Elderly-care home is denied a permit

Alicia Robinson

The Costa Mesa City Council agreed with 23rd Street residents that

the neighborhood is not the place for a 16-bed, assisted-living home.

But instead of one elderly-care facility, the neighbors may get

two because homes with six or fewer residents do not need special

permits, and the property is zoned for two houses.

When the Planning Commission in April turned down a request from

James Sutherland to operate the home for 16 senior citizens and

several caretakers, Sutherland appealed to the council. Council

members on Tuesday upheld the commission’s decision, after hearing

complaints from residents that the facility would be a “blight” on

the neighborhood.

“We do not dispute the need for elderly care, but the residential

area is not the place for it,” resident Don Knipp said Wednesday.

“We’re inundated with other social ills already on the street.”

In a letter to the commission, residents of three homes on 23rd

Street wrote that they are already in a neighborhood with a home for

mentally retarded men, a halfway house and a county education

facility in the area.

Turning down the elderly-care facility doesn’t mean the city isn’t

supportive of its older residents, Mayor Allan Mansoor said. He voted

not to allow the facility, along with Councilwoman Linda Dixon and

Councilman Eric Bever.

“There are areas that this would work out great in. I just felt

that we don’t need to have more impact in our single-family

neighborhoods,” Mansoor said.

Jacqueline DuPont-Baum, a gerontologist and Sutherland’s partner

in the elderly-care home, said she was shocked by the response she

got from the council and the neighbors.

“We thought it was a great place to put a residential-care place

because of the high density of seniors,” she said.

As of 1999, she said, 17% of Costa Mesa’s population was older

than 60.

Her facility was designed to look like a family home because

seniors feel more comfortable in a neighborhood environment, which is

where they’ve probably lived most of their lives, she said.

A handful of residents have complained recently about the

proliferation of various kinds of group homes in the city. A staff

report said Costa Mesa has 136 group homes.

But neighbors may have inadvertently ruined their own plan by

urging the council to forbid the facility. The council’s denial would

not prevent construction of two, six-resident homes, for example.

Councilman Gary Monahan tried to broker a compromise allowing

Sutherland to build one facility that would only house 12 residents

but would still need a permit, so the council could set parking

requirements and other conditions.

“They can do 12 beds with no conditional-use permit, so I tried to

meet them halfway,” said Monahan, who along with Councilwoman Katrina

Foley, voted in favor of the facility. “There’s a very big need for

assisted senior housing.”

DuPont-Baum said she’s still planning to buy the property and go

ahead with some kind of facility, possibly two homes with six beds

each.

“At this point I don’t know if it will be for seniors because

right now I am so angry at the ageism that exists,” she said. “I

don’t see the same compassion that I’ve seen in other cities.”