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Residents urge caution as assisted-living conditional use is moved to City Council
Summary
The Building & Building Codes Committee voted June 16 to forward conditional-use item 26-108 for an assisted-living facility to City Council on July 7, after residents pressed for more discussion and the developer requested postponement pending a community meeting.
Chair Kaylee Green moved the committee to forward ordinance 26-108 — an application for an assisted-living conditional use — to City Council to allow a developer-hosted meeting with nearby residents before the full council votes.
Helen Dunlap, Clerk of Council, read a June 9 letter from developer Darrin Jolis of Vermilion Development asking the city to "postpone the hearing for the above conditional use permit ... to allow sufficient time for the applicant to hold a community meeting as discussed at the Planning Commission hearing." The developer told the committee he plans a meeting the week of June 22 and residents later said a meeting is tentatively scheduled for June 24.
The committee heard more than a dozen residents oppose moving the project forward without additional local input and without changes to the developer’s proposed design. Resident James Moroney said developer representatives have told neighbors, in his words, "this is the building they know" and that they “are not going to change it.” Moroney and other speakers said construction will remove substantial vegetation and portions of a buffer and swale that currently separate homes from the site.
Several residents also raised public-safety concerns. Eric Edwards, a nearby resident, said a three-story building with an elevator and no on-site generator would create risks during power outages and would increase demands on emergency medical services. James Moroney told the committee he reviewed records and calculated that 59% of emergency calls overlap and estimated the facility could generate roughly 160 to 200 additional calls annually, a number residents said could stretch local services.
Multiple speakers asked that council protect neighborhood character and property values and urged elected officials to press the developer for meaningful concessions on building scale, buffering and traffic. Several residents said they have been attending Planning Commission and committee meetings on the project since February.
Committee members emphasized that tabling the vote is separate from discussing the project: moving the item to council will place it on second reading and allow the developer and directly affected neighbors to hold the planned meeting before a final council decision. The committee voted 3-0 (Green, Coleman, Gorjanc) to forward the item to City Council for consideration at its July 7 meeting.
The action to move 26-108 does not change the Planning Commission record or the conditional-use record; it schedules the ordinance for further consideration by the full council. The meeting scheduled between the developer and residents is intended to give neighbors an opportunity to attempt to reconcile outstanding concerns before the July 7 council vote.
