Maps of the area, photographs of the property, interior photos showing the work that she's done,
our plans and drawings, our RCO meeting notice, and we'll have another meeting hopefully in the
future, our applications for special exception, the deed to the property showing that her company
also lavish real estate LLCs, the owner of the property, and the certificate of tax clearance.
So notice of referral. Again, this is an RSA 3 property. We're seeking to use this property by
way of the doctrine of unity of use, not out of character for this property or properties
or the surrounding area.
But we have one referral given that we're seeking a personal care home.
As you can see here, there is a history of this property being used in such a manner.
We did meet with the Oak Lane Worcester Community Coalition on March 27th.
They didn't take a vote.
Two of the members nearby had some concerns about this proposal, and the rest of the audience wanted more information.
We stated because of the docketing and how long it takes to get in front of this board, we asked as a combination, let us present.
We would ask that the board hold this for a vote.
We would like to go back to the community and then have them give input, hopefully updated input, based on that presentation for us to respond.
We did, again, have someone who circulated a petition of the affected properties, according to the City Planning Commission's list. These are the individuals who signed it. They specifically gave email addresses and phone numbers, which I don't know if Mr. Richardson reached out to these individuals, but these are the addresses that they signed at.
and again the property history here also by way of variance this was a children's home
it was the home for the saint joseph catholic home for the children many many years ago
now i'm gonna have my client uh rashida kind of tell you a little bit about care nest
so why don't you rashida why don't you tell the board about why could we swear
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Rashida Robinson, R-A-S-H-I-D-A-H, R-O-B-I-N-S-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Rashida, can you just tell the board a little bit of your background in this area of health care?
I've been in health care for the most part of my life.
I went to school to be a neurosurgeon, came out, started working in the pharmaceutical industry, and then about eight years ago, got into the entrepreneurial side.
Give me just closer to the mic.
That way.
Thank you, ma'am.
In 2018, I started a home care agency, which led to a lot of phone calls about housing.
Home care agencies only provide non-skilled home care.
So I started to look more into the personal care home business, and out of that came CareNest Homes, which is a non-profit organization.
What we do is we find we get different charitable donations to help seniors in our community.
We are primarily located in Germantown.
In 2023, I found this home on Brett and Fisher, and I thought this would be the perfect personal care home.
That personal care home requires a certain acceptance.
I met with Alan and we started the process. In the meantime, I fixed it up and made it nice and
clean in preparation for, you know, it being a personal care home. So let's just backtrack a
little. You stated that you had other locations for personal care homes. Where are those locations,
specific addresses? Germantown, 147 East Walnut Lane and 5601 Chueavenham. Okay. Have you had
any issues in terms of violations against those properties with the city? No, none at all. I work
with PCA. I work with hospitals, nursing homes, clinics in the area. I get rave reviews. I have
individuals that live with me from all walks of life. What about licensing requirements for the
state? Have you had any issues in terms of licensing requirements for these other locations?
These other locations are small, so they don't require a license.
When you start to get into four or more, like this large home, this requires a license,
more like this large home this requires a license which requires this process all right so why don't
which requires this process.
