The Carnelian Project is our planned addition at our 2374 Warren Road property. We're building a new two-story structure that will allow us to welcome 12 additional residents, increasing this property's capacity from 6 to 18 beds.

Right now, our community serves 30 resident across three neighboring properties (2380 and 2374 Warren Road, 170 Flora Avenue), all connected by our shared garden spaces. Once our addition is complete, we'll be able to provide a home for 42 seniors altogether.

The new building will stand 25 feet tall with a footprint of 2,590 square feet, thoughtfully designed to complement our existing community.

As we grow, we'll continue operating as a California Licensed Residential Care Community for the elderly, maintaining our commitment to providing warm, personalized care that helps our residents thrive.

We carefully considered a one-story option but found it would only accommodate eight resident beds and require sacrificing nearly a third of our beloved garden space. This presented several challenges:

Our Garden - An Essential Element of Our Care Approach for Residents

Our garden is an essential part of our care approach for seniors with memory conditions, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. Spending time outdoors promotes calmness and relaxation, often reducing agitation, stress, and anxiety without the need for additional medication. Our garden is used for daily walks and regular physical exercise, while shared activities in this space support cognitive function and social connection. When families visit their loved ones, they spend time in our garden, sharing quality moments and creating meaningful experiences together. Building a single-story structure would force us to eliminate a significant portion of this valuable space, which has become central to our residents’ well-being.

Investing in our Care Team

Many of our residents have high care needs and will spend their final years with us. We believe in investing in our staff with better wages and comprehensive benefits, knowing that when we take care of our team, they provide better care for our residents—and it shows. To sustain this investment in our people while remaining financially viable, we need the capacity that only a two-story expansion can provide. A smaller eight-bed expansion wouldn't generate sufficient revenue to support our commitment to above-industry staffing levels and superior employee compensation.

Respecting Our Residents' Home Environment

The Carnelian isn't just a facility—it's our residents' home. Our expansion approach prioritizes minimizing disruption to their daily lives and sense of security. Constructing a new building in the middle of The Carnelian would affect all three of our current buildings and the residents living in them. With our proposed two-story addition at 2374 Warren Road, we can limit the impact to just one building, allowing the majority of our community to maintain their familiar routines and environments during construction. This approach recognizes that stability and predictability are especially important for seniors with memory impairments.

Sustainable Small Business Planning

As a small business, closing off an entire building—or worse, all three buildings—during construction would create significant financial strain. Such disruption would mean lost revenue while still needing to meet ongoing expenses like mortgage payments, insurance, and retaining our valued staff. Our employees depend on us for their livelihoods, and many of our residents and their families count on the stability we provide. Our two-story approach allows us to minimize financial impact while still growing to meet community needs. This thoughtful expansion ensures we can continue providing both quality care and stable employment without the financial risk that could jeopardize the entire Carnelian community.

What is a Land Use Permit?

The purpose of a land use permit is to allow for special consideration of uses which are neither permitted by right nor prohibited in a designated zoning district.

What Land Use Permit is Carnelian requesting?

We are seeking approval for a Land Use Permit to allow us to increase our resident bed capacity from 6 to 18 for the site: 2374 Warren Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94595.

The Carnelian Project IS NOT requesting any code variances.

The current design meets all the building codes requirement and guidelines.

Note: The initial plan design requires a building code variance. However, this design has been dropped.

What is a Variance?

A variance is a request for relief from the strict application of zoning regulations to alleviate an unusual hardship to a particular property. For example, a homeowner may request that a room addition be permitted closer to the property line than the Zoning Ordinance would normally allow.

Variances are exceptions to dimensional or numerical regulations such as building size, placement, height, lot size or average lot width, number of parking spaces or lot coverage. Variances are NOT exceptions to uses.

We anticipate our project construction will take approximately 18 months to complete once we've received all necessary building permits and begun groundbreaking. Based on current permit processing timelines, we're looking at 2026 as the earliest possible start date for construction.

We'll continue to keep the community updated as we progress through the permitting process and can provide more specific timeline information. Our goal is to complete the project efficiently while maintaining our high standards for quality construction and minimizing disruptions to both our residents and neighbors.

