Memory Care Facility Moves Forward

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Last week, the Oro Valley Town Council unanimously approved a conditional use permit ("CUP") for a memory care facility to be built at Oracle and Desert Sky.  The facility will house elderly patients who suffer dementia.  It is an assisted living facility.  There is no designation for this type of facility in the Oro Valley code. Rather, the CUP was approved as a "skilled nursing facility" because, as town engineer David Williams noted: 'It looks like one from the outside."

 John Musolf, Oro Valley resident, had previously pointed out to council that is was anything but a skilled nursing facility.  He did it once again last week.

Resident Bill Adler observed that memory care is assisted living and that Oro Valley does not have assisted living in the code.

There is nothing in the Oro Valley codes that would approve a CUP for either a memory care facility or an assisted living facility because neither is defined in the Oro Valley code.  As Bill noted, these categories have been ignored in the past.  Adler notes that it is important for the code to be fixed so that: "When people want to apply for a use in Oro Valley...they know that Oro Valley knows what they are talking about. In this particular case, it is clear that theres' a gap."

The only item that the council discussed was the removal of an adjacent existing abutting wall.  The council amended the CUP to provide that this will be removed pending a letter from the abutting home onwers association that the developer be released from liability from doing such.
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