Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

2025. The meeting is called to order. Miss miss Fulbright, can you please call the roll?

Commissioner Rose? Here. Commissioner Nasekis?

Here.

Commissioner Dickman?

Here.

Commissioner Curtis? Here. Commissioner Covington? Here. Commissioner Brown?

Here.

And chair Georgeelos? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you so much. So it is 6PM. We're right on the dot this evening. And this evening, the notice is given that members of the planning commission are all attending in person tonight, so we're not on Zoom, but there may be others attending electronically. The commission may go into executive session at one or more times during the meeting as needed to confer with the town's attorney for legal advice.

Tonight, we have only a couple of issues on the calendar. The first is the approval or amendment of minutes, and that is item 25 dash two five five. And we also have a study session item and citizen review, and that's 25 dash two four six, citizen review session and discussion on proposed amendments to article 17 assisted living home of the zoning ordinance. And so those are the matters. I unless other I hear otherwise, I think we should just take them in order.

So the the first issue is the approval of minutes the approval or amendment of minutes, item 25 dash two five five, and those are the minutes for the 11/04/2025 Planning Commission meeting. Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Commissioner Brown, do I ask

Commissioner Nasekez seconds.

Okay. Thank you, commissioner Nasekez. I've heard the second. Do we have any discussion? Hearing no discussion, we can go ahead and vote on this. All in favor?

Aye. All opposed?

The motion carries unanimously. So the next item on our agenda is 25 dash two forty six, our citizen review session and discussion on proposed amendments to Article 17, assisted living home and zoning ordinance. Staff?

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, chair, members of the commission, and those in attendance. So Paul Michaud, planning manager. I'll give the presentation.

So as noted, this is a citizen review work session, so this is an opportunity for the public to provide comment to the planning commission. It's one of many steps, so this is the very first step in a text amendment process to our zoning ordinance. After this, the planning commission does have a scheduled public hearing, which has been advertised for their December 2 meeting, which will again will have opportunity for commission discussion, resident public input, and then their your recommendation to the town council. Town council is scheduled to hear this in their their January meeting schedule. With that, this was discussed to move forward back in September.

And it's part of a larger process that we're doing, which some of you here are probably familiar with. We're looking at reorganizing our whole town code. We're also looking at different aspects that don't meet state statute. At your last meeting, if you recall, we were looking at the Plat changes. So this is just part of a larger picture of things. So this we're taking this one item tonight. It's an assisted living home. So there are varying types of living options for people requiring us assistance. You know, our town predominantly is just residential. We do have some nonresidential, which is in our special use permit zoning districts for very specific nonresidential uses.

So essentially, we're we're limited to the residential type of districts. Assisted living homes are regulated in both federal and state regulations besides just the town's regulations, and we really just mirror those regulations as essentially what we do here at the town. The sections in our code that apply are Article II, which is our definition section, and then Article 17, which is what is proposed for change in front of you and for discussion. And that both those sections in our code on assisted living home really were changed and started in 2005. We took what was at the state statute level and we adopted it and put it into our code, and we really haven't looked at it since then.

So, as I mentioned, the process there's a more robust review process in for an amendment to the zoning ordinance than the than if it was something that was in our town code itself. Again, this is for resident input, which was required in our code to do citizen review. And then as I mentioned, you'll make a recommendation to the council, and then it'll go for council review and action. There's no specific deadline to make this particular amendment, unlike the plat one we discussed previously, which did have a deadline on it, just for your information. So this is article or a section from state statutes thirty six five eight two, which is really where most of this language is coming from.

I know you probably can't read this stuff in there. It's all in your packet. But subsection eight is the section that talks about occupancy, and this is the section that's talking about which we're proposing for changes to the limit to the six residents with staff and operator eight total. Subsections B through G are really just all things that state that you have to treat these as any other single family home when you for safety, setbacks, things of that nature. You can't treat them differently.

Subsection H is the separation requirement. I, K, and L are all Department of Health requirements and noticing. And then J is talking about facilities of seven or more, which is not applicable to the town. Then state statute forty one fourteen ninety one comes in. That's really talking about disability where it limits one of a major life activity and excluding drug use.

And that's important because in our definition of Article two, we reference this statute. So article two is the definition that we have in our code. We're not proposing any changes to that definition. It does require home, to be for the disabled. If it's not that, we have a reasonable accommodation process, and we've attached that to your background material, and none of that information is changing for reasonable accommodation. And then Article 17 is the current code, which is for assisted living, and the subsections here. Subsection A is our separation requirement, which require a quarter mile separation between these facilities. We have occupancy limits, which right now are 10. C is that licenses are required. D, that there's a town review process.

E references the applicable codes. F talks about compatibility with the surrounding area. And then G talks about parking requirements, which again is there's a proposed change to make all parking on-site. Right now, it just talks about staff. So the typical application process for these assisted living homes, typically an applicant would contact the community development department.

