Different Arguments Solidify Against 444 Sycamore Prior to ZBA Meeting
Decatur Metro | February 4, 2010UPDATE: The Zoning Board of Approvals won’t address this issue until March. Not on the docket for next Monday.
While the AJC’s recent follow-up story on the Peer Support and Wellness Center controversy details the arguments of those making zoning-related arguments about the Center….
“How can you be a resident if you only stay at most seven days? And 25 people who come every day, they are not just visitors,” said Soren Christensen, who has lived in the neighborhood for eight years.
…Dave Kell’s InDecatur and Decatur Heights blogs continue to focus on potential criminal elements.
Publishing an “Incident Address Report” requested from Decatur PD, Dave shows that there were 20 “incidents” called into the center and documented in the past 20 months. Five of these incidents are tagged “EMS”, while six are labeled “disturbance”, two “location checks”, one “theft”, one “meet a person”, one “suicide threat”, one “criminal trespass”, one “suspicious person”, one “person down” and one “hang up”.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether these calls are being made ABOUT the Center or BY the Center, so it’s hard to gauge any actual count of “incidents” caused by the Center, but Dave still uses the document in an attempt to refute a claim made previously by the Center’s Director who said that “the program has not had a single incident reported involving any of its visitors or residents.”
All this said, it seems that after months of discussion and back-and-forth between parties, two very different approaches have emerged from the neighborhood in attempting to address this issue. One is focused on zoning, the other on the potential for unlawful activity.
As for the position of city staff – which at times has been strongly criticized throughout this process – a quote from City Manager Peggy Merriss in the AJC article reinforced my (and Nellie’s) hunch that from a legal standpoint, the city feels the need to tread very lightly around this issue since it brings with it the potential of lawsuits under the Fair Housing Act.
Their documentation is that their main program is overnight respite, and the day program is in support of that activity,” said City Manager Peggy Merriss, who added that the city must interpret its zoning ordinance broadly as part of the Fair Housing Act.
The Zoning Board of Appeals will sure have a lot to consider when they meet next Monday in March and begin to consider and discuss this issue.
Latest from Decaturish
This item is not on the agenda for ZBA Feb meeting, probably will not be until March.
Hmm…got that piece of info out of the AJC article. I believe that sometimes items are added to the agenda after they’re posted online. I’ll check with the city.
it’s definitely not this week; the city has to give at least 15 days’ notice before hearing an appeal. it’ll be march at the earliest.
The sad omission from the City is that if you read the grant that Peer Wellness has to operate the program, the opposite is in fact true. They are required by the grant ($338,000) to provide mental health services to at least 12 individuals per day in order to keep their grant. The program is a daily program. They have serviced as many as 25 at one time. Even a safe estimate of 360 customers per month is a pretty busy business.
I’m not sure when it’s going to Zoning, but I can’t see how the City intends to win. You can’t violate zoning and then rely on Fair Housing. And Peer Wellness can’t violate the zoning laws and keep their grant. The sad part is if/when the use is found to be in violation of the Zoning Code, then Peer Wellness runs the risk of having their grant pulled.
The most common sense solution would have been to place them in a house-type structure on Church Ave where the use would be far more consistent with the area. But alas…….
“Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether these calls are being made ABOUT the Center or BY the Center, so it’s hard to gauge any actual count of “incidents” caused by the Center”
Not true. According to Dave Kell on the Decatur Heights site:”
In redacting, I blanked out the phone numbers, which the police obtain via 911 ID and Caller ID. I’m not aware of any way anyone opposed to the Center could make it appear they were calling from within the Center.
In looking at the unredacted list, it appears 8 calls were from inside the Center, 6 were from the cell phone of someone who apparently works inside the center, and 1 was from a neighbor. I can’t tell for sure about the other five.”
http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/decatur_heights/2010/02/no-incidents-at-444-sycamore-really.html
Yeah, I saw that, but it doesn’t tell you anything about who these calls are in reference to.
