If the Justice Department decides Newport’s rehabilitation home ordinance is discriminatory, it could file its own federal discrimination lawsuit against the city.
“We’re on a path now and we can’t just step off the path; we can only go forward,” said Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff. “We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to protect, too.”
Kiff cited Newport’s gains on the issue over the past two years, including drafting an ordinance that has stood up to legal challenges so far and improving the city’s zoning codes.
The ordinance requires many of the homes to go through a hearing process to obtain use permits to stay open.
At least 13 of the homes have closed in the past year under the new ordinance, according to information from the city.
Several more sober living homes are tied up in the hearing process or expected to close.
The homes are mostly private, for-profit entities.
Newport Beach residents complained to city officials that the homes were generating a steady stream of noise, litter and second-hand cigarette smoke in their neighborhoods.
“The city is doing its best to walk the tightrope between two competing concerns and issues and it takes a good deal of legal costs to deal with that appropriately,” Hunt said.
The city’s legal costs so far include research into the matter; drafting and passing the ordinance; setting up an administrative process for handling use permits; defending the city against lawsuits; code enforcement actions and defending the city against the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Justice Department complaints.
These costs don’t include any of the city’s use of in-house resources or staff man hours.
