Costa Mesa council to consider sober-living permits and firefighters contract

Costa Mesa City Council members will review permit applications for a sober-living home and a proposed new contract for city firefighters during their meeting Tuesday.

Casa Capri Recovery is asking the council to overturn an earlier Planning Commission decision and grant two conditional use permits for its facility housing up to 28 women in eight units at 269 and 271 16th Place.

Though the adjacent properties are operated as a single facility, Casa Capri had to apply for two separate permits because Costa Mesa codes say sober-living homes may only occupy a single parcel.

That, in turn, could raise issues with city rules requiring that group homes and licensed alcohol and drug treatment facilities be at least 650 feet from one another in residential areas, according to a city staff report.

“When the city adopted its separation standard, the intent was to limit sober-living homes and licensed alcohol and drug treatment facilities in residential neighborhoods to approximately one per block,” the report states. “Other than the subject properties’ proximity to one another, there are no other sober-living homes or state licensed facilities within 650 feet.”

In May, council members approved new rules for group and sober-living homes that give them leeway to waive the separation standard, so long as they determine doing so wouldn’t create an over-concentration of such facilities in a specific area.

Council members have the option of granting both of Casa Capri’s requested permits, denying them both, or approving one and turning down the other.

Once again, council members are also scheduled to hold a public hearing on a proposed new contract for the Costa Mesa Firefighters Assn.

The hearing was a late addition to the Sept. 19 council agenda, but was delayed due to “some language issues that the lawyers had not finalized,” Mayor Katrina Foley said at the time.

The tentative contract would run through June 30, 2021, and provide the association’s 73 members with four, 3% pay raises between now and Jan. 1, 2019.

Association members would also see the amount they contribute toward their pensions gradually increase from 5% of their salaries to 14%.

All told, the proposed contract is expected to result in a total cost increaseof about $4.95 million, according to a city staff report.

The public hearing would be the first of two required under the city’s Civic Openness in Negotiations (COIN) ordinance. The second would likely be held Oct. 17.

Tuesday’s council meeting starts at 6 p.m. in City Hall, 77 Fair Drive.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter @LukeMMoney