Remember, we're made up of planning, engineering, and building. We generally emphasize that these need to comply with federal, state, town, and homeowner association rules to encourage the submittal of pre application. Most of our applications do require pre application, but in this instance, this is really a business license process, so we don't. We generally like to have that so we can put it on our map, so we know something's coming. So if someone else comes and talks to us as staff, we can let someone know someone is looking to pursue an assisted living home.

And at that time, we typically are checking that quarter mile distance. And then we may include a zoning letter, which just talks about these references of these sections if the individual wants that. Also, what would happen, the owner or applicant would submit building permits. Sometimes they're knocking the house down, building a new one. Sometimes it's just a remodel. They are required to have fire sprinklers as any of our single family homes if some of the older ones don't. And those are the sort of things that we'd be looking at in in that stage. And then they have to do all their state department, health department process. And once they get all that sort of done, then they come to us back to us for a business license. And that's essentially the the process that these things go through.

So the draft ordinance, again, the approach was to align with the current state of Arizona legislation. And there's only really three changes that are being proposed. So the first regards the occupancy changing from the 10, not including staff to match the state statute of six, including operators and staff not to exceed eight people, and then to modify the parking, to be all on-site. And then there's just a correction to the planning department director. That person's called the community development director.

And then we have received comments. You had one in your packet we've received before the packet went out. And so anyone in the audience, I mean, since this has had multiple process steps, anytime you submit anything in writing to us or contact us us, we'll put that into the packet if we have time to put it into the packet of material. So we did get a call, from an individual yesterday that our community development director spoke to who owns, or manages three of these facilities in town, and he can certainly expand on on the comments from that individual since I wasn't, in that call. We also had an email from a spouse of a resident of a home, which you have at your desk.

That came in today, so that will be in the packet for the next time, but you do have it at your at your desk. And then the one that we have in the packet is from an an owner of the one on Hummingbird. And I mentioned this in the staff report, and some of points that this individual had was regarding upcoming meeting dates, if the homes can remain in operation, which was discussed that there is allowance to do that. Typically, when you change a code, anything that's existing will stay in place until it generally goes away. There's a concern that a limit of six residents would make operating these homes economically unfeasible.

There was to understand the deadlines for when assisting home regulations would take effect, ordinances take effect thirty days after adoption. And then what action would be needed to secure compliance before any new regulations go into effect. We'd either need an active business license or they would have to have a building permit in process. We do have one building permit in process for a home that's under construction, so that home would still fall under the old rules in that instance. And with that, that's there's not much to this from a tech standpoint. As I mentioned, your hearing on this is for December 2. That has been advertised and set for council discussion on the January 8 and for their hearing tentatively for January 22.

Thank you, mister Michaud. So as mister Michaud stated, this is a citizen review session primarily, and I see a lot of people out in the audience, and we we welcome, the opportunity to hear from you. I have two speaker forms here right now, and I would welcome if other people want to be heard this evening to go ahead and and fill out forms, and and we'll take you one at a time.

Madam chairman, would you entertain some discussion among planning commission first?

I think we can, but I think I'd rather get to the citizen review portion of it first and have people give us comments unless, you know, unless everyone wants to have discussion first, we we will also have an opportunity to discuss. But I think the primary objective here is to to have all these people who are sitting in the audience give us their their point of view.

My concern was really a process question that this already went to the town council and they already acted not in a final version, but they the town council actually changed the limit of 10 to six. And I went back and looked at the town council minutes and it was unclear how how robust that discussion was. But normally, we would review stuff and it would go with the recommendation to the council for final. But somehow this went to council first and now it's coming to us. And the council's already changed that, so I I I'm expecting a lot of robust discussion around this moving from ten to six from the public.

I I don't know that, but based on some discussions I've had with people prior to the meeting, that's what I'm hearing. So I wasn't sure where to go with that because town council's already indicated that's what they want.

Please.

Chairman, members of the commission, you're right, the town council had an opportunity to talk with staff to say, I I wouldn't say they've decided that, they've said, we would like to proceed with the process to determine whether we want to do that. And there is a perspective that if if it's feasible, they would like to do it. But the process that's set out in the state law is that it comes to the planning and our code actually, it comes to the planning commission, and you will make a recommendation to them about how how to proceed on on this

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but that's not what happened. They they went to the council and there was discussion and they they voted on that particular issue. I don't I don't think I've got anything got finally approved, but why did that not come to us first for discussion and then a rec recommendation isn't a normal, point of order?

I can't answer that exactly. I wasn't part of the discussion about the process, but they have not adopted an ordinance. They have not changed our code. Their vote, if you will, was to say, in my opinion, let's proceed with the process for this, and we're we're inclined and would look to it favorably. But the process is for the citizens to be able to give input, you would hear it, and then make a recommendation.

So it was that a statement of direction from the council to the planning commission?

