If the government wants to see more older people staying at home, it needs to make it easier for them to do so. As Canberra architect Tony Trobe points out, ACT planning regulations create unnecessary restrictions that prevent older Canberrans from staying in their neighbourhoods. Ultimately, this leads to older people being disconnected from their way of life, their community and the support systems they've built up, in some cases over decades.
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Planning regulations tightly restrict what owners can build on residential blocks zoned RZ1. Dual occupancies can sometimes be built, but Mr Trobe says a restrictive formula virtually kills any incentive to do a dual occupancy.
However, as the ACT government sells off blocks on which Mr Fluffy asbestos-affected homes once stood, it has loosened these restrictions -- only for these blocks in particular -- so that those larger than 700 square metres are now allowed to be dual occupancies.
Mr Trobe says loosening the restrictions more widely for other RZ1 properties would rejuvenate neighbourhoods and provide housing types that are "badly missing" from the market. It would also make it easier for older people living on those blocks to redevelop their home into something more liveable as they age.
While Mr Trobe clearly sees this as a solution, creating greater density in some suburbs could negatively affect other areas of the community.
These amendments could drastically change the streetscape. Young families, for example, are more likely to want bigger blocks with a backyard.
Any move in the direction of greater density should be looked at sustainably and in line with whole-of-community expectations.
Both the ACT and federal governments have been investigating how best to keep older people out of aged-care homes and in their communities.
Nationally, $955.4 million will be spent over the next five years to help people stay at home through improving the Commonwealth's home support and home-care programs.
In Canberra, $750,000 is being spent on making four suburbs, including Monash in Tuggeranong and Ainslie in the inner north, "age-friendly", with a program of work undertaken to make it easier for older residents to get around.
Last year, the Council on the Ageing's ACT executive director, Jenny Mobbs, said older people needed to be kept in the community as long as possible with home support.
However, it may be more appropriate to build more age-specific accommodation without taking away homes that other people could use.
