A conditional use permit for an assisted living and senior nursing facility for up to 210 men and women on Zolin Avenue near Homestead Road was approved by the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission last week.

The property is in a VR-20 zone, requiring a minimum of 20,000-square-foot lots. Intermediate care facilities are permitted in the VR-20 zone with a conditional use permit. It was master planned as multi-family residential back in 2004.

Consultant Curt Moen, representing the property owner, Pahrump 15.66 LLC, received a rezoning and master plan amendment last summer for two 50-room hotels and a restaurant around the corner on Homestead Road just north of Terrible's Lakeside Casino.

Moen said since that rezoning, the hotel and restaurant project had been scrapped.

The assisted living and senior nursing facility would total 213,600 square feet on a 15.6-acre property.

The conditional use permit is the final step in the approval process by a governing board, unless there's an appeal to the county commission. Developers would still be required to submit a traffic impact study, drainage studies, geo-technical reports and prove there's adequate public facilities before breaking ground.

The project would be constructed in phases, with the independent living facility, assisted living facility and Alzheimer patient living facility part of a 180,000-square-foot building constructed as phase one.

A 33,600-square-foot, senior nursing facility, would be built in phase two.

Moen states in his request municipal water and sewer will be provided to the facility. Entry to the homes will be from both Zolin Avenue and Heritage Drive.

Drawings by the Merrill Group show what looks almost like an H-pattern of buildings around a park area, with a more elaborate circular entrance on Heritage Drive.

RPC member Norma Jean Opatik had a question about the traffic impact on Zolin Avenue. Moen said the occupants of the facility won't be driving but he expects 40 full-time staff members to drive into the home as well as visitors, accounting for possibly 250 combined trips per day.

RPC member Carrick "Bat" Masterson said there's definitely a need for these sort of facilities in Pahrump, recalling how he cared for his father at a facility in Tucson, Ariz.

Evergreen at Pahrump Health and Rehabilitation Center opened as Mountain Valley Health and Rehabilitation at 4501 North Blagg Road in 2000, the first skilled nursing center in Pahrump, a 120-bed facility measuring about 48,000 square feet. There is also the smaller Beehive senior assisted living center on Ambush Street.