Well, we this is before us. This is on our calendar today to review this issue and to take and to take comment from the public, and that's where we sit right now. I have not heard anything different. We've heard from the staff that we are supposed to consider this and get comments from from the public. So that is how we are going to proceed this evening.

But and just in terms of responding to the public, was that a statement of direction from the actual town council?

It is honor. Very comfortably,

we get statements of direction.

And Cher, I guess, on text amendments, since it's not coming from the public, anytime there's a text amendment, it it it generally comes from the council to say, council's direct staff then to move forward with this consideration of a text amendment, regardless of what the text amendment is. And that's that's what this is. So they're basically council discussed it among many other things and said, yes, this is something that could be considered as a text amendment. Go ahead and make forth with the process as our town attorney was stating. So they weren't saying we're we've definitely done it. They're just really giving us direction because it's the only way we could do it without some applicants saying do this text amendment. The council is directing staff to move forward with it to then bring it the commission through the process.

But when I looked at the minutes from the town council, there was a lot of discussion on this point.

Yeah. I think there was discussion that they agreed to move it forward. I mean I mean at the end of the day, they don't make their final decision until it goes to their hearing which will be in January.

So Well, just to clarify, there has been no hearing by

the

town council

That's correct.

On this matter. There may have been a discussion about whether or not this is something that we should be considering moving forward. As a result, it is before us in the planning commission, and at this point in time, we will move forward with public comment. And I do have I have two okay. So if there are other people who would like to speak, please fill out the forms. I believe there are some forms on the podium. Is that correct, miss Fulbright?

That's right.

Okay. The the first name that I have here is Scott O'Connor. Mister O'Connor, would you come forward?

Can we have you come up to the microphone, please?

I'm I'm happy to speak, but I'm here without understanding why we're here, why the council, you know, decided to issue a statement of direction of some sort. Has there been one complaint, a thousand complaints? What's really going on? Why are we even discussing this? You know, I have my opinion, but before I embarrass myself, you know, not knowing that this is a huge problem, why are we here? Can someone address that?

Mister Michel, I believe you addressed this in your in your presentation that that this is as a result of statutory changes, and we're considering whether or not that's something that we would like to have in our town as well. Did I misunderstand?

That's correct. Maybe I missed it. So so this option of capping it at six is a new twist in the state code or federal law?

In the state statute.

Okay. And it allows each jurisdiction to pick whether they wanna go to the new limit of six or stay at ten?

Well, I I mean, there there is always the the ability for for the state to to to preempt. But I think in this instance, the idea is that we have our own zoning code zoning ordinance, and there we're considering in which direction to go, and that's why we're looking for

public comments. Brand new choice. We didn't have this choice before.

That's We

were stuck with a cap of 10. If somebody wanted to do 10, they had the right to do 10. Correct?

That's what our that's what our zoning ordinance said.

Yeah.

Well, and at the at the state at the Paradise Valley level in its zoning ordinance, it was a it was capped at 10. At this point, there is at the state legislature, they changed the statute in terms of number of facilities. So we're considering how we should address that in our zoning ordinance.

Okay. So that introduces a whole new topic, the number of facilities, and maybe misstated that number of residents. It was the reason for the new statutory twist trying to cap the number of

these facilities?

If I could get some correction or clarification from the staff on this.

I think she she said facilities and meant residents.

I meant residents.

I'm sorry.

Was That was going off in a new

That was me misspeaking. I apologize. So if you could please if you have a comment, Remark to please

my opinion. So both my parents are deceased. Both went through Alzheimer's. My father went to one place that is regarded nationally as a model for Alzheimer's patients. It's 48 beds divided up into four cottages of 12, and you're assessed when you move in, and they slot you into the cottage where your stage of progression is most like the other residents in that cottage.

So when dad moved in, he was in the most high functioning group, and he worked his way through the four cottages and died on-site almost three years later. So we had experience with that, owned and operated by Dignity Healthcare, absolute top level execution, and amazingly at the time, the least expensive option we found, including projects in the town that were operating in 2006 when we made that decision. We toured a bunch of them and opted to go to this other place. So we had experience with that model. My about ten years later, my mom needed to go to assisted living, and we started off at the biggest, the terraces campus that had different options of various kinds.

And then, when they tried to, in our opinion, prematurely put her into the lower functioning group, where the social activity was minimal and they were just parked in recliners in front of the TV all day and we thought she needed more socialization, we opted to go to another large facility where there was a large enough population that she could communicate and enjoy social companionship with those other residents. And we felt that there were downsides to the big facilities that in our case were offset because we thought mom could still function in a social environment, and we wanted to encourage that as long as she could so that she could enjoy her life more. Eventually, as that declined, we moved to the first of the 10 unit group homes. That one was in the city of Phoenix, and that one, as can happen with all very small businesses, the management kind of went south on us, food got crummy, management got crummy, and we discovered one of the ones in the town. The owner of that one is here tonight, and moved to that facility, which of all the places we had gone through, was the closest to our home in Paradise Valley.

