ESQUIMALT CREATES NEW ZONE FOR RECOVERY HOMES

Esquimalt council coloured in a grey area in its zoning bylaw Monday,
adopting a new zoning designation for recovery homes.

The change requires a recovery homes to have a distinct designation.
Previously, homes for people dealing with drug or alcohol addiction
fell into the same category as single-family dwellings.

This left council little control over their operations since they were
neither a home or a business.

"We wanted to ensure that the facilities would be properly set up in
the appropriate zone so they could best fit into the community, so
this allows us to have that control," said Mayor Barb Desjardins.

But the change could deter emerging service providers from opening
recovery homes in the municipality, said Rhiannon Porcellato, program
director for Beacon of Hope House, a boys' recovery home in Vic West.

"Zoning designation is just another barrier for social service
providers who are already overwhelmingly challenged when it comes to
securing social housing programs to the highest risk in our
community," she said.

When the Beacon of Hope House opened at its Johnson Street location
more than three years ago, it already had the appropriate zoning
designation Victoria requires, Porcellato said.

"We wouldn't even have approached it if we had to find something that
needed to be rezoned, because it would be too difficult," she said.

"Service providers are just very tired of hearing the "not in my back
yard," thing and we are the people that are the most
vulnerable."

But Desjardins said the changes will achieve just the opposite. There
aren't currently any operating, but the change could attract recovery
homes to Esquimalt, she said.

The reason council looked at the issue in the first place was because
neighbours of a now-closed Grafton Street recovery house complained
the business was operating contrary to zoning regulations.

This highlighted a gap in Esquimalt's bylaw, which now requires a
$2,200 fee to make the appropriate changes.

The change will prevent residents from having any weight to their
arguments that a recovery house doesn't belong in their neighbourhood.
"It will avoid nimbyism," Desjardins said.

Porcellato said she hopes that's the case.

"But if that's the case, why is there a $2,200 fee attached to it?
Right there, that's prohibitive," she said.

Barb Snyder, director of development services, said the change is a
non-issue. There has only been one recovery house ever operated in the
municipality and it's now closed. There are no other applications on
the books, either.

"It"s just unfortunate that last year we had someone that wanted to
do this and because of a number of factors it became an issue and they
decided to close it down. We've never had anyone else come forward
since then ... but it identified a gap in our zoning bylaw that
council wanted to fill," Snyder said.