Planners OK Alzheimer's Facility

The Los Gatos Planning Commission favored Wednesday evening The Terraces of Los Gatos senior care facility's expansion that calls for a new building that will house a memory care facility and 10 assisted-living units.

The Commission voted 6-0, with Commissioner Thomas O’Donnell abstaining due to his involvement as a trustee on The Terraces board, to allow property owner American Baptist Homes of the West, or ABHOW to add a 23,000-square-foot, two-story building that will have 26 senior units—10 assisted-living and 16 so-called memory care dwellings.

The project's applicant is Dan Schneider, with Boulder Associates Architects. 

The building will be located at the southwest corner of Blossom Hill Road and Cherry Blossom Lane, next to The Terraces.

The senior-care facility currently includes 18 buildings that house 175 independent-living units, 59 skilled-nursing units and 35 assisted-living units. Twenty nine of the independent-living units are below market price units, according to a staff report.

The building, which will be erected at the southwest corner of The Terraces, will be 35 feet tall, the same height of the adjacent facility and is not expected to generate traffic since its residents won't drive, the report added.

A letter written by Russell Mauk, vice president of design, construction and redevelopment for ABHOW, stated that most of the units will try to address the growing need for housing specifically built for Alzheimer's patients.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, one out of two people over the age of 85 will develop Alzheimer's.

"Because of the limited local-care options and the current and growing demand, [Terraces of Los Gatos] has determined that adding a building to serve those afflicted with Alzheimer's will ease the lives of the TLG residents and their families as well as provide a local-care option for the residents of Los Gatos," Mauk wrote.

In other news, the Commission asked the owners of two lots in the rural Bella Vista Village neighborhood to return in January with more moderate plans for building two single-family homes.

The Commission, with Commissioners John Bourgeois and Marcia Jensen abstaining from discussion due to a conflict of interest, concluded that the lot-line adjustment, reduction setbacks and driveway lengths proposed by applicants Dan Ross and Jake Peters were not practical.

The lots are located at 339 and 341 on the western side of Bella Vista Avenue and north of Charles Street, and are 6,049 and 4,106 square feet, respectively.

The Los Gatos Planning Department has scheduled another public hearing for Ross and Peters on Jan. 11 at Town Council Chambers.