Email-2 Zoe Senior Retirement Community use group 2013-03-0610/17/2014 City of Northampton Mail - Zoe Care assisted living facility
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/?ui=2&ik=ec5f19a57e&view=pt&q=assisted&qs=true&search=query&th=13d41f48c3a66acc&siml=13d41f48c3a66acc 1/1
Louis Hasbrouck <lhasbrouck@northamptonma.gov>
Zoe Care assisted living facility
1 message
Louis Hasbrouck <lhasbrouck@northamptonma.gov>Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 6:06 PM
To: Charles Miller <cmiller@northamptonma.gov>
Chuck,
Here’s a piece of the IBC commentary about dormitories (an R-2 use):
Dormitories are generally associated with university or college campuses for use as student housing, but this is
changing rapidly. Many dormitories are now being built as housing for elderly people who wish to live with other
people their own age and who do not need 24-hour-a-day medical supervision. The only difference between the
dormitory that has just been described and the dormitory found on a college campus is the age of its occupants.
If the elderly people must have 24-hour-a-day medical supervision (i.e., a nurse or doctor on the premises), the
building is no longer considered a residential occupancy but an institutional occupancy and would have to comply
with the applicable provisions of the code for the appropriate Group I occupancy. Similar to Group R-1, individual
rooms in dormitories are sleeping units and are required to be separated from each other by fire partitions and
horizontal assemblies in accordance with Sections 420, 709.1 and 712.3.
The architect sent over the regulations that govern Assisted Care Facilities and those regulations
pretty much state that the residents can’t need 24 hr medical supervision if they stay in the proposed facility. I’m
closer to buying it.
Louis Hasbrouck
Building Commissioner
City of Northampton
Town of Williamsburg
212 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060
(413) 587-1240