Aging in place in Catalina Foothills

We match across Tucson and the surrounding Pima County communities, so the contractor you are introduced to is one whose crews actually work your part of the county.

Permits, utilities and local rules for Aging in Place work in Catalina Foothills

Catalina Foothills is unincorporated, so a curbless conversion, a widened bathroom door or a ramp here is a Pima County Development Services permit - and the water is usually Tucson Water, with Metro Water District serving a northwest pocket inside the area, so the provider is worth confirming by address rather than assumed. That split is normal in this market: Tucson Water serves roughly 390 square miles around the city, and several domestic water districts and cooperatives fill in the gaps, which is why the utility line on a property record matters more here than it would in a city with one provider. The housing is what makes this area specific. Catalina Foothills is a community of custom and semi-custom houses on sloping lots, mostly 1960s through the 2000s, single storey in the older sections and often split-level or two storey in the later ones. The bathrooms are larger than the in-town hall baths - a garden tub and a separate shower is the common 1980s and 1990s arrangement - but the approach to the house is the harder problem: long driveways, stepped walkways and entries that sit above or below the street, with the sun on them all afternoon.

Municipal reference: Tucson Water

Getting an accessibility contractor out to Catalina Foothills

Catalina Foothills is laid out between Oracle Road (AZ-77) on the west and Sabino Canyon Road and Kolb Road on the east, with Ina Road, Skyline Drive, Sunrise Drive, Swan Road, Campbell Avenue, River Road and the Catalina Highway carrying the traffic. The way in from I-10 is west on Ina Road or River Road, and from the city it is a straight run north on Oracle Road or Campbell Avenue; once a crew is in the foothills the addresses are reasonably close together, which is why this is usually worked as part of an Oro Valley or Casas Adobes day rather than as a trip of its own. The constraint here is not distance but the ground. Foothill lots slope, driveways are long and sometimes steep, and the walk from the street to the front door frequently involves steps that a visitor does not notice and a wheelchair cannot use. Staging is the second constraint: a narrow driveway, a garage cut into the slope, and a street that has to stay open for the neighbours. From May through September the exposure is the third, because the same slope that gives the view takes away the shade.

What Catalina Foothills's housing stock means for aging in place

Catalina Foothills is one of the clearest examples of the stock this work exists for, and the slope is why. The houses are single storey in the older sections and split-level or two storey in many of the later ones, with one or two bathrooms, a tub-and-shower combination in the compact plans and a garden tub plus a separate shower in the larger ones. The measurement that decides the job is often at the entry rather than inside the bathroom: a walkway that steps down to the drive, a front door a riser or three above the walk, and a garage floor below the living level. Interior floors are tile or sealed concrete, hard and slick when wet, and wall construction is concrete block or framed and finished with board, so grab-bar blocking has to be planned rather than found. Because the lots are on the slope at the foot of the Santa Catalinas, the soil is a thin layer over caliche and expansive clay, and the movement that comes with it shows up as cracked tile, doors that no longer latch and walkways that have tilted away from the house. Whether a floor can be recessed for a true curbless base is a question for the contractor and the engineer, and on a framed second floor it is a different answer again.

What accessibility work does a Catalina Foothills home need most?

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Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources