Popular Searches
Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
Share
Developer plans site with all levels of care
 |
| Senior Housing Developer Ron Devito, right, and his son, Larry Devito of Valatie. (John Mason/Hudson-Catskill Newspapers) |
Devito discusses proposed Kinderhook senior community
By John Mason
KINDERHOOK/VALATIE — Ron Devito wants to bring affordable senior living to Columbia County.
The man behind the controversial senior living campus proposed for land between Routes 9 and 9H just west of Albany Avenue in Kinderhook and a bit of Valatie sat down for an interview with the Register-Star recently.
A lawyer with 38 years handling health care matters, Devito has also been developing senior housing facilities for the same amount of time. He’s built, owned and operated adult care facilities, at one point operating four at once. Over the years, he has come to believe in the continuum of care concept, also called aging in place.
“A lot of us believe one of the worst things seniors face is the need to move and change their environment when they become ill,” he said. A senior who is no longer living with their family, is getting to know new people, then is suddenly too ill to be there, and moved to a skilled nursing facility. “It’s traumatic for the elderly.”
“Aging in place” is a buzzword that suggests the goal of creating facilities that allow seniors to stay in one place, on one campus. Devito said he tries to do facilities in which all levels of care are combined.
“I really like the idea,” Devito said. “It allows us to tell residents, ‘if you become really sick, you don’t have to move, you can just go right down the hall.’”
The proposed Kinderhook Senior Community would have four facilities in one, Independent Living, Assisted Living, Enriched Living, and the Skilled Nursing Facility.
While some independent living facilities provide no services, Devito’s always include dining, activities, housekeeping, recreational activities and the like. This, he said, is typically for the 55 to 65-year-old age group.
“By 65, there’s [often] some assistance with daily living activities required,” he said, “dressing, grooming, bathing. At that stage, adult care facilities become appropriate for housing and care.”
One type of adult care facility is the enriched living facility. Under this model, seniors receive a moderate amount of help — perhaps with grooming, getting dressed or bathing — but not much, Devito said.
“It’s more designed for helping people interact socially,” he said. Wellness programs are provided, such as weight control programs and customized meals. Linen service is provided.
Another type of adult care facility is the adult home, whose residents need more help and are provided more services. This facility will often have a dementia wing for people with Alzheimer’s and other cognitive impairments. An adult home with some skilled nursing is known as an assisted living facility.
The final piece of the puzzle, and a key piece, in Devito’s opinion, would be supplied by Pine Haven, a skilled nursing facility. That’s what gives the “aging in place” concept some meaning.
That concept also provides affordability, another quality dear to Devito’s heart. He’s not just interested in providing a continuum of care for the wealthy.
“For years I’ve been preaching about the need to provide these kinds of facilities for the middle-income market,” he said, “that is, people not eligible for Medicaid, but not having enough resources or money for high-end projects. This industry has devoted itself to the rich, with its bells and whistles, with very little for the average person who can’t afford all that.”
For years, Devito said, he’s been studying ways to reduce the costs of construction to make the facilities affordable “without sacrificing things that have been done for the more affluent members of society.”
One key to affordability is shared services between the different facilities. He plans to make one kitchen for all the facilities, and administrative and maintenance staff would also be shared.
In Columbia County, he said he saw a need for this kind of project. Though the county has nursing homes, it has no assisted living facilities.
“I saw a phenomenal need,” he said. “The demographics are such that this is an opportune way for me to show how things could be done. ... That’s what brought me here, and why I’m willing to keep tweaking.”
Should Pine Haven move to Kinderhook, Devito said he didn’t see any reason that it wouldn’t continue to be staffed by the same civil service workers who have been there, some for decades.
However, at another point in the interview, he said, “The whole issue of whether they will be union employees will come into play because I can do a lot of services less expensively than union employees can. If I can supplant some services, for example if I can control the kitchen ...” [this could lead to a stronger bottom line].
Why the Kinderhook location?
The northwest quadrant of the county, Devito said, has by far the greatest number of seniors. That quadrant includes Valatie, Kinderhook, Chatham, Ghent and Hudson.
