Child-Care Center Fights for Its Life : Zoning: Fountain Valley says a cul-de-sac is the wrong place for day care, and wants to close the business. Advocates say the city’s may be violating state law.

Working parents and child-care advocates are upset about the city’s decision to close a 7-year-old family day-care business because the home is on a cul-de-sac.

They say the city’s restriction may violate state law.

“It’s so unfair,” said Peggy Martin, a Huntington Beach business owner whose 18-month-old daughter, Sarah, spends the day at Lucy Romero’s, a state-licensed family day-care home for 12 children in the 17000 block of Santa Gertrudes Circle, near Talbert Avenue and Magnolia Street. “We’re talking about the children here, after all, aren’t we? I feel the city’s way out of line.”

In June, Romero’s next-door neighbor complained to the city that the day-care home was operating without a city permit. Romero, who said she did not know that she needs city approval, applied to Fountain Valley for a conditional use permit.

The permit was denied three weeks ago by the city’s planning director, because zoning laws prohibit family day-care homes on cul-de-sacs, city planning and building director Frank Schuma said.

The restriction is to “ensure proper traffic circulation,” he said.

Romero has appealed the decision to the Planning Commission. Until then, at least, the center will remain open.

“The trend of this county is to promote more child care,” she said. “With a growing number of children in Orange County, and especially in Fountain Valley, I would think our city laws should be more in tune with those of the state and federal government.”

Child-care advocates are concerned that the city’s efforts to enforce its zoning codes are violating state laws intended to streamline day-care regulations and encourage solutions to the shortage of child care.

Romero’s case typifies a widespread dilemma pitting jurisdictions against one another over zoning for child care, said Abby Jane Leibman, attorney with the Southern California Women’s Law Center. The nonprofit civil rights organization has been checking whether zoning in Southern California cities complies with the 1983 California Child Day Care Facilities Act governing child care.

Many cities are expected to be out of compliance, she said, adding: “I don’t think state law could be clearer. It has preempted local zoning ordinances around child care.”

In Los Angeles, city officials who want to bar second-story child-care facilities were recently frustrated over an opinion by the state attorney general’s office stating that cities cannot impose fire codes more strict than the state’s.

“While most city governments are vocal advocates for more child care,” Leibman said, “they fail to see the connection between the restrictions they put on the location of child care and the limits on child-care spaces in their city.”

Similarly, Ann Tanouye, the Orange County child-care ombudsman for the state Department of Social Services, said, “It concerns me that anyone who wants to get a license for a large family day care and is committed enough to go through all the processes should not be entitled to that license.

“If we discourage them, they go underground and work without a license and take away our ability to monitor them.”

There are 1,471 licensed family day-care homes in the county and an equal if not greater number of unlicensed homes, Tanouye said.

Child-care advocates said the zoning dilemma is widespread in this county, where neighbors often complain that family day-care homes cause traffic congestion, noise or depletion of real estate values.

“You name it, they have excuses for everything,” Tanouye said about neighbors of the centers.

At the same time, family day care remains the best option for lower-income parents and parents with infants, said Leibman of the Southern California Women’s Law Center.

“It’s very difficult to find all the qualities you want in a day-care home--location, price, licensed day care--that has openings,” said Martin, the Huntington Beach business owner. “The younger the child is, the more difficult it is.”

Another parent, Denise Kennelly, said she interviewed nine care providers before deciding to place her daughter, Katie, 2, with Romero last year.

“She really likes Lucy and Tomasa, Lucy’s helper,” Martin said. “She would adjust to a new place. But why put her through that?”