Scottsdale council approves retirement home

Facility to be located near corner of North 100th Street and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard

By J. Graber, Scottsdale Independent

Despite protests from a few area residents, Headwaters Residential Healthcare Facility will become a reality.

The Scottsdale City Council voted unanimously during its Feb. 6 meeting to change the zoning on a 12-acre parcel at the corner of North 100th Street and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard to allow the 55-and-over independent living facility.

The three-story building will contain 269 independent living units, including five single-story duplexes next to residential property in the area.

The facility will be next to the Belmont Village Scottsdale Residential Healthcare Facility, which provides assisted living and memory care, for a continuum of care.

John Berry, attorney for the Headwaters project, also noted there is commercial property, such as a Circle K and restaurants across the street from the project that Headwaters residents could support. He also noted there is a school across the street where residents could volunteer and a park to use next to it.

He also noted city-provided services close to the Headwaters, such as a transit stop on site, Aztec Park across the street, the McDowell Mountain Aquatic Center less than a mile away, and the Arabian library one mile away.

He established the need to do something with the property.

“This property has been a vacant, dirt eyesore for 50 years,” Berry said.

He also established the need for the project by citing an article in the Nov. 23, 2023, Scottsdale Independent that stated 15.49% of Scottsdale residents are between the ages of 55 and 64 according to financial services website SmartAsset.

The five single-story duplexes were intentionally placed next to existing single-family homes to act as a buffer between them and the three-story building. He also noted the project calls for planting 54-inch box trees between the homes and the duplexes.

“We jokingly say it’s kind of the instant rainforest of Borneo across the wall there,” Berry said. “We will be adding a wall in the backyard and three rows of hedges in addition to those 54-inch box trees. It will be a very generous and successful, we hope, buffer.”

That wasn’t enough to appease some in the crowd. Three people stood up during public comment and implored councilors to deny the application.

Rose Petrinovic argued that the developer is really putting in apartments.

“If this is called a health care facility, then my home is a health care facility because they’re talking about independent living,” she said. “I’m an independent liver. It’s a misnomer. As an attorney, I know attorneys can use all sorts of other words to describe something.”

And as apartments, they will lower the value of her property, make traffic “unbearable” and make the area more dangerous, she said.

“I have seen this, I was beaten up and robbed twice at apartment complexes,” Petrinovic said.

She also worried about the safety of the students at the nearby Cheyenne Traditional Schooly. In the end though, she simply said she believed the city is approving too many apartments.

“I feel like an Oreo cookie sandwich because I’m being squeezed. Apartments here, apartments here, where am I going to live?” she asked.

Berry rebutted Petrinovic’s traffic argument saying the project would reduce traffic 84% from uses for the commercial designation for which the land is currently zoned.

There was also one speaker in support of the project and Berry presented 46 form letters in support of the project signed by 46 property owners in the area.

In the end, individual council members felt Petrinovic’s fears were unfounded.

Councilmember Tammy Caputi said traffic would only be an issue for about 10 minutes twice a day during the school’s drop off and pick up times.

She also addressed Petrinovic’s other concerns.

“I am pretty confident that putting in an exceptional facility like this to replace a dirt lot will only improve your property values,” Caputi said. “They are taking incredible steps to make sure this is a gorgeous facility. In terms of worrying about crime, again, I think having a random empty lot is certainly going to be a lot more prone to crime and criminal activity than a 55-plus retirement community.”