I moved to the town when I was less than a year old. I still live here at a brief sojourn in Scottsdale, but otherwise, I've lived at five different homes in Paradise Valley during my life. And really appreciated that we had an option to do this in the town for aging in place. We were kind of surprised when we raised our kids here, that unlike when I was a kid, the population of children in the town is a lot lower than it was when I was growing up. And I think we have a lot of upward trending in the average age of our population, so we're gonna see more and more demand for this service, not less.

And I I don't see the point of kneecapping it from ten to six when it when that's only gonna drive the the rental rate up through the roof for those who wanna have something that we found really convenient of having the facility right in our own

town. Okay.

I I a 100% appreciate setting up in the zoning code rules on how you address the parking and, you know, how many people can be there at the time. I don't think people should be ticketed if there's maybe a birthday party someday, and some of the guests arrive and park in the street rather than on-site. I see the potential for complaints of that nature turning a, you know, little thing into a big issue that doesn't need to be a big issue. But I I really think that the demand for this is only growing, and the operating economics have to make sense for the operators and the residents who'll be there. If you go too small, then you have issues of will it be understaffed?

Where people are trying to force the economics to work by understaffing it and putting the residents at risk. I don't know if you've heard that, but that would be my concern.

Okay. Thank you, mister O'Connor.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Becky Brimhall.

Thank you, madam chair and commissioner. I do wanna thank you. I'm gonna talk about not statistics because you already are gonna get that the rest of the day. I'm talking as a private fiduciary. And I have some of my wards that are deemed incapacitated by the state of Arizona in these facilities. One resident wanted to come today and share with you. She was the last one to come into one of the facilities. And she wants to know, for you guys, where is she gonna go if you make it six? She was kidnapped. We brought her back.

We were had another one that we had to work with the FBI. Where is she gonna go? So I think we want to keep these homes here. They don't make noise. There's plenty of parking. They're on one acre. My family has been in Paradise Valley for over thirty five years, and they still remain in Paradise Valley. I wanna make sure that the residents I work for are definitely fought for. Their rights are protected, placements protected, and I'm telling you, these group homes are way cheaper than larger facilities, even going to Scottsdale. I'm telling you, these residents have a right to live somewhere safe, comfortable with the view of Camelback.

I want to make sure that you guys hear that because aging in place is very important. Birthday parties like mister Olsen just said, you know, they have it at two or 03:00 in the morning or two or 03:00 in

the afternoon.

So after six or 07:00 at night, there's people all over the neighborhood that are average in Paradise Valley or over 50 years old. The wealth in Paradise Valley is still gonna be here. So why are we talking about regulations statutes that are over 20 years old? We should be talking about beds that are 10 beds. How can we sit here and have sustainability for this town to continue to grow? You don't have school districts and stuff in here, you have resorts, you have big homes, you have big money coming in. Why can't we talk about 10 bed facilities? We have them now. We only have 16 facilities here. That's my question to all of you tonight.

If you have parents and you have a parent in a group home and you have to move your parent out, I want you to think long and hard on that tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Brandon Leipster.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the proposal to reduce the number of beds in Paradise Valley from 10 to six. While the stated concerns about parking and noise are valid topics, I urge you to keep the home in its full 10 bed capacity for the health of our seniors and the sustainability of our vital local care. First, multiple studies have found that these small care homes operate with lower parking and noise impact than than the equivalent residential properties. Residents are typically seniors, many of whom do not drive, while staff come in shifts rather than all at once. Traffic is actually less than what you'd see in household with working adults or teens.

And noise complaints from seniors homes are rare, making them among the quietest quietest neighbors you can have. From a financial perspective, research shows that decreasing a residential facility's capacity makes it difficult to stay open. Fixed costs for care, things like staffing, licensing, utilities, and insurance remain the same whether the home is six or 10 residents, but the revenue is much lower if capacity is cut. Many reliable studies and surveys find that smaller facilities struggle to cover their costs and are at higher risk of closure or lower quality care. Organizations such as the American health care association predict that further reducing these numbers would mean fewer opportunities for local seniors and could force facilities shut down, hurts both employees, families, and your community.

If these homes become financially unsustainable and closed, it jeopardizes the safety and well-being of our community seniors. The alternative is often aging in place without appropriate support, which increases health risks and puts pressures on families ill equipped for complex caregiving needs. National trends show care options are already shrinking, making every remaining bed very important for the future. Finally, assisted living facilities provide more than just a roof and a meal. They support autonomy, dignity, and a less institutional lifestyle for older adults compared to new nursing homes.

Reducing capacity now not only hurts our most vulnerable neighbors, it also undermines the stability of our community based care, which is shown to improve outcomes and satisfaction. For all these reasons, minimal impact on parking and noise, clear evidence of financial viability, and major risks for the community if close if homes close. I strongly urge you to maintain the 10 beds in the Paradise Valley homes. Let's keep supporting our local seniors with quality care that they deserve. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Jennifer Wasserman. Good evening. Good evening.