In the 2000 census figures, there were 11,497 seniors in the northwestern quadrant, as opposed to 1,958 in the northeast, 1,734 in the southeastern quadrant, and 1,525 in the southwestern quadrant. The greatest shopping opportunities for seniors are also in the Northwest quadrant, Devito said.
“I want this facility to be successful; I want the county to be successful; I want the residents’ best interests to be served,” Devito said. County residents, he said, would have “absolute priority” for admission; although the complex would be fairly close to Albany and Rensselaer counties, applicants from those counties would never take precedence over the local population, he said.
At first, Devito was seriously looking at a Niverville location. But he discovered he would have to run a water line 4,900 linear feet, under county Route 28 to the water facility in Volunteers Park, which would have had a large price tag. So he moved on and found out about the Kinderhook/Valatie site. There, he hopes to be able to hook into the Valatie water and sewer systems.
Devito said he would be willing to contribute a proportionate share of the cost of expanding the system. He has a special interest in staying in Valatie: His son, Larry, and grandchildren are village residents.
Devito said claims that the complex would hurt business at Barnwell Nursing Home in Valatie are “laughable.”
“We’ll be crying for nursing home beds in a few years,” he said. “The older population is growing, the younger is shrinking; extended families will be fewer and fewer; there will be fewer caregivers.”
Pine Haven is a vital part of his plan.
“The skilled nursing facility is an extremely important component of ‘aging in place,’” he said. “If I brought in another private skilled nursing facility, I would be increasing the beds. This project doesn’t increase the number of skilled nursing facility beds in Columbia County.”
Meanwhile, the project is still in the early stages of discovery, Devito said. The county can’t decide whether Pine Haven will move until he tells them the rent he’ll charge, and he can’t tell the rent until he knows what he can get approved by the local boards.
And he sees from the local response “a lot of heat, with no room for logic.”
He said he’d like to have a public discussion of the issues with Al Wassenhove, who has been going around the county making speeches and collecting signatures against the plan to move Pine Haven. But Wassenhove told the Register-Star that was not his role.
By John Mason
KINDERHOOK/VALATIE — Ron Devito wants to bring affordable senior living to Columbia County.
The man behind the controversial senior living campus proposed for land between Routes 9 and 9H just west of Albany Avenue in Kinderhook and a bit of Valatie sat down for an interview with the Register-Star recently.
A lawyer with 38 years handling health care matters, Devito has also been developing senior housing facilities for the same amount of time. He’s built, owned and operated adult care facilities, at one point operating four at once. Over the years, he has come to believe in the continuum of care concept, also called aging in place.
“A lot of us believe one of the worst things seniors face is the need to move and change their environment when they become ill,” he said. A senior who is no longer living with their family, is getting to know new people, then is suddenly too ill to be there, and moved to a skilled nursing facility. “It’s traumatic for the elderly.”
“Aging in place” is a buzzword that suggests the goal of creating facilities that allow seniors to stay in one place, on one campus. Devito said he tries to do facilities in which all levels of care are combined.
“I really like the idea,” Devito said. “It allows us to tell residents, ‘if you become really sick, you don’t have to move, you can just go right down the hall.’”
The proposed Kinderhook Senior Community would have four facilities in one, Independent Living, Assisted Living, Enriched Living, and the Skilled Nursing Facility.
While some independent living facilities provide no services, Devito’s always include dining, activities, housekeeping, recreational activities and the like. This, he said, is typically for the 55 to 65-year-old age group.
“By 65, there’s [often] some assistance with daily living activities required,” he said, “dressing, grooming, bathing. At that stage, adult care facilities become appropriate for housing and care.”
One type of adult care facility is the enriched living facility. Under this model, seniors receive a moderate amount of help — perhaps with grooming, getting dressed or bathing — but not much, Devito said.
“It’s more designed for helping people interact socially,” he said. Wellness programs are provided, such as weight control programs and customized meals. Linen service is provided.
Another type of adult care facility is the adult home, whose residents need more help and are provided more services. This facility will often have a dementia wing for people with Alzheimer’s and other cognitive impairments. An adult home with some skilled nursing is known as an assisted living facility.
