Category: Latest industry developments

In our travels, we meet a lot of village managers who have not experienced the new breed of manufactured homes. They are wondering what all the fuss is about.

Why are people thinking of them as a competitor to retirement villages? Aren’t the homes made in a factory and placed in a caravan park?

First up the modern ‘manufactured home park’ is now being called a ‘land lease community’.

In fact, in most states the legislation is adopting this title because it explains the contract better. (You own your home but lease the land it stands on – like a caravan).

The important thing for village managers to understand is that LLCs are doing two things.

The first is grabbing the traditional market for retirement villages, being ‘affordable housing’. Most retirement village homes are now $350,000 and more.

A new LLC home can be as low as $225,000 and older LLC homes are nearly always in the mid-$200K field or even lower.

The second is the homes are no longer always built in a factory. They can be built on site and still comply with regulations for being ‘removable’ if they can be split up and taken away.

We went to the launch of Ingenia’s Latitude One development in Port Stephens, north of Newcastle, last Saturday. See the photos.

They are big – up to 200 m². They are still reasonably affordable, ranging from around $350,000 to $550,000. And they are built on a slab – not raised on posts.

LLCs target a younger market than retirement villages, emphasising lifestyle. They have big community and support facilities. And most don’t have a DMF.

For operators, the resident owns her own home and are responsible for its maintenance. As a village manager, you will recognise this benefit.

It is still early days for LLCs. There are about 300 serious locations across the country with about 20 operators, compared to 2,000 retirement villages and 600+ operators.

But as a village manager, you will hear more about them, especially if you are in a regional location or on the outer Metro fringe.

Bullying is now accepted as a real phenomenon affecting all people, including employees and residents of retirement villages.

Employees can bully each other and the residents. And residents can certainly bully employees.

Leading Victorian lawyers in the village sector Russell Kennedy have put together a fact sheet on how to prepare for bullying.

Check it out HERE.

Needless to say there are procedures.

Staff need to know that bullying is unacceptable, and how to make a complaint if they experience bullying.

Managers need to know how to recognise and prevent workplace bullying, and what to do if they receive a complaint. And how to make a complaint.

Policies and training will assist you to reduce your risk of a bad outcome, claims for workers’ compensation or a Fair Work Commission bullying process.

How intense are the regulations and requirements in your state for emergency management in retirement villages?

In NSW we are expecting them to get a lot tighter and we expect the rest of the states will follow.

This is because in particular fire regulations were heavily discussed by residents who spoke up at the Kathryn Greiner retirement village inquiry meetings we attended.

Put simply, the residents gave repeated examples where operators were slack in following fire signage and egress regulations, plus few had evacuation plans.

One example was a resident in a wheelchair living on a fifth floor with no fire evacuation plan – especially when the lift is out of action.

Another was the lack of a roll call process to check everybody was at an assembly point.

We checked and this is the current information sheet available to NSW village managers – click HERE.

Email back to us your thoughts on the regulations and requirements for emergency response (fire etc).