Thank you all for giving me some time to speak on behalf of the Arizona Assisted Living Homes Association. I'm a member of the public policy committee of that association, which represents approximately 1,800 assisted living licensed assisted living homes in the state of Arizona. And so our focus is on those homes that are 10 beds or less, non institutional settings. And so we have a couple members of our organization who are who would be affected by a change to the existing Paradise Valley ordinance. And so I'm here to address that and also, shed some light onto some of the statistics that we gathered and to share with you that according to my information, Paradise Valley has roughly 12,500 residents, give or take.

I'm I'm not quoting exact numbers. And about a little over 30% of whom are aged 65 and older. And of those who need or live in assisted living homes, approximately thirteen percent are 65 to 74, 31% are 75 to 84, and 50% are 85. And I would dare say that a good amount of the existing Paradise Valley demographics are inching toward that 85, age group. There are 16, as you heard, 10 licensed by the state 10 bed homes in Paradise Valley.

Those are allowed under your existing ordinances, And the existing ordinance does provide for provisions, that's such as, the how home shall not house any persons whose tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of any other individuals. All parking, by staff shall be on-site, etcetera. So you've already taken some precautions and some measures into effect and that these houses shall be bound by the current ordinances in effect in Paradise Valley. In addition, the state has a whole lot of regulations as some of these owners know, a whole lot of regulations that pertain to certified staffing, you know, the proprietary of, or scope of services and and and care that's provided with activities of daily living in these homes. Social settings are very important.

And part of the reason why people move into these homes is because they are home like, but they're also they provide for interaction, whereas housing in you know, aging in place is important, but sometimes that leads to isolation, which is not always good for the individual's health and also for safety if someone falls and there's no one around to call for help. So it is an attribute to the community and we want you to realize that this is actually an attribute protected by the ADA and the Fair Housing Act and to change the regulation to restrict that to buy 40% of the current allowance is gonna be a wrong choice. Do you have any questions?

Well, I think we'll go ahead and take comment and and then proceed to to to discuss around the question. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jody Riser? Yeah. Hi, Jody.

My husband and I are we've been living here in Paradise Valley for thirty years. I'm a neurologist. My husband is an internist. We have had our parents in Gene's houses. My father-in-law was in there. He passed at 95. He was there for five years. My father's there now, and he's 87. He's been there for three years. The reason they go into these houses and I've actually put some of my patients in Jean's house is because I know what kind of care she gives, and it's excellent.

When people get to their health deteriorates and they can't stay home any longer, it's they tend to deteriorate even quicker because they fall and they can't take care of themselves. Or like my dad, he's cognitively impaired. He can't stay there anymore because he couldn't use the phone anymore. He couldn't make meals. And we had in home care for him, but it was just too, too expensive for 20 fourseven.

So now he's at Jeans, I feel comfortable. He's a mile away from me. My father-in-law was five houses down from me. If you have a problem with the parking there, you have to remember, those are physical therapists, those are hospice workers, those are me and my husband going to visit my parents. So if you really care about the car issue, the traffic issue, I have videos of ten and twelve Waymo's going down my street behind me as I walk my dogs.

I also if you're worried about the noise, there's the Airbnb on Praying Monk right behind the Lincoln facility that hosts tailgates and has parties. There's also the the country club across the street from where I live that shoots off fireworks and blares their speakers at parties and weddings and on weekends, and I've put up with that for thirty years. These people don't even go outside. They don't make any noise that you hear. So I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Thank you. William Wiles.

Thank you. My comments will be pretty brief. I've only been involved with assisted living slash group homes for less than a month when I put my wife in a facility on Lincoln And 48th Street. I wasn't even aware there was a restriction from parking on the street there. There's not that much traffic that that should be a major issue, but maybe that is a Paradise Valley issue, and you don't permit parking on the street anywhere.

I don't know that. If I was an owner of a group home, I would immediately think you're trying to the people who put this on the docket, you're trying to drive me out of business because I can't survive with the kind of rate increase I would have to give to people like myself in order to maintain the same standard when I can only split that six ways instead of 10 ways. And and finally, this is what I'm saying. What is behind this? When the gentleman over there read off basically everything that we could see, there was no specific statement as to why this is even on your docket.

And I think you owe all of us in the room an answer to that question. Thank you.

Thank you. Richard Milley. Sad.

Again,

I'll be brief. Honestly, I don't really know why we're here to discuss this because, again, I haven't heard any reasons for is it parking? Is it noise? I haven't heard anything. So without responding, I can only talk to the fact that my mom was in one of Jean's homes for many years, and we were blessed to have her there.

