The Roche Group now has five years to lodge a development application with council.

Mayor Paul Hogan said the Roche Group cemented its commitment to partner with an accredited aged care provider for an aged housing facility at Harrington, which will comprise of assisted care (hostel) and nursing care beds.

The signing of the deed also allows for the provision of independent self-contained aged housing (retirement village) adjacent to the aged housing facility. Ideally a combined facility will be constructed over time with all three levels of aged housing being provided.

If this deadline is not met, council has the option to purchase the land back for one dollar, the mayor said.

This project started when council sold 1.5ha of land at Harrington to the Roche Group on April 30, 2001 at the then market value for the land, minus the estimated cost to fill the land to enable it to be developed.

The contract of sale included a clause requiring the purchaser to construct an aged housing facility on this land or other suitable land at Harrington with construction to have commenced by March 6, 2011.

The Roche Group lodged an application with council in 2005 to rezone the surrounding land as residential (from industrial) to enable the construction of independent self-contained aged housing (retirement village) next to the site earmarked for assisted care and nursing care.

The Roche Group then sought approval to fill the land and subsequently completed this.

The rezoning of the adjacent land was gazetted by the NSW State Government in 2010.

At this time the Roche Group entered negotiations with council on the basis that the original contract of sale deadline for construction was imminent, and sought to have the deadline extended by way of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

The MOU was signed by both parties on June 24, 2011 and required the Roche Group to lodge a development application with council for the assisted care and nursing care component of the aged housing facility within 12 months, otherwise council had the option to purchase the 1.5ha parcel of land back for a dollar.

The Roche Group failed to meet this deadline and advised council that they did this on the basis of a market analysis they had undertaken by an independent consultant.

Council considered this matter in July 2012 and decided to conduct its own market analysis to inform its decisions.

Council's market analysis determined that an aged housing facility is not viable at Harrington based upon population growth and the current system of bed allocation administered by the Commonwealth government until at least 2021, and more likely 2036.

On the basis of this information, council decided to extend the conditions in the MOU to allow an additional five years from the date of the new MOU for the lodgement of a development application to construct the facility.

Should the Roche Group fail to meet the five year requirement council has the option to purchase this or other land at Harrington back from the Roche Group for $1.

Following legal advice, the city council has renamed the MOU as a deed and the document was signed by both parties on Wednesday.