Reimagining retirement: Inside Oceania’s newest, future-ready village

Monday, 16 February 2026

Oceania Healthcare’s new $54 million village in Auckland is the way of the future for New Zealand’s ageing population because of its integration of retirement living and aged care, the Minister for Seniors says.

“It offers a range of housing and care options in one place, and that flexibility matters. It means people don't have to leave their community when their needs change. We need more such villages, not fewer.”

The NZX-listed retirement village operator officially opened its Franklin Village in Pukekohe on Friday, and Minister Casey Costello, was on hand to cut the ribbon.

The village, which is being built in seven stages over the coming years, sits on an 11.6ha site in the country town in Auckland’s south, and it will have about 200 homes and 81 care suites when completed.

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But the first stage of the greenfield development has been completed and 31 villas and a community centre now sit alongside Oceania’s existing 44-bed care centre next door.

At the opening, Costello said everyone wanted to help people to live and age well and to improve the country’s aged care system, but that did not mean aged care bed capacity should be the primary focus.

It was necessary to ensure there were care beds, and specialist dementia care, but not everyone needed aged care, she said.

“Only around 10% of our over 65s are receiving aged or hospital care at any given time, and most of those are receiving home care services.”

The focus should be on setting up a care system where people could have the right care in the right place at the right time, as well as all the things that helped keep people well, she said.

“Some of those involve the health system, like good access to primary care, but many of the key things that help people live well as they age are far simpler.

“Keeping social connections, good nutrition and eating well, exercise and mobility, income and importantly housing are key, and those are precisely the sort of things retirement villages like this provide.”

More than 55,000 New Zealanders lived in retirement villages, which was a large proportion of the older population compared to other countries, Costello said.

“Developments like this - with retirement living and aged care - are the way of the future as they mean people have options to live well, stay part of the community, and are able to access care if they need it.”

Retirement village reforms would provide clearer information and better protections for residents, while the aged care taskforce’s recommendations would inform future government policy and funding decisions, she added.

Franklin Village’s completed villas are architecturally designed and built to Homestar 7 version 5 standard.

Buyers can choose from two and three-bedrooms, priced from $859,000 and $1.46m respectively, or two-bedrooms with a flexible third room, priced from $1.40m.

Those prices buy residents an occupancy rights agreement (ORA). It gives them the right to live in the villa, and when they leave or on their death they, or their estate, gets back the capital paid minus a deferred management fee.

At Franklin Village the deferred management fee is 30%, which analysts say is the sector average, and residents’ weekly fees are $220 per couple and $200 per single.

Residents have access to the community facilities, most of which are in the centre. They include a café, bar, cinema, wellness centre, gym, swimming pool, and bowling lawn.

Of the 31 villas in the first stage, 19 have either been sold or are under application, and the residents of 12 of them have already moved into the village.

Oceania chief executive Suzanne Dvorak said the completion of the village’s first stage was an important achievement for the company.

“It reflects how we’re thinking about the future of retirement living, at a time when the aging population is driving increased demand for well-designed communities that can respond to changing needs over time.”

She told The Post the development marked a change of approach for Oceania as over the last seven years it had focused on apartments, and that meant a whole village block had to be built in one go.

In contrast, when building villas on a greenfield site it was possible to build one stage, sell it and move on to the next, and that allowed for a more effective pre-sale model and greater flexibility in build options, she said.

“Having a site of this scale allows us to take a long-term, thoughtful approach to development, and enables us to plan intentionally for the kind of retirement community we want to create.

“It's not that we will move away from apartments completely. We won't, but this gives us greater optionality in what we build and typologies, and allows us to see which ones people like the most and reflect that in subsequent stages.”

The decision to build the village on the fringes of Auckland was made before her time, but operators’ decisions on where to buy land and develop villages were always driven by certain factors, she said.

They included the demographic analysis of an area, a potential site’s proximity to transport and amenities, such as shops and cafés, the natural surroundings, and the existing community.

“Pukekohe is a thriving community. It's becoming a busier and busier part of the country. And so the team and the board made the decision that it was going to be a growth area, and it has proven to be.”

Dvorak said the company needed to have sold down 70% before it started the next stage, but sales had been going well, so civil works on stage two had started, and building was due to start in April.

The market remained challenging for the sector, with the time taken to settle sales still pushed out as potential residents were finding it a little more difficult to sell their homes, she said.

“But people are getting used to tighter market conditions, and I'm very happy with the way our sales team have operated in this environment. We've significantly exceeded what we did last year already, and we're happy with where we are.”

Oceania was keen to complete the Franklin Village over time, and work on the second stage was its absolute priority, she said.

“Over the next 12 months, we need to focus on selling and paying our debt down. Once we've made progress on our sales, our debt, and our gearing, then we'll look at going faster with development.”

In its most recent financial results, for the six months to September, the company reported a noticeable pick-up in its sales, and a first half profit of $4.9m, which reversed a $17.1m net loss over the same period last year.

The improvement in sales extended to the company’s flagship premium village, The Helier in Auckland, where over half (54.5%) of its residences were now occupied or under application, it said.

Oceania Healthcare is one of the “big six” operators in New Zealand’s retirement sector. It has 36 villages nationwide, and employs more than 2500 people.