The environment was amazing. We live locally, so we were within a mile from the house, and having that sense of community was really important. Plus having her in a home that was welcoming, open, social, the activities way different than, you know, these apartment, like, nursing home facilities. So all I can say is that, you know, this is it was an important addition to the community. I can't remember ever having to park on the street, maybe once during a a large event, but it was rare.

So I'm not again, is it the street parking? Is it the traffic? I'm not really sure what the concerns are. I can tell you that if the cost were to go up by 40%, or whatever it would take to compensate for having 10 people down to six would be almost impossible for a lot of people to afford something like this. So we are blessed to have this as an option and like to keep it going. So thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Michael Greenland?

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I wanna share one perspective that is often often overlooked in these discussions about reducing assisted living homes from 10 residents to six. During the height of COVID during the height of the COVID pandemic, my home had zero COVID cases, not one, and that outcome was not luck. It was the direct result of the small controlled highly supervised environment that boutique assisted living homes provide. I would like to ask a simple question.

How many lives were saved in small assisted living homes because residents were not in the large facilities where COVID spread rapidly? I do not know the exact number. None of us do. But what I do know is that even if one of those lives was your mother, your father, or someone you love, that number would suddenly feel very real. Before making a decision that reduces capacity from 10 residents to six, I ask that you consider the families who depend on these small homes for safety, stability, and dignity.

These are not abstract numbers. They are people's lives that may have literally been protected by having access to homes like these. I hope you will weigh not just the policy, but the human impact behind it. Thank you.

Thank you. Eric Riffer?

Ernie. Ernie. Ernie.

Ernie. I'm sorry. Ernie Riffer. I apologize. Hi. Hi. Thank you.

Yeah. I live on 48th Street. So I actually live on the street that Jean has one of her houses on. And my dad, when he got ill, it was great that we had somebody that basically we could just go right down and get he knew he was gonna get great care. And I'm not the only one because pretty much everybody who had their parents there had low were pretty much local. They're not coming from far away. They're local. It's nice you have such great care and it's near the house. So, if anything happens, I'm not running across town. And if you start going on six page people, people aren't gonna be able to afford it.

They're gonna go to cheaper places. And as a primary care physician, I know the places. This is a these guy high quality stuff, and at fairly reasonable prices that I don't think she could handle if she had all these people had to go from 10 to six. So I think pretty much you guys should kinda sit this one out if this is the worst thing you can come up with and you guys got too much free time on your hands. But but I've been on I've we've lived on 48th Street before Gene came.

We've been here just under thirty years. So, know when it first came, there was the only concern I heard from a couple of people was everybody was a couple people worried about their what an assisted living care facility would do to their property value. Was it? But that was I heard that but that was quickly that quickly ended because it turned out the answer was nothing because our property values have soared and nobody can I since I know all the people on the block, I've been there thirty years, I walked the dogs run into them? No one seems to have any problems with it and like I said, there's a whole bunch of people within a couple of miles that put their parents in with this.

In regards to the park in regards to the parking, the parking also is a non issue. You occasionally get one to two people, but I have a feeling that's pretty much the therapist not knowing when they come. Because pretty much, there's enough parking. All the employees park there, know how to park there. Pretty much all the, you know, we knew how park there. So, I think, you know, you occasionally get one or two, which from what we get is pretty insignificant. My wife can show you the pictures if you want. Neighborhood and street is bombarded by construction traffic all day long. So, we don't have an issue with parking from Jean or anybody else. All the ones is the house they're building.

We could the streets lined up, the street on both sides parking. She can show you a million parking. She could yeah. There are dumpsters on the ground, dirt on the ground. So, mean, that that's our issue, not not what what the assisted living care facility does. And also our issue for it was, know, for traffic and things is Waymo's. We were running into Waymo's

Missing the Internet.

Missing the running and trying to beat the light at Lincoln And Tatum, and we get ten, twelve Waymo's lining up up and down the street. It wasn't the it wasn't the parking for the assisted living facility.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Christine Hopper?

Evening. I wish I would have put my name in first now after hearing everybody so eloquently speak, but I I don't have the statistics. I don't live in the city, but my brother is five minutes away and that's why my father-in-law is at this facility here with Gene on the Camelback Residence. About three year ago three years ago, we took this on with his Alzheimer's kind of unexpectedly, drinking by a fire hose with my husband, his brother, and my sister-in-law. And he is a retired army veteran.

He is retired from the Arizona State Department of Education as an educator for twenty years here locally, as well as the extended family. We have roots in this state, in these local communities that are surrounding. If this goes into effect and my father-in-law has to move, I'm not even sure I can express the catastrophic effect it would have on not only myself and his two sons in our extended family, but himself. He doesn't have the capacity to understand that type of change, and that would drastically impact his health as we've already had to move him once about a year ago when we moved him with Gene when he needed the extended full time memory care and that was quite impactful at the time. So I would just, again, I know we've heard everybody's other things about stuff.

