Uniting Aged Care to develop Coburg land bank site in Vic for aged care

The Victorian Government has signed an agreement with not-for-profit aged-care provider Uniting Aged Care to provide a new 90 bed aged-care home built on surplus government land in Coburg, where there is a scarcity of places for older Victorians needing residential care.

The Government set up a fund worth $4.8 million in the last Budget to allow surplus land in the inner suburbs to be sold or leased at concessional rates to the not-for-profit sector to provide residential aged-care places.
A combination of high land values in the established suburbs, the Commonwealth Government’s funding formula for nursing homes and the need for many older-style nursing homes to commit to substantial expenditure to meet Commonwealth accreditation standards had led to a drop in residential aged-care places in the inner suburbs.

The Uniting Church Australia will lease the surplus land – a former school site – and build a 90 bed high and low-care centre. It will be equal in size to the biggest residential aged-care centre in the City of Moreland.

The City of Moreland had the fifth-biggest number of residents aged 70 and over of all Victorian municipalities.