Land next to golf club looks set for senior living village

A retirement village operator has bought the 55-hectare Paddison Farm block on Matakana Road, just outside Warkworth.

The land is next to Warkworth Golf Club and sits opposite Te Honohono ki Tai Matakana link road and the new 600-home Warkworth Ridge development. It also borders land around Red Barn Antiques and stretches back to the Rodney Co-op Lime quarry, off Sandspit Road.

The commercial director for selling agent Bayleys, Chris Blair, said it was too early to name the company behind the recent purchase, which went out to tender in November and attracted multiple offers.

“They’re working through due diligence around finding the best location for the village,” he said.

“They’ve got to do a lot of feasibility studies to find the location that works best for them.”

Blair said that even a large retirement village would not take up the whole site, but he was unsure what the purchaser might do with the remaining land it did not need.

One possibility is that it could be sold on to housing developers, but whatever happens, current zoning for the land will need to change.

At present, around 45% of the land is designated as Future Urban, with the rest zoned Mixed Rural, but a private plan change to live zoning could potentially unlock the land for significant residential development, whether for a retirement village or otherwise.

“They will need a plan change or a consent,” Blair said. “And I would think it would probably be a plan change, as neither of the current zonings allow them what they require to put in a retirement village.”

In promoting the site, Bayleys said any homes built there would benefit from direct access onto the link road and SH 1 and would be suitable for subdivision as medium density housing.