Yackandandah Health’s new double-storey building has 16 residential aged care rooms upstairs and 10 apartments for individuals or couples below.

The development is stage one of the health service’s move towards intergenerational care, with future plans including a childcare centre on site and a Care Sanctuary connecting people with animals and the land.

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Yackandandah Health chief executive Annette Nuck said the new living spaces, due to be occupied in late November, would offer more flexibility for residents.

“It’s very much set up like a home,” she said.

“There’s no set time for breakfast, have breakfast when you get up and want it.

“We want to hand back to people the control over their day to day life, so we want them to have a real say in how they spend the day.”

Yackandandah Health board member Tricia Glass, whose mother is one of 67 present residents and whose two aunts will soon move in, said she was thrilled by the building’s completion.

“This is just such a new concept,” she said.

“It’s coming home, really, within a home.

“We’ve set it up so that they have all those views of the hills and the things that they’re familiar with that sometimes are taken away from them when they move into an aged care facility.”

Designed by JWP Architects, of Wodonga, the housing has been built by Joss Construction.

The official opening will take place during a community celebration where guests include author Jackie French and Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis.

Ms Nuck said planning to meet the changing demands for aged and health care began three years ago.

Projects like the childcare centre encouraged greater integration between Yackandandah Health residents and the wider community.

“The interactions start to become spontaneous interactions, that the people who live with us can instigate as opposed to us setting things up,” she said.

The Care Sanctuary, which gained funding under the Victorian Government’s Pick My Project scheme, recognised many residents came from farming backgrounds.

“They like to hear cows in the morning, they’re used to going milking cows, collecting the eggs and everything,” the chief executive said.

“We’re just handing them back their life, basically, and doing it in a way that will benefit people who live here as well as people who don’t.”

She said while trained staff would continue to assist with any medical issues, “it’s not an illness to be old, it’s a stage of life”.