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Zoning Board To Continue Appeal to Restore Nonconforming Use Status to New Residential Care Facility

Published on Monday, January 18, 2021 | 5:00 am
 

Staff members are recommending that the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals continue until Feb 18 an appeal of a determination by the Zoning Administrator that a site that once housed a residential care facility has lost its nonconforming use status. 

The Board of Zoning Appeals is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. 

In December, the board voted 4-1 to continue Pasadena Senior Villa Living’s efforts to re-establish the property’s nonconforming use status.

Pasadena Senior Villa Living wants to open a residential care facility at 1811 N. Raymond Ave., the previous location of the Pasadena Recovery Center.

The city revoked the site’s nonconforming in 2018 after the Pasadena Recovery Center shut down and the nonconforming use designation was not used for 12 months.

The center was made famous by the reality television show “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.” On June 8, 2018, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) suspended the license required to operate the facility after investigating the death of a patient and several other violations. 

The center was allowed to open at the site because a facility at the site was granted a conditional use permit (CUP) in 1963 for a 98-bed convalescent home that opened two years later which grandfathered in the ability for future residential care facilities to operate at the site as a nonconforming use.

Nonconforming uses were established before the codes and policies that are in place today were approved and allow businesses to operate outside of current regulations, including zoning codes.

Under current zoning codes, a residential care facility is not permitted in the district, which is zoned for multifamily residential homes.

The City Council is set to deliberate amendments to the city’s Zoning Code on nonconforming uses on Jan. 25.

An overconcentration of these types of facilities currently exists on North Fair Oaks Avenue, near Washington Boulevard, according to a city staff report.

“The proposed text amendment seeks to ensure that nonconforming uses that require a license or permit to operate, may not be re-established if that license is revoked or suspended,” states the report. 

In October, Planning Director David Reyes told the Planning Commission that the change would shorten the time period that nonconforming businesses could keep their status if they shut down, but Reyes did not single out any particular type of business. 

“We’re not looking to shut them down, but some other agency may shut them down, or they stopped on their own accord and they want to re-establish in 12 months and it may not be desirable for them to reopen,” Reyes said.

Restaurants with drive-throughs and bars could also be impacted by the amendment. 

This is not the first time the city has taken action on nonconforming uses. In 2004, the city reeled in liquor stores operating under nonconforming uses under the deemed-approved ordinance.

The ordinance allowed the city to place local conditions of operations on many of the nuisance stores on Orange Grove Boulevard negatively impacting the quality of life in that area of the city.

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