Home activists demand distance

Balboa Peninsula residents lobbied Newport Beach City Council Tuesday to strengthen a proposed ordinance aimed at curbing the spread of drug and alcohol rehabilitation homes in Newport Beach.

The residents said they will accept no less than a 1,000-foot buffer zone between rehabilitation centers they said are a nuisance in coastal neighborhoods on the peninsula, although the city’s special legal counsel has said such a restriction probably wouldn’t hold up in court if it were challenged.

“Any judge that saw the unique characteristics of our neighborhood would say it’s not unreasonable to have 1,000 feet and maybe up to 1,500 feet,” said resident Lori Morris. “It shouldn’t be an issue.”

Peninsula residents said there is an overconcentration of rehabilitation centers on the peninsula and that a buffer zone between the homes would help alleviate the problem.

The proposed ordinance, as it is written now, would subject the homes to city approval through a hearing process.

Most of the existing homes would have to get use permits to remain open.

The residents said proposed rules are too little too late, and they want stricter laws to weed out more of the homes from the community.

While no rehab home operators spoke at the meeting, John Peloquin, vice president of operations of CRC Health Group, which owns Sober Living by the Sea, the largest rehabilitation facility in Newport Beach has said the company would fight the ordinance, which it views as discriminatory.

“I don’t know why we’d even consider accepting more [homes],” said Peninsula resident Craig Batley. “It’s not about discrimination. It’s a matter of ‘we’re full.’”

Denys Oberman, from the rehab home activist group Concerned Citizens of Newport Beach, said Peninsula residents are not against drug and alcohol rehabilitation, but they are concerned the homes are changing the character of their neighborhoods.

Residents said many of the homes in their neighborhoods are purely profit-driven and offer little therapy to recovering addicts.

“Nobody in the Concerned Citizens group is anti-rehab. We are for legitimate rehabs and managed uses and ones that don’t institutionalize our neighborhoods,” Oberman said.

In other business, the council unanimously reapproved a $43 million development agreement with the Irvine Co. Tuesday.

The agreement includes a 4-acre piece of land on East Coast Highway known as the Lower Castaways with access to the lower Newport Bay.

As part of the deal, zoning for the area creates a new planned community that merges two blocks of Newport Center, Fashion Island and San Joaquin Plaza to form North Newport Center Planned Community.

The deal includes about $43 million in development fees, road and park improvements, and other benefits from the Irvine Co. and an option for Newport Beach to purchase property in the Newport Center block between Santa Rosa and San Nicolas drives for a new city hall.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].