COMMUNITY COMMENTARY:Facts about city’s rehab facilities

I am writing in response to Newport Beach resident Linda Orozco’s Community Commentary in the Daily Pilot on Nov. 16 (“City must insist on changes to its rehab-home policy”). Although I respect the rights of all residents to freely express their opinions, Orozco’s opinions would carry more weight with city officials and responsible residents if they were based on facts.

Unfortunately, her letter is filled with misinformation, inaccurate statements and distortions of the truth. It is far easier to write fiction than to research facts.

The inaccurate statements Orozco makes cannot be just simple misunderstandings. As has been her practice, she ignores facts of which she has knowledge or which she could have discovered with a little simple research. Here are just a few examples:

Fiction: “Why are there no state-licensed rehab homes in the city of Irvine? Let me repeat, there are no rehab homes in Irvine. Not one!”

Fact: Presumably, Orozco has access to the Internet. A quick visit to the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs’ website would have shown that there are licensed drug and alcohol treatment programs in Irvine, and at least one of them has a residential facility.

It is true that more of these facilities are in places like Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach than in Irvine, but I suspect that is for the same reason that Orozco herself chooses to live in Newport Beach rather than in Irvine. Recovery by the beach is more attractive than recovery by the Spectrum.

Fiction: The city is “encouraging” alcohol and drug rehabilitation facilities to come to Newport Beach and “for more than five years has refused to enforce its own zoning code.”

Fact: The city has not “encouraged” alcohol and drug rehabilitation facilities to come to Newport Beach. The city has enforced what restrictions it has been legally able to impose on residential care facilities. There is nothing “encouraging” to these facilities in the newly adopted general plan, which includes a policy directing the city to regulate residential care facilities “to the maximum extent allowed by state and federal law.”

Logic shows that there is no reason for the city to “encourage” residential care facilities to locate within city borders.

Our business license fee of $100 can be charged only to facilities housing seven or more residents — of which the city Revenue Department has estimated there are approximately five. That $500 in revenue (part of the $3.3 million we collect in business license fees each year) doesn’t come close to covering the cost to the city attorney’s office and code enforcement of fielding residents’ complaint calls.

Fiction: “How could the City Council pass new zoning last year to keep rehab houses in Newport out of single-family home neighborhoods? Well, they did. And what a coincidence that all voting members of the City Council live in single-family homes in Newport.”

Fact: This flat-out didn’t happen. The City Council couldn’t legally pass or enforce such a law, they didn’t pass such a law, and council members do not all live in single-family zones. Like Linda Orozco, I live in a duplex in an R-2 zone. Residential care facilities housing six or fewer people can be in any residential zone in the city, per state law and city zoning code.

Fiction: “There are no sober living houses in Newport.”

Fact: The city does not differentiate between licensed facilities and sober-living facilities in its enforcement of its laws. If a facility that holds itself out to be a sober living home is operating more like a licensed facility, a call to the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs at (800) 879-2772 is in order. That state licensing agency has the expertise and authority to evaluate the situation and take appropriate action.

Facts we can agree on: 1. There are commercial businesses of varying size and type operating in our residential neighborhoods. Some are unobtrusive, permitted home occupations (writers, financial consultants, and more) and some are large recovery homes that do not blend into the residential setting as they should. 2. There is some profiteering going on by recovery-home operators at the expense of their neighbors. 3. Forty-nine people is a lot of people to live in one triplex, but that is the amount state law and court decisions required the city to allow when the state licensed that facility to house 27 residents plus staff. 4. None of these facts improve the residential character of our neighborhoods.

What will improve the character of our neighborhoods is working together and, yes, working with other similarly affected cities and our legislators to address the issue. Orozco’s strident, groundless accusations get the city and its residents nowhere.

What is needed is reason, honesty and cooperation between all the parties affected, including city residents, elected representatives, staffers, to federal and state legislators and lobbying groups. Thus, my goal is to begin a dialogue with other cities and our legislators to see if there’s a defensible, legal regulatory approach that works and to form a coalition that has more influence with state and federal legislators than our single city can wield.

I hope the residents of Newport Beach will join in this effort. It’s the voters who have the most legislative pull, and state and federal lawmakers need to hear their voices.