The final piece of the puzzle, and a key piece, in Devito’s opinion, would be supplied by Pine Haven, a skilled nursing facility. That’s what gives the “aging in place” concept some meaning.
That concept also provides affordability, another quality dear to Devito’s heart. He’s not just interested in providing a continuum of care for the wealthy.
“For years I’ve been preaching about the need to provide these kinds of facilities for the middle-income market,” he said, “that is, people not eligible for Medicaid, but not having enough resources or money for high-end projects. This industry has devoted itself to the rich, with its bells and whistles, with very little for the average person who can’t afford all that.”
For years, Devito said, he’s been studying ways to reduce the costs of construction to make the facilities affordable “without sacrificing things that have been done for the more affluent members of society.”
One key to affordability is shared services between the different facilities. He plans to make one kitchen for all the facilities, and administrative and maintenance staff would also be shared.
In Columbia County, he said he saw a need for this kind of project. Though the county has nursing homes, it has no assisted living facilities.
“I saw a phenomenal need,” he said. “The demographics are such that this is an opportune way for me to show how things could be done. ... That’s what brought me here, and why I’m willing to keep tweaking.”
Should Pine Haven move to Kinderhook, Devito said he didn’t see any reason that it wouldn’t continue to be staffed by the same civil service workers who have been there, some for decades.
However, at another point in the interview, he said, “The whole issue of whether they will be union employees will come into play because I can do a lot of services less expensively than union employees can. If I can supplant some services, for example if I can control the kitchen ...” [this could lead to a stronger bottom line].
Why the Kinderhook location?
The northwest quadrant of the county, Devito said, has by far the greatest number of seniors. That quadrant includes Valatie, Kinderhook, Chatham, Ghent and Hudson.
In the 2000 census figures, there were 11,497 seniors in the northwestern quadrant, as opposed to 1,958 in the northeast, 1,734 in the southeastern quadrant, and 1,525 in the southwestern quadrant. The greatest shopping opportunities for seniors are also in the Northwest quadrant, Devito said.
“I want this facility to be successful; I want the county to be successful; I want the residents’ best interests to be served,” Devito said. County residents, he said, would have “absolute priority” for admission; although the complex would be fairly close to Albany and Rensselaer counties, applicants from those counties would never take precedence over the local population, he said.
At first, Devito was seriously looking at a Niverville location. But he discovered he would have to run a water line 4,900 linear feet, under county Route 28 to the water facility in Volunteers Park, which would have had a large price tag. So he moved on and found out about the Kinderhook/Valatie site. There, he hopes to be able to hook into the Valatie water and sewer systems.
Devito said he would be willing to contribute a proportionate share of the cost of expanding the system. He has a special interest in staying in Valatie: His son, Larry, and grandchildren are village residents.
Devito said claims that the complex would hurt business at Barnwell Nursing Home in Valatie are “laughable.”
“We’ll be crying for nursing home beds in a few years,” he said. “The older population is growing, the younger is shrinking; extended families will be fewer and fewer; there will be fewer caregivers.”
Pine Haven is a vital part of his plan.
“The skilled nursing facility is an extremely important component of ‘aging in place,’” he said. “If I brought in another private skilled nursing facility, I would be increasing the beds. This project doesn’t increase the number of skilled nursing facility beds in Columbia County.”
Meanwhile, the project is still in the early stages of discovery, Devito said. The county can’t decide whether Pine Haven will move until he tells them the rent he’ll charge, and he can’t tell the rent until he knows what he can get approved by the local boards.
And he sees from the local response “a lot of heat, with no room for logic.”
He said he’d like to have a public discussion of the issues with Al Wassenhove, who has been going around the county making speeches and collecting signatures against the plan to move Pine Haven. But Wassenhove told the Register-Star that was not his role.
Share this Article
 |
||
| Theater to screen film shot locally |
Article Rating
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of registerstar.com.
You must register with a valid email to post comments. Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Registered users sign in here: |
Become a Registered User |
