Costa Mesa commission to review proposed changes to group-home rules
Members of the Costa Mesa Planning Commission will review a host of potential changes to the city’s rules regarding group homes and sober-living facilities during their meeting Monday night.
The city-submitted revisions touch on several areas pertaining to such facilities, including what sort of permits operators must obtain and the process they have to follow when evicting a resident.
As a city staff report notes, residents of local group homes come from all over the country. “Those from outside the area often lack a local support system and are especially vulnerable to becoming homeless,” according to the report.
The proposed new rules, the staff report states, “are intended to minimize the opportunity for the resident to become homeless immediately upon involuntary separation from the group home.”
Those include requiring an operator to notify a person’s contact of record if he or she is evicted or otherwise involuntarily discharged from a group home.
Operators also would have to contact the city’s Network for Homeless Solutions and the Orange County Health Care Agency’s OC Links Information and Referral Line to determine what services or resources might be available and share that information with the resident.
Currently, operators of group homes in areas of multifamily residences must make transportation available so residents who are involuntarily removed can get back to their permanent address, or the address listed on their driver’s license.
Under the proposed changes, operators of group homes with six or fewer residents in neighborhoods of single-family homes would be required to do the same.
Also up for the commission’s review is a tweak to the city’s buffer requirement for sober-living homes, which generally house recovering drug and alcohol addicts who are considered disabled under state and federal law.
In 2014, the City Council adopted an ordinance requiring that sober-living homes with six or fewer occupants in single-family neighborhoods be at least 650 feet apart. The next year, the council created similar rules for such homes in multifamily areas.
The goal was to prevent sober-living facilities — which critics say can disrupt neighborhoods and contribute to parking and traffic problems, crime, noise, secondhand smoke and other negative effects — from clustering too close together in residential areas.
The proposed changes would maintain those general standards but give the city latitude to allow a smaller buffer if it’s determined that doing so won’t result in an over-concentration of such facilities.
Planning commissioners also will discuss potential adjustments to the permitting requirements for group and sober-living homes.
As proposed, facilities in multifamily areas with at least seven residents would need only a minor conditional use permit to operate. Those permits can be granted at the administrative level.
Currently, a full conditional use permit is needed, which requires approval from the Planning Commission.
Homes with up to six residents would still need special use permits to operate in Costa Mesa’s residential zones. Those also are decided administratively.
That requirement doesn’t apply to state-licensed facilities with six or fewer residents, as they are exempt from local regulations.
Staff-level decisions on whether to grant minor conditional use permits or special use permits could be appealed to the Planning Commission.
Monday’s meeting starts at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 77 Fair Drive. The commission’s discussion and vote on the proposed changes will be advisory, as the final decision rests with the City Council.
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
