LONG BEACH : Historic District Wary of Plan to Relocate Home
Some residents near Drake Park will be keeping a close eye on a new neighbor who is due to arrive this month.
Richard Fehr bought a deteriorating 1905 Victorian house on Locust Avenue from the city and plans to move it about 10 blocks to the Drake Park Historic District, where some of the city’s founding families lived. He plans to restore it to its original condition.
Fehr said he will live in the vintage home, but some of his future neighbors are a little leery. Fehr originally had planned to use it as a home for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. Fehr is co-owner of the Amends Center of Long Beach on Daisy Avenue, which houses about 40 people who are recovering from substance abuse.
“I know what he says, but he can legally do whatever he wants to do once he’s there,” said Elisa Trujillo, president of the Friends of Drake Park, a neighborhood improvement group. “We’ll wait and see what he does.”
Under state law, the city cannot stop Fehr from converting the house to a residential care facility as long as he has no more than six clients, said Eugene J. Zeller,acting planning and building director.
The City Council approved the house move last week after Fehr said he planned to live there.
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