Inside Story: How people power toppled Life Care’s grand aged-care vision

RESIDENTS last week claimed victory after aged-care provider Life Care dumped plans for high-rise retirement homes in Adelaide’s east. Here’s how David beat Goliath in a high-stakes suburban struggle.

Residents Peter Holmes and Manya Angley led the resistance against Life Care's projects. Picture: AAP/Roy VanDerVegt

• Caleb Bond: Life Care’s decision a victory for common sense
• Life Care scraps proposal to upgrade three aged-care facilities
• State Government scraps aged-care fast-track assessment process

IN the minutes after Life Care shelved its plans for high-rise retirement villages in Adelaide’s east, the aged-care group’s boss, Allen Candy, paused to reflect on where and how it all went wrong.

With refreshing candour, Mr Candy spoke not of excessive building heights or bad planning policy, but of trust. Or rather, mistrust.

“From the start … there was mistrust between us and the community,” Mr Candy said.

“And we struggled to ever rebuild that.”

It was mistrust — in Life Care, the State Government and its “flawed” planning system — which fuelled the relentless community campaign that, against all odds, toppled plans for towering retirement homes in Joslin, Norwood and Glen Osmond.

Life Care last Monday announced it had withdrawn applications to redevelop the sites.

By Tuesday afternoon, Planning Minister John Rau had declared rules that allowed the projects to circumvent the traditional assessment pathway would be scrapped immediately.

It was a swift, sudden and spectacular conclusion to a six-month saga that turned ordinary residents into activists, fighting desperately to protect the character of their streets.

The Eastern Courier Messenger charted the major moments along the way, from the banding together of community groups to a hearing at Parliament House.

Artist impression of Life Care's vision for a retirement home at 157 Beulah Rd, Norwood. Source: supplied.

But it was as much what occurred in between that explains how David beat Goliath in this high-stakes suburban struggle.

The first chapter was written in the pages of the Government Gazette on April 19.

It was there Mr Rau introduced rules which allowed aged-care projects valued at more than $20 million to bypass the local planning system.

The intent was to hasten construction of large-scale retirement homes, which the government believed were needed for Adelaide’s growing ageing population.

Life Care — which, as it would later be revealed, lobbied for the scheme — leapt at the chance, lodging plans for $250 million in redevelopments of its three eastern sites.

The bold vision included a nine-storey revamp of its home next to Seymour College, on Portrush Rd, a seven-level complex at Roselin Court, Joslin, and a four-storey block on Beulah Rd, Norwood.

“There is huge demand in this area … and people as they look to downsize they want to only move 5km-10km away,” Mr Candy said at the time.

By that stage, the foundations of the resistance had already been laid.

Joslin residents — including Peter Holmes, of First Ave — become aware of the towering plan when the proposal appeared, briefly, on the old Development Assessment Commission website in early August.

Locals were furious, startled by the height and scale of the proposal.

They were angry their long-time neighbour had seemingly resiled from an agreed-to three-storey upgrade at the site, a project largely in tune with local planning rules.

They were similarly incensed the new assessment process meant there would be no opportunity to push their case at a formal hearing or, crucially, appeal Mr Rau’s final ruling.

The residents quickly mobilised into an action group — Caring for Joslin — and bombarded The Advertiser with letters and hit the airwaves to voice their concerns.

People in Norwood and Glen Osmond were equally appalled, prompting members of the three communities to unite to fight the proposal.

“This process is so beyond usual democratic process that people cannot conceptualise that this totalitarian approach is happening in little old Adelaide,” said Glen Osmond resident Manya Angley, who led opposition at Glenrose Court.

Revised concept plan for Life Care development in Joslin

The groundswell of discontent was not going unnoticed at Life Care’s Greenhill Rd headquarters.

It hired public relations firm Communikate to run a series of community meetings, an olive branch of sorts, given no such consultation was required under Mr Rau’s new rules.

Minutes of those gatherings, taken by the PR firm, showed the depth of anger and distrust among residents.

“The discussion at times was emotive with some participants expressing high levels of stress,” read the minutes of a September 12 meeting.

By mid October, Life Care agreed to some concessions, including the height of the Joslin development. But it was not enough.

Life Care chief executive Allen Candy looking over the Joslin property. Picture: Campbell Brodie.

Politicians from all sides — including Labor’s candidate for Dunstan, Matthew Loader — were now lining up to condemn the proposals.

Amid growing tensions, Life Care and Planning Department bosses were called to appear before State Parliament’s Environment, Resources and Development Committee.

It marked a turning point in the saga.

Before a packed public gallery, Mr Candy revealed the aged-care provider had, out of frustration with rigid local planning rules, asked the government to create a special assessment pathway for its projects.

He also, for the first time publicly, alluded to the toll of the relentless community campaign against him and his company.

“We are the first (to use this process), so we are kind of the canary in the coalmine,” he told the committee.

“It has been an interesting experience for us and obviously the folks across the room.”

That was November 2. Eight days later, the plans were officially withdrawn.

Mr Candy last week said it was “momentous” decision, given the time, money and effort the organisation had poured into the project.

He conceded Life Care had erred in lodging plans for the three sites at once, saying it spread resources too thin and created hostility across an entire region.

The group remains committed to a vision of delivering “21st Century” care and will establish community reference groups in the next year to explore options for the sites.

Mr Rau, too, has been forced to reassess.

He has instructed the State Planning Commission to make aged-care a priority as it overhauls SA’s planning system in the coming years.

“I remain of the firm view that we deserve leading and modern retirement and aged-care living options, provided that they respect their local context,” Mr Rau said.

For residents such as Mr Holmes, those developments would not be cause for concern. They never have been.

What riled him, and his community, was projects that did not follow the rules — that did not, in Mr Rau’s words, “respect their local context” — and a planning system that sought to allow them to happen.

A process that could not be trusted.

“Ordinary people rely upon the rule of law, fair go and a layman’s view of right and wrong — and politicians to uphold it,” Mr Holmes said.

“Thank goodness for the collective willpower of the organised community, the media, several key people and democracy that made Rau fall on his sword … after Life Care fell on theirs.

“What a battle — but the war rages on.”