City Stalls on Decision for Sober Living Community

City staff need more information about the business plan of a new sober living facility on 1 Culloden Park Rd. before they can evaluate if the residence complies with city codes as well as state and federal statutes.

The property at 1 Culloden Park Rd., which opened for business on Feb. 10, could house up to 12 to 15 recovering male alcohol and drug addicts at one time. The house operates like a business, charging $4000 per month for a room and meals.

Neighbors near the Culloden Park house are concerned about the possibility of traffic congestion and parking problems that the new tenants could bring, as well as zoning issues since the neighborhood is a residential district.

City staff held a private meeting on Feb. 24 to go over the business plan of the facility and evaluate its impact on the neighborhoods.

“A lot of laws protect clean and sober residences,” City Planning Manager Paul Jensen said. “If they were easy to regulate, they would have been regulated a long time ago.”

The Culloden Park house was leased by its owner to a company called Bay Area Sober Living for a period of one year. It does not provide any form of treatment or therapy.

Under California state law, groups of unrelated adults who live together cooperatively cannot be regulated differently than single families. But this new facility has “gone beyond what might constitute a family-shared home,” according to Community Development Director Robert Brown.  

Manager and operator of Bay Area Sober Living, Leo van Warmerdam wrote a letter to the Forbes community before the Culloden Park house opened, explaining that “the state statute, the federal and state fair housing laws as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act protect the housing rights of individuals in sober living homes.”

He declined further comment.  

The prevalence of unregulated sober living homes in residential areas could affect property values in the same way that school districts, parking availability and proximity to downtown do, according to Marin Street Realtor Bob Beyea.

Beyea, who is also president of the Gerstle Park Neighborhood Association, tried to sell a four-bedroom Victorian-style home on 201 Marin St, but was unsuccessful after dropping the listing price twice. A little after month, with no offers to buy, the home was repurposed as a sober living community. The case was similar for the Culloden Park property.

“It’s zoned as a multi-family property,” he said. “It was a two-unit as recently as 2006.”

Beyea has not been involved with the Marin Street house since the owners decided to rent it.      

The Marin Street facility, which is operated by TLC Residential Clean and Sober Living Homes and not affiliated with Bay Area Sober Living, is slated to open today.

It will offer its residents “upscale sober living at its best,” according to the TLC website. 

TLC’s Chief Executive Officer Frank Montero would not comment on the new Marin Street property other than to say, “we are very nice neighbors to have.”

TLC operates 24 sober homes throughout the Bay Area and they have pledged to follow all state and federal laws, “straight up like we always do,” he said.  

There may be many more sober living homes in the community that the city is unaware of, however, the two newest facilities at Culloden Park Road and Marin Street have attracted a lot of attention because they are large homes in upscale neighborhoods, according to Brown. “We don’t have a handle on how many there are,” he said.

Gerstle Park resident Amy Likover said there are now five sober living communities within a two-block radius of the facility at 201 Marin Street.

“It’s disconcerting to me that a for-profit business would exist and the city wouldn’t even know about it,” she said.