Maitland City Council gave applicant Coastplan Consulting, the green light for the development at a meeting on Tuesday night.

The development will be constructed in Discovery Way, Heritage Parc.

Council planning officers recommended the development for approval.

Cr Robert Aitchison said it’s great to see the city continuing to provide good accommodation for its retirees.

“However as a community and a council we need to put pressure on developers that access to public transport needs to be at the forefront, not an extra at the end of their submission,” Cr Aitchison said.

“In Sydney, developers are building public transport and using that as an extra to help sell. We are still relying on residents to have their own transport.

“We are seeing more and more developments being constructed to the minimum specification which is even making it hard for garbage trucks, emergency services and buses entering the area,” he said.

He said a good example is Harvest at Chisholm. “This developer should have been lobbying for the Metford Railway Station to have access to the northern side of the railway line. As the crow flys it’s 500 metres from the Harvest sales office or 5.3 kilometres via road to Metford Railway Station,” Cr Aitchison said.

The Heritage Parc development application included 80 self contained dwellings for seniors housing including a central community centre, swimming pool, bowling green, caravan parking and internal roads.

The proposal sits within the Heritage Parc estate, an approved community title subdivision comprising 450 residential lots surrounded by extensive parklands including a network of walking tracks and cycleways, playgrounds.

It is proposed to amend the approved subdivision plan by separate application to create a super lot to accommodate this seniors housing development.