LA PALMA : Residents to Fight Board-and-Care Sites

Residents disturbed about a board-and-care facility for handicapped children opening in their neighborhood have begun plans to try to block such homes in the future.

La Palma resident Cheryl Pappas collected 184 signatures last month to block proposed exterior modifications to a single-family home on Black Star Lane, which will house up to six handicapped children. Facility owners Nathan and Betty Stevens applied to install separate entrances into each bedroom as required by state fire codes.

But neighbors opposed the facility at a city Development Committee hearing last month, arguing that it was inappropriate for the residential area. Also, neighbors said having separate entrances at each bedroom would make the former single-family house look like a boarding house and might lower surrounding property values.

The Development Committee agreed, but found it had no authority to regulate the facility. Because of state health and safety codes, state control supersedes local powers in administering to facilities treating six or fewer non-ambulatory children.

So residents initiated a statewide letter-writing campaign to persuade state legislators to give local governments authority to regulate and tax similar enterprises in the future.

“I have nothing against the patients,” said Pappas, who lives next to the facility, scheduled to open before the end of the year. “I just have a hard time dealing with a business in a residential area.”

Pappas and Chris O’Neal, a 17-year La Palma resident, appealed to the City Council this week to back their letter-writing campaign. The pair told the council Tuesday night that if the facilities are allowed in neighborhoods, the city should at least be able to tax them.

“I really believe they are a humane approach,” O’Neal said. “But if they are going to come in and be part of the community, they should abide by the rules like everyone else. They’re a business.”