GemLife is set to reshape Australia’s land lease housing sector with the launch of the country’s first vertical lifestyle resort, a project that promises to fundamentally alter where and how age-restricted communities can be built.
The company has secured a 20-year patent over a new modular multi-storey construction methodology specifically engineered to meet the legal requirements of the land lease model, which demands that residential dwellings remain moveable.
External works on the flagship development, GemLife Currumbin Waters, are scheduled to begin mid-year, with market launch and residential construction anticipated to follow in late 2026.
The 215-apartment project, approved in late 2024, sits on a 13.854-hectare site on Galleon Way at Currumbin Waters on the Gold Coast.
Designed in collaboration with Brisbane-based MAS Architecture, the project comprises nine individual buildings: a four-level structure, seven three-level buildings and a separate country club.
Final design enhancements are currently before Gold Coast City Council.
A notable 70 per cent of the site, including a 7.7-hectare parcel to be handed to Council as protected public open space, will be preserved and rehabilitated as green open space.
The project’s significance lies not in its scale but in the technical breakthrough it represents.
Land lease communities (a model in which residents over 50 own their dwelling but lease the land through a weekly site fee covering maintenance, management and security) have historically been confined to large broadacre greenfield sites of at least 15 hectares.
The new patented methodology changes that equation dramatically, with apartment developments requiring as little as four hectares and capable of being constructed on contoured or otherwise challenging terrain.
GemLife Managing Director and Group CEO Adrian Puljich said the innovation was the product of more than a decade of research and development, driven by the legal requirement that apartments in a vertical land lease community must be moveable.
The solution arrived at is a modular construction system in which each apartment (up to 200 square metres with three bedrooms) is built and, if necessary, deconstructed in multiple modules.
The building structure and shared amenities are permanent, but the apartments themselves are designed for removal.
The facade is engineered for disassembly, allowing modules to be extracted in the reverse order of installation.
While the Currumbin Waters apartments will be constructed on-site, Puljich said the methodology had the potential to migrate to factory-based fabrication as the technology scales, delivering further efficiency gains.
The design nonetheless commits to premium architectural finishes and a built form comparable to traditional residential development.
The project pipeline already extends beyond the flagship site.
GemLife is preparing to lodge a development application for more than 500 apartments on a second Gold Coast location within six months, with separate sites under investigation where in excess of 1,000 apartments could ultimately be delivered.