you tell us a little bit about this location what what what's your intention in terms of staffing
this location has about 16 bedrooms it's a conjoined home so you can access the house on
every single floor um it has an office it has kitchen it has two living rooms two dining rooms
which are kind of conjoined my plan is to bring about 16 no more than 20 individuals into this
so let's just walk through the floor plans and then we can also see the current photos of the
property uh but like you know if you walk in there's two there's two doors right yes so this
is the front of the house that faces broad street i believe okay and there's a foyer right yes so
this is like a beautiful sun porch for the seniors to sit out and catch some sun. They have the
emergency exit doors, but they won't use those. And then you have the, as you make your way to
the back of the house, you have the two living rooms. You can enter through the north side or
the south side. And then there's another space that says storage. We have like computers in there
for them to kind of like, I mean, they don't really want to do a lot, but if they do want to
get on a computer, they can get on a computer. And then you have the two dining rooms, which
are conjoined where dining is like the main event for these individuals because they're older,
they're ailing. A lot of them don't want to go to different programs. They just don't want to
leave the house. So I've made dining, uh, like a pivotal part of their day. So they eat breakfast
together, lunch and dinner. And of course my plan is to have like this long dining room area so that
all of them can eat at the same time, which they do. And then if you make your way further back
on the right hand side there's the kitchen on the left hand side is the office which is also
would be like the main entry entry to the house which has a handicap accessible ramp that leads
to fisher street behind that as a parking lot gotcha let me uh actually let me stop sharing
for a second and make it so it's not full screen so i can kind of maneuver this a little better
so and then how many uh is there any living in the basement okay there's uh we provide we do
their laundry so there is a laundry room in the basement i did a washing machine and dryer set up
back down there it was already one there i just put you know how long is this operating now no
it's not no it's not yeah and so let's just go to the rest of the floor plans like on the upper
floors right so there are how many bedrooms 16 between both houses okay so there's 16 bedrooms
and how many occupants do you expect to have in those 16 bedrooms no more than 20 okay so you
would basically have a one-to-one ratio for most of them there are some there are doubles in terms
because of affordability and some people want others to be with as roommates right okay so i'm
going to go full screen but let's look at the pictures of the property so these are current
photos of the property right so um now did you get any permits for like these are new hardwood
floors, right? And what else did you do to the property? So I did get a permit for a dumpster
because I wanted all the floors ripped out. So we put new floors in, painting, furniture, as you
can see, windows, hair and hair, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Did you update the plumbing or
electrical? The one thing that was updated was the emergency fire alarm system, the hardwire fire
alarm. The one they had there wasn't operable. So we did get a permit for that to run those wires
to the house. All right. And did you get a permit for that work? Okay. So the only things that you
got a permit for, or you got a permit for all the work that you needed to do? I got a permit for all
meaning it was also referenced that you did some work on the sidewalk.
Did you do that work?
The gas, I like natural gas, especially for these older individuals.
So they had a nice heating system there, so I had it redone, but PGW came out.
Not sure if PGW pulled a permit, but what they did is they ripped the sidewalk up
and ran new pipes from the front of Broad Street all the way to the front of the house.
And, well, that's not.
well that's not no that's not yours um they they ran brand new pipes they left them undone and then
No, that's not yours.
They ran a brand new...
they said they would come back and pave them and they did they recently came back and paid them
probably like a month ago all right but you you weren't in charge of that work that was okay now
i i'm going to show the board this it's not out of character to have this type of use on north
Broad Street. So we see two instances of similar type of use at 5224-26 North Broad Street,
which is a personal care home. Also, 5230 North Broad Street is a home care agency.
So here's a proof of posting for today's hearing. And this is North Carlisle Street to the left of
the property and to the right of the property. Just to give you some context of where we are
in the neighborhood, West Fishers Avenue to the left and right of the property. And then North
broad street to the left and the right of the property wanted to also show you from carlisle
because we go street to street from north broad street to carlisle there's a significant parking
lot behind us so even though this is an rsa3 property this is more commercial in nature
that's your parking lot that's our parking lot not that we need it um i don't think any of our
you don't believe any of the clientele is going to be using that parking lot
they don't drive yeah but but you have staff that may drive yes some of the home care aides
that um come in to support them um they drive and they'll park in the park yeah can you explain
like the staffing um that you're going to have for this facility so how many people are you
going to have on staff so there are two site supervisors uh one being my mother and then
there is I'm bringing in someone to cook like to prepare the food and then I'm also bringing in
someone to clean the house and then for every it's not required by the state but for every senior I'm
going to for every four seniors that live in a house I'll have one home care aid to support them
the support is minimal because all these individuals have to be ambulatory they have to walk
because they don't really get out I like them to walk they get their exercise that way so we do
help them with like um you know just talking to them giving them social skills and services and
if they need do need social services we work with their physicians their families a lot of them have
social workers whether they're granted by the courts or their family members we work with them
to get them operable and just to maintain and sustain their lives so given the size of this
facility you will be regulated by the states yes yes so on top of potentially any type of zoning
and building permits we would need, you would have other licensing requirements from the
state?
