Officials extend talks to Sept. 20

Newport Beach officials might have to extend a moratorium on new group homes in the city as they craft a final set of rules to govern the homes, which include drug and alcohol recovery facilities.

The city’s Planning Commission on Thursday agreed to continue discussion of the proposed rules to a Sept. 20 meeting. The moratorium would expire near the end of October, which likely isn’t enough time for new rules to go into effect.

The city has been under pressure from residents to address problems they say are caused by drug recovery houses that are highly concentrated and in close proximity to private homes, but the commission wanted to tweak the regulations further before sending them to the City Council.

“The decision was to do it right rather than do something that was quick and dirty,” commission Chairman Robert Hawkins said.

City leaders have struggled to create rules that will protect residential neighborhoods without discriminating against the clients of group homes, who in many cases are considered disabled and as such are protected by law.

Key changes made Thursday include creating an “overlay zone” in residential parts of the city that have smaller lots.

Within the overlay zone, any use that requires a city permit — a group home, school or church, for example — would have to be 300 feet from any other such facility, Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

That new provision might help prevent the rule from being viewed as discriminatory, Kiff said.

“Now we’re targeting anything that requires a use permit in that overlay zone,” he said.

The commission wants to have authority over all permit requests, but still to be hashed out is how to bring exiting group homes into compliance once new rules are adopted.

Hawkins said he hopes the commission can finish the group home rules Sept. 20 and pass them on to the council.

Thursday’s meeting, he said, was a step forward.

“The residents’ group and the city’s proposal at the meeting were quite far apart, and I believe the commission brought them substantially closer together,” he said.