Agenda Packets - 1999/08/23 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MEMO To: Rick Jopke From: Kevin Carroll Subject: Parking Analysis (MSP Project) Date: August 3, 1999 At your request, I recently contacted several facilities that provide"assisted-living" [AL] for seniors, in order to determine the adequacy of their current parking arrangements. Of the seven facilities that were on the list that MSP provided, I contacted the three that are located in the Twin Cities(the remaining four from the MSP list are in Wisconsin). I also contacted six other facilities, mostly in nearby suburbs, that have identified themselves as AL providers. For whatever it may be worth, the"Elder Care and Senior Housing Directory" that can be found on the Internet at www.eldersearch.com lists 22 AL facilities in Ramsey County and 24 in Hennepin County. I have attached a table that summarizes the information that I gathered. The conclusions that I have drawn from these facts are listed below. It is almost self-evident that the parking requirements for AL facilities are largely dependent upon the parking required for four groups: residents, staff, independent providers, and visitors. A. Residents: There is no widely-accepted, precise definition of"assisted living," and as a result, the range of services provided varies considerably from one facility to the next. Of the nine facilities surveyed, two seem to cater to those who need relatively little assistance, and 50% to 75% of their residents own cars. The other seven facilities provide a higher level of care, and 0% to 8% (average:5%) of their residents own cars. If the proposed Mounds View facility caters to seniors who are more"independent," 24 to 36 parking spaces might be needed for residents alone, which is more than the total amount of parking that has been proposed. If the Mounds View facility markets itself to those needing significantly more assistance, 4 spaces (roughly 8%) might be more than enough. B. Staff This issue is complicated by the fact that most AL facilities have 2 or 3 shifts of workers, and both part-time and full-time employees. Some AL facilities also "share" workers with affiliated and/or attached "independent living" and/or"skilled nursing" facilities. However, the three surveyed facilities that had under 75 residents [20, 40 and 54] seem to require no more than two to five FTE (full-time equivalent)positions per shift. By comparison, the five"mid-range" size facilities [75-108] surveyed seem to require, on average, a maximum of 10-15 employees for a shift, if it is assumed that somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the total FTE positions are required for the main(day) shift.