So, for instance, are these “disturbances” caused by residents of the Center or are they calling ABOUT disturbances being made by outside parties? I find it difficult to believe that the “criminal trespass” call, IF made by the Center (we don’t know), would be about someone that lived or worked there.
Maybe I’m reading something wrong, but it seems pretty unfair to knock the Center for DPD calls stemming from events they had no control over.
The most recent 911 call was made from within the center on Monday and was regarding a suicide threat inside the building.
“We don’t want to harm the program,” said Grace Ann Young, a resident who also opposes the center. “We want answers on how it ended up in a neighborhood. We are ready for legal action to get that answer.”
I get that it’s not appropriate if the Center is breaking zoning laws, etc. However, I can’t help but think that the true impetus behind the issue is that people don’t want mental health patients in their backyard (see Young’s quote above). We can’t keep sending these patients back to jails and government-run hospitals. It’s not working and it’s costing us more tax-payer money than is necessary or helpful.
The Wellness Center is an innovative approach for alternative treatment for mental health patients. Decatur should be proud to have this respite in its neighborhood. Regarding the fear of crime, the mentally ill are no more violent (by percentage) than the population-at-large. Your “mentally-sound” neighbors are just as likely to cause “disturbance” and “location checks.”
“Your “mentally-sound” neighbors are just as likely to cause “disturbance” and “location checks.”
Except that I’d be willing to bet that none of the residences in the neighborhood have had twenty 911 calls in the last 20 months.
To Clairemont’s comment: “I get that it’s not appropriate if the Center is breaking zoning laws, etc. However, I can’t help but think that the true impetus behind the issue is that people don’t want mental health patients in their backyard”
We already have a Mental Health Center and a Drug Addiction Center in our backyard. It’s called Winn Way and it’s fine that they’re there because it complies with THE ZONING OF THAT STREET. If anyone has any interest in seeing how close these 2 LEGAL facilities are to Decatur Heights please go to google earth and look at the proximity of the Mental Health Center and Drug Addiction Center on Winn Way to Decatur Heights.
Sorry Clairemont, but the NIMBY stuff is really offensive. I bought into Decatur because of its character and the fact that it not only tolerates, it embraces, the uniqueness of all of us. It doesn’t mean that I want the city to disregard the zoning codes.
Grace Ann Young and Soren Christiansen believe that the Peer Support Wellness Center is an unprecedented program operating in a neighborhood specifically zoned for a more restrictive, regulated, and licensed Family Personal Care Home (serving a maximum of 6 people). Instead, this program offers “a peer-run alternative to a traditional mental health day program and psychiatric hospitalization” to self-referred, unscreened addictive-disordered and/or mentally ill participants (with unknown levels of need and serving up to 25 participants at one time per day). We believe it’s simply not allowable under our zoning codes. We believe the Peer Support Wellness Center must be licensed by the state as a Family Personal Care Home and be accountable to the state rules and regulations of Family Personal Care Homes. We invited neighbors over who were also concerned. From that initial meeting we now have 42 homes (including myself and Grace Ann) who are a.) in support of our cause, and b.) have requested to be placed on our e-mail list so they can remain informed of what’s happening and how they can help out. We have received donations for the legal appeal fund for 444 Sycamore Drive. We believe that it is most unfortunate that the city did not do proper diligence in respect to its own zoning codes. And now here we are. We’ll see you at the Zoning Board of Appeal in March.
The NIMBY accusation is specious. As mentioned in this thread there are nearby facilities that provide these services and are perfectly acceptable. If a variance had been proposed to the neighborhood for a one-off exception for this worthy experiment it might have passed (or proven your NIMBY accusation true). But instead, a campaign of misdirection and obfuscation was taken to circumvent zoning laws and hide the facts. It’s quite apparent that the city failed their constitutional duty to provide due process to the residents of DH. City staff bypassed the proper zoning variance procedure by either omission or commission.
It’s a shame there isn’t compensation for the costs these residents are expending to retrieve their property rights and damage awards to modify the city’s behavior in future similiar matters. The ultimate fallout for this sad episode will have to be addressed later during elections.