This is a whole process.
So the state requires certain inspections, and then they will grant a license for the
house.
Plus certifications from you and your staff.
And those certifications typically have to be annually renewed.
It requires a lot of background checks, tuberculosis screening.
For me, I have to provide them with my background and my education as the owner and director.
And same thing with the caregivers.
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that we don't miss anything here.
We looked at the drawings.
We have the RCO meeting notice, but we will have another meeting.
And for record-keeping purposes, proof of mailing that notice.
our applications for special exception, referral, project information form showing that my client's
corporate entity owns the properties, the deed. And then I know that there was an issue with the
tax clearance. We, for some reason, couldn't get on the OPA site for that property. I know we were
working with Ms. Emerson on that, but given that we're asking for a vote anyway, we'll obviously
bring an updated you know clearance certificate but we were our office was having having access
uh accessing the city's website but legally we have met our burden for conditional uh approval
here or permanent approval based on the special exception we we understand that you know community
is always concerned about you know this type of personal care facilities um but you know my client
is well-versed in this area she is very experienced she is she has a good track record and for all
those reasons we respectfully request when we come back here that the board takes that into account
whether or not we do have community support thank you okay questions from the board yeah i have a
question um with the seniors um accessibility um this is a three-story building so you've got when
you've got older adults that have difficulty walking, some, you know, with walkers and
canes. How do you plan to address the accessibility? I didn't see an elevator or a lift in the
How do you plan to address the accessibility? I didn't see an elevator or a lift
in the plans, or is that something you're planning to do?
Once I get the approval, I will be adding a chairlift to the south side of the building,
and all my individuals that struggle over time, because they do struggle over time,
the longer they're with us, the less they're capable of walking, they will be able to take
the chairlift to the second floor. And again, you can cross over from one side of the house to the
other from the second and third floor it won't go all the way up to the third because after a while
when they get so old to the point that they can't walk and they become bed-ridden then
Karen S. Holmes is no longer the best option for them now I did you mention a ramp from the rear
but I didn't see a plan that showed the ramp is that existing or not yep there was yeah there's
an existing ramp back there okay I just didn't see it on the plan okay I'll make sure I'll take
yeah one week maybe it wasn't just i don't know all right also i guess from the parking
night uh view picture is there outdoor space we right now it's just a parking lot right but i
once i get an approval i said i was going to add like an outdoor like cabana for them to sit out
because right now they have like you know i have picnic tables and stuff for them just to get out
because a lot of them won't leave and i always talk about them getting their son so other questions
yeah um i have a question about the sort of uh connection between the two units was that
condition existing when you purchased the property yes and then did you do any interior demos
of walls no well the kitchen the kitchen had some walls up that we kind of knocked down and put back
up with sheetrock but i didn't they didn't remove any of the main beams or anything like that now
Is there a long-term plan for the remaining spaces in the basement?
No, I just, you know, a storage space.
Because, you know, some of these individuals, they come, they leave, they leave clothes.
So what we do is we store clothes and bins with their names on it and their size.
So if other people come in, sometimes we get homeless individuals that are older,
that need places to live, or individuals that their family just don't want them,
don't want to be bothered.
So we'll use those clothing to, you know, to provide to them.
So just storage.
and then are there any rooms for when like family comes to visit
people or are they just using whatever public space already exists
so you know the one one the plan that was that one room i think is
noted computer room no it's not storage storage that particular room is like a
nook right i put a air i'm putting a computer
in there and a sofa and a fish tank for my individuals that like fish i mean
it's common for them but that will be an area for the
families okay and then some of the families they like to sit in their rooms you know and just talk
to them so because they want that private time okay and will those family members then be using
the parking lot to park or yes not likely so even though you're planning to put some kind of maybe
other space there there will be room for visitors to park most definitely okay yeah it's a pretty
I didn't spec it out, but that's a pretty significant parking lot size-wise.
But never can be great outdoor space.