Well I think the purpose is to be an assisted living facility most of all. The location sucks a bit, but what can you do. Elderly at the later stages of their life who have some independence but often not enough to be fully independent reside at such assisted or semi-assisted places. Meaning, much of what they need is within the building complex itself.
They would surely still have grounds to walk on on the property and could go for short walks in the area and that's commonly what they do. And yeah it should ideally be accessible to the greater city itself - imagine growing up in Paris or Budapest your entire life but are now confined to just one property? Bad. Yet most living in seniors housing are no longer at the stage where they are out all day or driving through the city. So when they do want to get out, they do have public transit such as bus, LRT or smaller door-to-door shuttle buses - which is all fine, but they also need a basic shop, pharmacy, place to buy groceries, alcohol or just a place where...idk, chess boards under a tree are to meet your neighbours.
Ultimately, a place like this would be nice to see downtown and similar well served urban area and there should be more such places. Gives them a great environment, lots of people, transit, benches, plenty of places to do shopping...need bread? Well there's 3 bakeries nearby! Some groceries? A short LRT ride north and you're there. Grandma wants some beer? TBS is by the main station. (These examples only apply to what's downtown).
But overall these kind of assisted living (be it retirement, long term care or fairly free but assisted living) facilities do serve their niche successfully most of the time, but with flaws. That can often mean their ability to purchase property in central urban locations is more expensive, in a bad way. But the truth is, this is North America. If it was Germany or France it wouldn't really matter because you have the population and business density and transit that most things are always accessible wherever you build a project like this. This is 2022 Canada where everything is already so bad that any good news or improvement, even if not ideal, is still a good thing - but still limited. And at least a nice, clean, contemporary housing project with some nice grounds to live on and can offer residents housing (affordable if needed), building amenities, nearby streets to walk on, transit to go beyond that.
It would be even more easier if North Americans shared our Europeans' cultural quirk where we stay living with or invite our parents back to live with us as long as possible, so as to take care of each other and show love and appreciation to our family etc, but on this blight of a continent it isn't so. Most North Americans tend to want to treat their elderly - even their own parents - as annoying burdens with the bare minimum. But I guess that's another topic all together.
Besides that, though, any sort of new community for elderly is good. The closer they are to cities is good. There's always improvements to be made for sure. But also not everything can be perfect right away. We need more reforms to achieve all these in issues we have...but not enough people actually care. They'll complain, no doubt. They'll maybe write a letter. They may get so annoyed that they flee the country in search of utopia in Europe lmao. What it truly helps is both good planners and informed citizens to tell planners when something is good or bad, rather than act so passively. And a cultural shift to make caring for family seem okay. That was all but destroyed when white, neo-liberal "consume everything and everyone" unchecked capitalism became our gospel. Everything is treated like some sort of business or monetary exchange.
They would surely still have grounds to walk on on the property and could go for short walks in the area and that's commonly what they do. And yeah it should ideally be accessible to the greater city itself - imagine growing up in Paris or Budapest your entire life but are now confined to just one property? Bad. Yet most living in seniors housing are no longer at the stage where they are out all day or driving through the city. So when they do want to get out, they do have public transit such as bus, LRT or smaller door-to-door shuttle buses - which is all fine, but they also need a basic shop, pharmacy, place to buy groceries, alcohol or just a place where...idk, chess boards under a tree are to meet your neighbours.
Ultimately, a place like this would be nice to see downtown and similar well served urban area and there should be more such places. Gives them a great environment, lots of people, transit, benches, plenty of places to do shopping...need bread? Well there's 3 bakeries nearby! Some groceries? A short LRT ride north and you're there. Grandma wants some beer? TBS is by the main station. (These examples only apply to what's downtown).
But overall these kind of assisted living (be it retirement, long term care or fairly free but assisted living) facilities do serve their niche successfully most of the time, but with flaws. That can often mean their ability to purchase property in central urban locations is more expensive, in a bad way. But the truth is, this is North America. If it was Germany or France it wouldn't really matter because you have the population and business density and transit that most things are always accessible wherever you build a project like this. This is 2022 Canada where everything is already so bad that any good news or improvement, even if not ideal, is still a good thing - but still limited. And at least a nice, clean, contemporary housing project with some nice grounds to live on and can offer residents housing (affordable if needed), building amenities, nearby streets to walk on, transit to go beyond that.
It would be even more easier if North Americans shared our Europeans' cultural quirk where we stay living with or invite our parents back to live with us as long as possible, so as to take care of each other and show love and appreciation to our family etc, but on this blight of a continent it isn't so. Most North Americans tend to want to treat their elderly - even their own parents - as annoying burdens with the bare minimum. But I guess that's another topic all together.
Besides that, though, any sort of new community for elderly is good. The closer they are to cities is good. There's always improvements to be made for sure. But also not everything can be perfect right away. We need more reforms to achieve all these in issues we have...but not enough people actually care. They'll complain, no doubt. They'll maybe write a letter. They may get so annoyed that they flee the country in search of utopia in Europe lmao. What it truly helps is both good planners and informed citizens to tell planners when something is good or bad, rather than act so passively. And a cultural shift to make caring for family seem okay. That was all but destroyed when white, neo-liberal "consume everything and everyone" unchecked capitalism became our gospel. Everything is treated like some sort of business or monetary exchange.