Central Otago Mayor Tony Lepper is confident the aged care needs of district residents will be met - just not immediately.
The lack of rest-home, hospital and dementia care beds in Central Otago has been under the spotlight in recent months.
About 60 people from all over the district attended a meeting in Alexandra yesterday with Retirement Villages Association of New Zealand executive director John Collyns.
The meeting was hosted by Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO) which gave details on expansion of its Ranui complex in Alexandra.
Two separate retirement village developments are also proposed for the district.
A group of investors is promoting a $50million 94-home retirement village on the outskirts of Cromwell, with an adjoining proposed hospital and care facility.
Building is expected to begin in March.
Leaning Rock Village Inc recently gauged support for a retirement lifestyle village in the Alexandra area.
Its staged development with self-care units through to full-care facilities would be run by a community-owned charitable trust.
It received a mandate to carry on with the project to the next stage and is exploring options for a joint venture.
At yesterday's meeting, Mr Lepper said the groups behind the proposed Cromwell and Alexandra villages had met Mr Collyns in the morning ''and listened and learnt''.
The Central Otago District Council had been ''involved in the conversation'' over aged care needs for some time but it was not an issue the council could ''sort out''.
However, he was confident that with several proposals under way, ''in time, they'll meet the needs of the community''.
Mr Lepper thanked the PSO for its planned development and said he hoped ''some of these other developments'' would also proceed.
He hated hearing about residents having to leave the district to access dementia care.
PSO chief executive Gillian Bremner said four new units would be built at Ranui within the next four months and another eight after that.
The organisation had other adjoining land ''banked'' for future aged care facilities, she said. Ranui Home and Hospital manager Mavis Thornton said demand for residential care facilities was cyclical.
One room in Ranui's dementia unit had been vacant for eight weeks.
