Sober-living home laws under review

Newport Beach officials today will consider a small step toward better regulation of drug recovery and sober-living homes that have recently multiplied on the Balboa Peninsula and elsewhere in the city.

Amid homeowners’ growing concerns about the residential character of Newport’s neighborhoods, city officials have launched a variety of approaches to address drug and alcohol recovery facilities and sober living homes.

This week, the City Council will look at whether a permit requirement established in 2004 for some of the homes can be tightened up.

City leaders have long said their ability to regulate the homes is limited by state and federal laws — namely federal restrictions that classify recovering addicts as handicapped and, as such, prevent discriminatory housing policies.

The city opted in 2004 to require recovery homes with seven or more residents to get a “federal exception permit” — essentially a bureaucratic procedure that doesn’t limit the homes’ activities. But so far, none of the permits have been granted because no one has applied, City Atty. Robin Clauson said.

If council members agree, they’ll begin the process of changing the city code so more of the sober-living homes would be covered by the exception permits, and those that need permits also would have to create a plan for managing parking, noise, second-hand smoke and other issues.

Under law, the city can’t require permits for recovery homes with six or fewer patients, so that’s how most of the homes have classified themselves.

“Part of the complaints that we were hearing from neighbors is that there were these six-and-under units going in but … really being operated as kind of a single operation,” Clauson said.

She recently learned that state law does consider multiple six-bed homes under the same ownership or control as one unit, so they can be required to request the federal exception permit.

The change to city code would largely affect new recovery homes coming in, and it could be applied to existing homes when the city gets complaints from neighbors.

“It’s not intended to deter them. I don’t believe that it’s legal to deter them,” Clauson said. “We’re just doing what we can do to manage them and making sure they’re complying with the state law.”