Rehab agrees to leave

Narconon, the single largest rehabilitation home in the city, has agreed to leave Newport Beach in 2010, city officials announced Friday.

“It’s a triumph of our neighborhood,” said Newport Beach resident Barbara Roy, who lives next door to Narconon. Roy has lived in the area since 1990 and said the recovery home creates a constant stream of noisy trash pickups and delivery trucks through the narrow alley next to the three-story West Oceanfront facility. Narconon clients would often loiter and chain smoke in the area, she said.

“It’s been a long time coming, and we’ve all fought to preserve the character of our neighborhood,” Roy said.

Neighbors of the Narconon drug and alcohol recovery home at 1810 West Oceanfront have complained to city officials for years about noise, trash and second-hand smoke around the facility. Narconon has inhabited the West Oceanfront triplex for the past 13 years and the building was occupied by a different rehabilitation home before that since the mid 1980s, Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The facility is cleared to have a daytime occupancy of 49 people and 27 at night, Kiff said.

The recovery home penned a deal this week with Newport Beach officials to vacate its beachfront building by the end of February 2010 when its state alcohol and drug treatment facility permit expires. In exchange, the city will drop its countersuit against Narconon, filed in response to a lawsuit the rehabilitation home Sober Living by the Sea filed against the city, said Jim Markman, the city’s independent attorney on the rehabilitation home issue.

Narconon also agreed to never legally challenge the validity of a city ordinance passed earlier this year that requires most rehabilitation homes in Newport Beach to obtain use permits, Markman said.

Under the terms of the agreement, Narconon also has to abide a number of rules laid out by the city to minimize resident complaints until it moves. The terms include keeping Narconon residents from smoking on the beach, alleyways and boardwalk around the building, and minimizing traffic in the neighborhood by limiting the number of staff members at the facility at any one time, Markman said. Narconon clients also must abide a curfew between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., he said.

Narconon officials could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.

The recovery home was motivated in part to leave the city because it has outgrown its current location, Kiff said.