RECOVERY HOUSES GET OK

In a decision that pleased neither side, the city of Fremont on Monday
approved six of the seven boardinghouses for recovering alcoholics and
addicts proposed for the city's Cabrillo neighborhood.

Neighbors immediately vowed to appeal the decision to the city council,
which will not be able to hear the issue until September at the earliest.

For both the neighbors and James Hardwick, who proposes to operate the
``Courage House'' transitional homes, the key issue is occupancy levels.
Assistant City Manager Lynn Dantzker, who made the decision, reduced the
maximum number of occupants from 69 in seven houses to as many as 51 in six
houses, but neighbors still feel that's too many.

The largest house, which is about 1,700 square feet, could have 13
occupants: eight adults and five children. Hardwick had proposed 17, which
is the capacity allowed by the Uniform Housing Code.

``You get a lot of people stuffed in a house like that; I just can't
imagine living like that,'' said Stuart Rupp, one of more than 100 Cabrillo
residents who came to a hearing on the proposal earlier this month.

Rupp argued that market-rate rents for three-bedroom, two-bath homes in the
neighborhood are around $1,500 to $1,600. Hardwick charges $400 a month for
adults and $25 a month for children. At full capacity, he would be earning
$2,100 for a house with five adults and four children.

But Hardwick said that's not enough for him to break even, pointing out
that unlike most landlords, he pays for utilities, telephone service,
furniture, maintenance and yardwork.

``I am disappointed because I think we had the occupancy at a very
reasonable level,'' he said. He said he did not know if he would appeal the
decision.

Courage House had proposed to operate seven ``sober living environment''
boardinghouses in and near the Cabrillo neighborhood, which is bounded by
Interstate 880, Decoto Road, Fremont Boulevard and Thornton Avenue.
Residents of that area argued that the houses should be distributed around
the city, but Dantzker said she had no authority to make that happen.

``We cannot force the applicant to look elsewhere in the city to establish
such homes,'' she wrote in a letter to residents explaining her decision.

Dantzker did deny one of the proposed houses, on Perkins Street, because it
was across the street from another group home and ``could destabilize the
single-family character of the area.'' But all the other houses are at
least 2,000 feet away from each other and 800 feet from other group homes.

The city had to approve the houses, Dantzker wrote, because of federal laws
defining recovering alcoholics and addicts as handicapped and requiring
cities to make ``reasonable accommodation'' for them by allowing
boardinghouses in single-family neighborhoods where they otherwise would
not be allowed.