement villages offer.”

Mr Barber said the independent living apartments have been designed to be easily adapted in order to accommodate resident’s needs as they age.

“People often talk about older people being handicapped or unable to cope but usually the biggest problem is with a person’s environment. As people get older, things like stairs and switches can become problematic so what we have done is change the environment to suit people’s situations, while providing them with opportunities for socialisation.”

“It’s more like supported independence, rather than independent living,” said Mr Barber.

It is expected that more than half of the aged care facility will be devoted to dementia-specific care and it will have higher than average staffing levels.

“It will be very homelike,” said Mr Barber. “It won’t be like a traditional nursing homes and you wouldn’t recognise them as nursing homes.”

“It’s a whole new world and a whole new way of thinking. They won’t really be retirement villages and nursing homes in the old sense of the words.”

The development has received DA approval and ARV is currently in the process of completing the footings for the first two of four stages.

This will see the construction of the first 64 ILUs and the aged care facility.

The organisation hopes that the aged care facility will be completed by the latter half of next year, with the first beds will becoming operational by early 2010.

Mr Barber says demand for the independent living apartments was strong with over 1000 names on the waiting list.