The “intergenerational retirement living community” about to sprout on an Australian university’s suburban campus will generate clinical training opportunities for students while it “strengthens the social fabric” of the city, its advocates claim.

The University of Canberra (UC) plans to convert an unused paddock – currently occupied by gum trees, grassland, dilapidated fencing and the odd hungry kangaroo – into a mini village complete with 230 “independent living units”, a 180-bed care facility, a retail centre and health services on tap.

The project is designed to ease housing shortages and help older Australians in “downsizing” while promoting intergenerational mingling.

It will also provide practical educational opportunities across multiple disciplines. “Our students here, from allied health through to the built environment…nursing and many other vocations, will be able to get on-the-job training whilst they are at the university,” said vice-chancellor Bill Shorten.

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“University education makes a lot more sense when…you’re practising what you’re learning. Nothing beats that real-world experience.”

Under a deal signed with property developers Pariter and residential aged care provider Opal, the university will lease the 2.2-hectare site – nestled between UC’s hospital and health hub – for 100 years. The two companies will bankroll the project’s capital costs, estimated at about A$150 million (£74 million).

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The university will pocket “lease receipts and revenue share”, although it declined to say how much. The deal will facilitate collaborative employment and “co-designed” learning programmes, along with joint research projects and student placements on campus and elsewhere.

The older residents will be encouraged to engage with each other and their younger neighbours, including the more than 2,000 students who live on campus. Pedestrian links will connect them to cafés, the library, medical services and nearby bushland.

Shorten said the construction still required final approval but he expected it to begin within about two years and finish within four. He insisted that the project, which had been the subject of longstanding negotiations with various partners, would have gone ahead irrespective of the university’s financial position.

“It just makes sense,” he told reporters. “This is an idea [whose] time has come. I think this is what modern universities should be doing. At the end of the day, trying to suppress a good idea is like trying to keep a ball below the surface of the water.”

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UC is among a throng of Australian universities that are converting parts of their considerable landholdings into revenue-earning opportunities matched to their educational and community support missions. The University of Wollongong is seeking final development approval for an “” that features health services, integrated research and education spaces, an early learning centre and accommodation for more than 400 older residents on its seaside campus.

La Trobe and Flinders universities have also flagged the possible establishment of aged care facilities as part of multibillion dollar developments of their campuses in suburban Melbourne and Adelaide.

Opal’s director of communications and sustainability, Rosanne Cartwright, said similar precincts were springing up in countries with ageing demographics including Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. “The ageing population is a global issue that needs to be solved locally,” Cartwright said.

“Australians across every generation are dealing with loneliness as a real issue,” she added. “Younger people need to look after older people and older people need to look after younger people.”

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Commercial redevelopments on campus have sparked criticism that vice-chancellors are diverging from their educational mission into property speculation – grievances that run strong if universities invest in capital projects while retrenching staff to save costs.

The National Tertiary Education Union said it was comfortable with the UC project “so long as it contributes to rather than detracts from” teaching and research.

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“From time to time there are some objections to using university land in that way but it’s not really in short supply at the University of Canberra,” said the union’s divisional secretary, Lachlan Clohesy. “If there’s revenue…supplementing the university and therefore able to contribute to the core mission, that’s a good thing.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com