Retirement village proposed for in the Bay
Phil and Rose Windle with an aerial photo of the proposed location.
Phil and Rose Windle want to grow old in Golden Bay and they have a vision of how that might happen for them and for others with similar hopes for the future.
To that end, they are keen to see a retirement village built on land they own adjacent to the Takaka recreation park.
“We’ve both had personal experience of elderly members of our families who grew old in Golden Bay and didn’t have the option of going into a retirement complex with a sense of community, so their experience of old age was one of loneliness and isolation,” said Rose.
The Windles have not developed the idea even to the design stage, but they say there are various development models possible, including co-operating with one of the providers of retirement village accommodation. They have no intention of competing with Abbeyfield, though.
“Abbeyfield does a wonderful job but we can’t all fit in there. Our retirement village idea is just something we want to put out there,” said Rose. “We believe that there are plenty of people around our age who want to grow old and eventually die in Golden Bay. This could be a way of allowing that to happen.”
The Windles say that they have registered an interest in having the new integrated health facility built on land adjacent to their favoured site for the retirement village, and Phil says that the site behind the recreation park makes good sense.
“It’s well off the flood plain, it has class C soils, and a lot of land up there is going to be rezoned from rural 1 to residential, commercial and light industrial,” he said. “There’s 80 hectares going to be subdivided. I think it’s an ideal place for all that development to occur as part of a larger vision. If the integrated health facility is handy to a retirement village and a major new subdivision, that part of Takaka will really go ahead. The council identified it as a potential development area in the Eastern Golden Bay Development report and there are a lot of amenities up there. They’re pretty underused too. This is where the future growth is going to happen and it makes sense to think about doing big-ticket items like health facilities and retirement facilities there.”
Phil said that he could see a time when the recreation park would become a favoured walking place for residents of the area around Park Avenue.
“We’re also envisaging a safe walkway from there all the way to Takaka town through a park-like setting, taking advantage of the natural landscape,” he said. “If it’s done properly, the access will be good for mobility scooters, bikes and people on foot.”
The Windles say that their vision of a retirement village would provide a range of accommodation to cater for people’s different budgets.
“The retirement village would cater for people who want to take responsibility for themselves as long as they can when they get old. It would be ideal to have the rest-home facilities right next door because when one partner goes into Joan Whiting at the moment, that can be a real issue if the other partner is still in the family home somewhere in the Bay.”
They also want the place to provide plenty of activities for residents to foster the sense of community and fun.
“In other places there are these really good retirement villages where there are fun things organised all the time. We think people in Golden Bay deserve that too. We’re talking about people like us,” said Rose.
Neil Wilson