We're committed to being good neighbors during construction and take full responsibility for managing potential disruptions. Here's how we'll work to minimize impacts on our surrounding community:

Considerate Work Hours: We will restrict construction activities to between 9AM and 5PM to avoid disturbing neighbors during early mornings, evenings, and weekends.

Active Noise Management: We'll install temporary noise barriers and soundproof fencing around the construction site to reduce sound levels for nearby residents.

Open Communication: We'll provide regular updates about our construction timeline, expected noise levels, and any schedule changes so neighbors can plan accordingly.

Dust Control: We'll implement comprehensive dust suppression measures, including regular water spraying and covering of materials, to protect air quality in the area.

Direct Community Contact: We'll designate a specific team member as your community liaison—someone you can contact directly with concerns so we can address issues quickly.

We understand this project will create some temporary inconvenience, and we take that responsibility seriously. We welcome your input on additional ways we can reduce disruptions and are committed to working together to find solutions that work for everyone in our neighborhood.

We recognize that construction will temporarily increase vehicle activity on Warren Road, and we're taking proactive steps to minimize this impact. We will arrange offsite parking for all construction workers and our staff during the construction period.

We want to reassure our current residents, their families, and guests that all existing onsite parking spaces at The Carnelian will remain fully available for their use throughout the project. We're committed to ensuring that visits to your loved ones won't be disrupted by construction-related parking challenges.

As with other aspects of our project, we welcome your feedback and will continue to adjust our approach as needed to keep disruptions to a minimum for everyone in our community.

We've heard your concerns about traffic and parking concerns on Warren Road, and we've already implemented several solutions:

1. All Carnelian employees now park at our 170 Flora Avenue location, significantly reducing the number of cars parked on Warren Road.

2. We've redirected all food delivery trucks to our 170 Flora Avenue address, eliminating these larger vehicles from Warren Road.

3. We've instructed our regular healthcare providers and activity partners to use our parking lot when spaces are available or to park only on our side of the street.

These changes have already helped improve the situation, and we'll continue to monitor traffic patterns and make adjustments as needed. We appreciate your patience and feedback as we work to be considerate neighbors.

We understand that our family events have created temporary parking congestion on Warren Road in the past, and we've developed comprehensive solutions to address this:

1. We host five family events annually (Easter, Mother's Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) that bring additional visitors to our community.

2. We've established a partnership with the owner of 1280 Boulevard Way Office to use their parking space for guests during these events.

3. We provide a shuttle service (golf cart) to transport guests between this designated parking area and The Carnelian.

4. The parking lot at 2380 Warren Road is now designated for drop-off only during events.

5. All our community events are limited to three hours (typically 2PM-5PM) and are scheduled on weekends.

6. When offsite parking isn't available, we employ a professional valet service to manage parking efficiently, maximizing our available spaces and minimizing on-street parking.

These measures have effectively resolved the temporary parking congestion during our special events, allowing us to maintain important family connections while being considerate neighbors.

At The Carnelian, the safety and wellbeing of our residents is our highest priority. We've developed a comprehensive Emergency Evacuation Plan that addresses various scenarios, including natural disasters.

Our evacuation blueprint acknowledges our broader responsibilities to the surrounding community. In the event of a large-scale or neighborhood-wide evacuation, we strive to avoid contributing to local congestion or imposing undue burdens on municipal resources.

Given sufficient time, our plan utilizes a carefully staged approach. We'll transport our residents first to pre-designated assembly areas (we have multiple locations identified depending on the type and location of the natural disaster). From these assembly points, we'll coordinate any needed transfers to longer-term accommodations.

This method ensures we're minimizing the number of vehicles in the area during a critical time. Instead of individual family members all driving to our community simultaneously, which could create significant congestion on Warren Road, we use a coordinated vehicle deployment strategy:

• ADA vans transport multiple wheelchair users together

• Staff vehicles carry residents needing minimal assistance

• Specialized medical transport is reserved only for those requiring it

• We deliberately avoid using large buses that could further congest narrow roads

We maintain regular communication with families throughout this process, directing them to meet their loved ones at the assembly points rather than coming to The Carnelian during the evacuation.

For more detailed information, please contact our administration office. We're happy to discuss our emergency preparedness measures with residents' families and neighbors.