I haven't noticed anything when I am on-site as far as issues in the neighborhood. It's beautiful. It's quiet. I would move in there. But, again, I understand the you know, trying to follow certain ordinances with the state or other cities, but this is a very personal decision to a lot of us here that, again, is potentially catastrophic, and I'm unsure of where we would even go from that point if that took effect. So thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Did anyone else want to speak this evening? Hearing none, thank you so much. I we appreciate you coming in and taking your time to to express your sometimes very personal experiences relating to this matter. And we'll definitely take all of that into consideration as we consider our recommendation. Yes, sir?

I asked a question. Why is this

even on docket? I agree.

I we need to

know We didn't get an answer

to that from any

of you. No answer.

No. No answer. Why is it here?

Well, is commissioner Dickman. I'm I'm not defending why it's on the document, but just we got this from, the town council crew apparently acted on it and sent it down to us for comment. And there are proposed changes to the code. So there are legal requirements for the planning commission to review it, make and we are a recommending body back to the, back to the town council. And I I just wanted people in the public to know that my mother died of Alzheimer's, she's somebody who went through independent living and then assisted living in a full on nursing home.

So I know well the pain and the hardship that that causes for people who have dementia, Alzheimer's, or for that matter, any other disability and live. So I I I'm sort of astonished that we're even talking about reducing these down to six. I personally don't support throwing four people out of each of these homes at this point causing that level of disruption. And I'm not sure I understand the parking issue either. So my earlier comment when the meeting first started was to understand a process comment about kind of getting to what your point is, which is, was this driven by lots of complaints?

Are we having parking complaints? Are we was there a lot of noise complaints? I mean, was it what what drove this down to us? And I I even went back and looked at the town council meeting minutes in advance of this meeting to see if I could get some color. They weren't they weren't you know, they were there. You could look at them as well. They're online. So I I share your concern. I don't know where what I would feel differently if we had massive complaints in the town about, you know, these facilities or something that we, you know, we have to take some kind of action or

Okay.

Some kind of remediation. But I I'd like the background on that too. What what where is this similarly, I I share the concern. Where is this coming from? And to make a change where you're throwing four people out of these homes seems nuts to me. Nuts. I I don't I don't understand itself.

26 and you go to same kind of commission and use the same code twenty six years ago. That's what they're making us do.

I have a couple questions. Mister Michaud, what is the effect of the change? Is did I misunderstand? I mean, this would not affect any of the current residents. Is that correct?

I think our community director would like to answer that.

Okay.

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, thank you, chair. It's not as clear as we would like, and our attorney might be ready to chime in too. So to clarify as much as I can, you know, we don't have insight into all the thought processes of all our various elected point officials at any one time. The body, the council asked staff to bring forward an analysis of what could be done, what options were available from the state relative to these types of facilities.

So we did that, and we brought them something that said we have 10 allowed now. Mhmm. The state law would allow us to go to six. And so they said we would like you to offer language and put it through a process for our consideration. So I can't I don't think anyone can speak to other than individual council members about whether they think they will or think they won't or they're waiting for the process to play out to hear from folks as to to what impacts it has or does not have.

Well, assume fairly sterile view because I I would just comment that changing requirements on what is a very fragile population is a very big deal to me. I don't have anybody in this room.

I don't I don't I'm not gonna get into the personal aspects. I'm I'm as a staff person, I'm I'm I'm working the process here. The council may feel, especially hearing these stories, the way you do. I wanna be clear, in in the way we wrote the report, it's obvious. Staff's thought process at the time we wrote this report was that this would impact future homes, not current homes. In talking to the staff here, I think we need to be a little careful because technically the council probably has the option to try and go either way. There are different impacts, obviously, depending on which way you go. So I can't sit here now and tell you for certain that is their intent. That is the way we wrote the report. You can look at the document and see that this is

intended when we wrote it up

to move forward with new homes that would come into Paradise Valley.

Yes. We're having the meeting recording and when you guys are speaking from the gallery, it's not being recorded. So I'm just going to ask if anyone has something to say, will you please come up and stand at the microphone and wait your turn and speak so that we can get a record of the meeting?

I just

wanna comment on that because if you change it from ten to six, even on stuff going forward, what we heard is it's not a it's not an economically viable model. So basically, you're saying we basically have capped a number at where we are because it's not practical that anybody would open one for six. I don't I haven't looked at the math. I mean, I have financial background, but I know, I'm I'm not an expert in this area at all. But assuming what I take everybody's word for people who said, like, you know, if you increase the rates 40%, nobody could afford it or it'd be very challenging.

So I'm just and we do have some the reason why we put in place this, quarter mile rule was so that we didn't have neighborhoods just become totally, you know, assisted living homes, you know, like where you have the all the whole neighborhood, whole block and so on. We we already have rules in place to prevent that. So I I

I think it's very

call it out what it is. You're capping it at some level, and and there's a need.

