Uniting Church Approved for Aged-Care Tower

The Uniting Church in Australia has won approval for modifications to a planned 16-storey aged-care facility in Sydney’s west, brought about in part by the findings of last year’s Royal Commission into aged-care quality and safety.

In changes approved by the, Parramatta City Council this month, the church will reconfigure accommodation layouts in the $86-million development.  There will also be an overall building height increase of about 1.7 metres.

In development consent granted by the Sydney Central City Planning Panel in September 2020, the church was allowed a similarly sized tower with a mix of assisted living (ALAs), independent seniors living (ILUs), and care apartments (CAs) as well as a 60-bed residential aged-care facility.

The new plans remove the assisted-living and the care-apartment components, replacing them with a total of 116 independent-living units.

In lodging the modifications, town planners Ethos Urban said the changes were made partly in response to the findings of the Royal Commission, made public in March last year.

“Some modifications, in particular the change in unit mix and type, are also a response to Uniting’s evolving definition of assisted living, which has developed since the original application was lodged in 2019,” Ethos Urban wrote.

The tower—planned for a 2780sq-m site at 45-53 Oxford Street in Epping, about 20km north-west of Sydney—will now have a 57-bed aged-care facility and 116 independent living units. Ten of those will be single bedroom, 68 will be two-bedroom and the three-bedroom capacity now increases to 38 units.

▲ The Uniting Church was first given development consent for the 16-storey building in September 2020.

“The replacement of ALAs and CAs with ILUs aligns with the aged-care industry’s move away from formalised low-care accommodation,” Ethos Urban said, “with community care replacing this accommodation type to deliver care services into a resident’s accommodation of choice.

“The ILUs will enable residents to age in place whilst having access to support services available in the basement, ground floor and the residential aged-care facility on levels one and two.”

The church’s head of property development, Adrian Ciano, said it was committed to making assisted living services, and home and community care, accessible to all Uniting residents, regardless of the type of accommodation they called home. 

“This steadfast commitment plays a role in the design of all Uniting developments, including Oxford Street, Epping,” he said.

The approved changes also mean the rooftop-level function room will now include a cinema and multipurpose room giving residents “an improved facility for recreation, socialising and events”.

There will be four levels of basement parking, a chapel, gymnasium, indoor swimming pool, hair salon and food and drink facilities.

In the original application, the church successfully sought a Clause 4.6 Variation, allowing the development to exceed Hornsby local environmental plan’s maximum building height of 48m, by 6.1 metres.  The new approval allows 1.7m higher than that again.

▲ The new plans remove the assisted-living and the care-apartment components, replacing them with a total of 116 independent living units.

During that same process, Ethos Urban carried out an analysis of the likely demand for seniors’ housing and aged-care services in the catchment area. It showed the over-65 population is the fastest-growing and will expand by almost 18,000 by 2036.

“There is also a strong trend towards downsizing in this age group,” Ethos Urban said, “with occupancy of detached housing falling from 82 per cent in the 65-69 age group to 42 per cent in the 85-plus group, supporting the provision of smaller dwellings for the aged.”

The Uniting Church in Australia was founded in 1977, and with about 2000 congregations is Australia’s third-biggest Christian denomination, behind the Catholic and Anglican churches.

The church says it operates more than 200 aged-care services, with more than 14,000 clients in residential and community care programs, many of those within Parramatta council area.

Ciano said they offered aged-care services in Westmead, Ermington and North Parramatta, along with independent-living units in Epping, Beecroft, Granville, Wentworthville, Pendle Hill and Westmead.

He said the church had owned the Oxford Street property for more than 25 years.

“Construction on the new development is expected to start mid-2023, following the demolition of the existing property in Autumn 2023,” he said.