Jones Lang La Salle report says there is demand for more than 31 lakh units

Jones Lang LaSalle India’s research report ‘Senior Living Sector in India’ has underlined the need for realty sector to focus on the needs of the elderly—an area which has largely been ignored and remains unexploited.

 “Besides growth in sheer numbers, seniors are also evolving as a customer segment and have needs and wants, which are different from seniors in earlier times. A significant section of seniors today are independent, financially stable, well-travelled, socially connected, and as a result have well developed thoughts of how they want to spend time after retirement,” the report says.

The report says that an analysis of 135 urban centres found that seniors represent 12.8 million households. Demand for formal senior living facilities from across varying income sections stood at 312,000 units. Tier-3 cities’ demands comprised 49%, whereas Tier-1 cities and Tier-2 cities comprised 35% and 16% of the demand respectively.

Regionwise, 31% of the demand was from west India, followed by 27% in south and 23% in north India.

Geographically, senior living projects are coming up in the suburbs of all key metros and some traditional ‘retirement towns’ like Coimbatore, Goa and Dehradun, adds Jones Lang LaSalle. Majority of these developments have 50-100 units in the form of residential complexes, with larger ones having over 400 units. The typology varies from 1 BHK-3 BHK units, villas and studio apartments. The units range from 500 sq ft to 2,500 sq ft in super built-up (saleable) area. Most of the projects cost less than Rs3.30 crore.

“However, there has been a recent shift with more mid and high-end projects being launched in the market, showing signs of maturity of the sector and growing confidence among developers to launch niche projects,” says the report.

The report identifies social stigma, affordability, lack of manpower and absence of pro-elderly living standard laws as the main challenges facing the senior citizens living segment. Keeping in mind the needs of the elderly with progressing age, Jones Lang LaSalle has identified four kinds of living solutions: independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing care and continuing care communities (CCRCs). “CCRCs are yet to see a presence in India although a few corporate groups have now designed blue prints to come up with such projects,” says the report.

For urban areas, small-scale CCRCs would be most viable; where as for peri-urban and sub-urban settings, middle-scale and large-scale CCRCs would do. The report says that realtors should keep in mind the physical, medical and emotional problems the elderly face while developing projects. The report says that having a healthcare partner must be mandatory, and the projects should offer flexibility in disposal models and pricing to be affordable to the elderly.

However, the report says that there is a need to set up a working committee which would draft a set of development controls relevant to senior living projects. “Senior living projects, by virtue of their unique characteristics, should not be given the same FSI or development controls (E.g. density norms) as given in residential projects,” it says.

As per Census of India projections, elders would comprise 12.4% of total population in 2026 and 19.7% in 2050. In 2011, India had about 76 million seniors above the age of 60 years and it is expected that this figure will grow to 173 million by 2025, further to 240 million by 2050. Interestingly, by 2050, it is estimated that the number of dependent adults in India will be at par with the number of dependent children.