A company that runs a teen treatment center in a residential Heber City neighborhood is continuing a legal battle over its conditional use permit.
Cascade Academy wants to continue operating a residential center for up to eight girls ages 13 to 18 who have severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. The average stay at the facility, which is called Cascade Home, is 45 to 90 days with 24-hour supervision.
The center at 1374 Red Filly Road is in the residential-agricultural, or RA-1, zone. Residential facilities for persons with disabilities are one of the permitted uses in the zone.
The facility has been legally operating under a conditional use permit since July 2024 and has provided services to about 40 students, including some scholarship care for several local families, according to Bekah Schuler, chief executive officer of Cascade Programs.
The Utah Court of Appeals ruled on April 30 that Cascade did not meet a specific requirement that residential facilities in the zone be operated under a contract with the state Department of Health and Human Services. While Cascade has a valid license with the department that would allow it to operate, “it does not have any other contractual relationship with DHHS,” the decision says.
Schuler said Wednesday that Cascade Home will pursue an appeal through the appropriate legal channels.
“We remain committed to providing adolescents with access to specialized residential care in a supportive home environment, consistent with federal protections and applicable law,” Schuler said.
Cascade also has a residential treatment center in Midway that provides treatment, recreation therapy, academics, extracurricular activities and other services in settings of no more than 26 adolescent girls.
When Cascade applied for a conditional use permit for a Heber facility in 2023, some area residents said putting the center on the Red Filly Road property would be contrary to land-use regulations.
At an April 2023 meeting, community members said they were concerned about possible parking, traffic and safety problems. Some said a residential neighborhood is not the right place for a business. One community member said a conditional use permit is unnecessary because the girls already have homes.
Schuler said at that meeting that the Midway facility has not diminished the property value of people’s homes and that she doesn’t know of any complaints since its opening. The teens are not violent and need to feel community and be in a home environment, she said.
And Caleb Cottle, co-founder of Cascade Academy, said the center had worked with more than 74 families since opening in 2020 and had a positive success rate.
Cascade’s application for a conditional use permit was approved first in April 2023 by the Wasatch County Planning Commission in a 5-1 vote and then by the Wasatch County Board of Adjustment.
Three residents in the Summit Meadows subdivision — Dustin Sidwell, Marie Shelton and Brian Myers — then filed suit in Utah’s Fourth District Court seeking to reverse the decision to approve a conditional use permit.
Named as defendants were Wasatch County, the Wasatch County Planning Commission and the Wasatch County Board of Adjustment. Cascade joined the suit as an intervenor, which is a third party who has a vested interest in the outcome of a case.
Fourth District Court Judge Jennifer Mabey found Cascade House met the Wasatch County Code’s conditional use requirements regarding residential facilities for persons with disabilities in the RA-1 zone and dismissed the case.
The Summit Meadows residents then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which sent the matter back to the Board of Adjustment for issuance of an order denying Cascade’s conditional use permit application.