I think it's very illuminating that we had 16 people or so come and speak, you know, against this policy and we didn't hear from one person, you know, coming that was in favor of it. So to me, it does seem like it's a solution searching for a problem.

Who wants to ban birthday parties for, you know, people that are elderly living in an assisted home? They can't park on the street for a birthday party. That seems a little nutty too unless there's some massive issue. I'd I'd like to see the data around that.

Along those lines, if the staff could provide to the commission, evidence of of issues with with parking or traffic or noise complaints. Complaints around those issues so we have an understanding as to what's happened in the past and if there have been any reports relating to that and assisted care facilities for our hearing to the extent that we have that information.

Yes. We provide what we have for the next meeting. Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

If I can add to my earlier remarks. Sometimes government, thinks that, oh, well, we can make a little adjustment here or there, and and that'll be really benign, and everything will be fine. So I get the sense that this, in effect, grandfathering of the existing 10 resident properties sort of mitigates the negative impact here. And I would argue that it doesn't because this is this is a supply and demand market provided service. And what that would do is basically limit the supply of the economically feasible 10 resident properties, drive the price up on those when those operators decide to sell, which would then drive the rents up even on the 10 resident ones.

And so this is one of those cases where there are unintended consequences that are probably easy to predict following that change.

Thank you.

I just for the record, I agree with you on that.

Did you fill out a No. I didn't. I just wanted to comment as to them referencing the grandfathering of the existing Can you please state your name? Yeah. Amy McElroy. I am the president of Arizona Assisted Living Homes Association. And they did mention the grandfathering of the existing homes that carry the 10 residents. But if there's a change of ownership, our concern is does it automatically fall back to that six residents if that's the new the new law? Or will there be a variance that allows the current 10 bed homes to operate moving forward as 10 beds? So that's my comment. Thank you. I appreciate it.

I I think the bigger issue is we should just call the South for what it is, which would be putting a cap on the number of facilities that we have in the town. I think you correctly summarized that from what I understand. I'm not sure that that was based on the minutes that were what I reviewed of the town council discussion. That was even entertained in any way. It's hard to glean from that.

I don't believe that's part of the statute, so it would be an interesting thing to get done.

Yeah. I don't I didn't I didn't you know, again, we weren't in that meeting, so I'm just trying to grasp what what how robust that discussion was.

Okay. Any other thoughts from commissioners?

I would just like to applaud the process because we're here tonight to to hear from you, and that's I appreciate all your comments. I had a mother and father who were in the same position that a lot of your parents have been. So I appreciate your comments tonight and coming here to give us your ideas.

Anyone else? If you could come up and I'm sorry. Come up come up to the microphone and Thank state your you.

Bill Wiles. I think there's a real misunderstanding in the general public about the difference between assisted living and a group home. We're talking about group homes. We're not talking about assisted living facility of 40 some, 50 some people. And that should have a real impact because most of you setting up there, if you don't have a personal experience with someone that has Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia, you will. So just keep that in mind as well. Thank you.

Thank you. We appreciate your your statements. And we really do appreciate you all taking your time out and giving us your very heartfelt, in many instances, thoughts and and your very realistic thoughts about this issue and whether or not this change should be made. And and that is the point of us being here today. There I mean, there is no decision that's been made, and we will not be making a decision.

We will be making a recommendation to to the town council who will then make a decision. And so, you know, in terms of the hearing, the hearing is is scheduled as mister Michelle said.

December 2 for commission for recommendation.

Mhmm. So we we will have a hearing on December 2. And at that point, we can take additional additional statements from the public because that is that's the point of the hearing. And I appreciate you coming today. And if you wanna come back on December 2, I would welcome you to

come Thank you all for coming.

Alright. Well, thank you.

You did a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. So moving on with our agenda this evening. We have no public hearings. We have no action items.

Staff reports, please?

Yes. Chair, commissioners, just a reminder that we do have our town holiday event coming up. So if you haven't signed up to make sure you do so. And secondly, I know that there was a question or from commissioner Rose regarding the New Kimpton and I guess some article regarding some term with residences in it. I think that's just flowery language you're using because as you are aware, we didn't approve any sort of private residences. They have just existing villas and spa villas that they're gonna they're gonna be putting. There is definitely no for sale product at that site.

Thank you. I I I just noted that in the article, the Independent, and Yeah. It did say villas and residences to open in 2026.

Not sure where they're getting that terminology, but I'm sure they're just referencing the villas and things of that nature that are there.

Thank you for the Sure. Update.

Mhmm.

Thank you, mister Michaud. Public body reports. Anyone have anything to report? No. Hearing none. Future agenda items.

Yes. Thank you, chair, commissioners. As we mentioned, your next meeting is December 2, and it's the public hearing on the item that we just discussed.

Okay. Thank you so much. And do I hear a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Thank you, commissioner Dickman. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Thank you so much. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

All opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries and the meeting is adjourned.