Northbrook Village Board members recently expressed support, in often-moving terms, for zoning-code changes needed to open a controversial sober living home in a wealthy party of town.
Officials said a vote won’t come until Feb. 28 at the earliest, but six of seven board members made it clear they supported the Providence Farm locating on a 2.4-acre parcel at 1620 Sunset Ridge Road, and the required zoning code changes that would allow up to 10 men who had made it through a rehab stint to live there at one time, along with one staff member. Currently, only six people can live in such a home in Northbrook.
"Everybody’s right," said Trustee Todd Heller, explaining that he appreciated both neighbors who worried Providence could change their neighborhood and the supporters who said that change was necessary. But he added that helping those struggling with addiction recover in their own community was something that Northbrook could and should do. He said that he had lost his best friend to alcoholism.
"I can’t do it for that person, but I can do it for someone else," he said.
"These people are us – our neighbors, friends and my (Glenbrook North High School) freshman’s classmates," Trustee Kathryn Ciesla said of those who would live in the facility.
She said that constituents ask her about two things: the future of downtown Northbrook and whether Northbrook is an inclusive enough place to welcome both the young and the old in appropriate housing. She said that recently, she’s been hearing questions about whether Northbrook is inclusive enough to add a second and bigger "transitional home" for sober living to the village’s current six-man house, which operates quietly, its neighbors say, on Maple Avenue.
"Now I want our children who suffer from addiction to be able to heal here," she said.
Village President Sandy Frum asked operator Stephanie Zwilling to agree to give Northbrook applicants the first shot at places in the house, and she agreed.
She also agreed to consider an idea of Trustee Michael Scolaro: to accept only eight residents plus one staffer in the home, for the first year, after which time a Village Board review would determine whether operations had been successful enough to bring it up to the full 10-plus-one.
Northbrook residents speak out against proposed sober-living house Irv Leavitt
Most Northbrook Plan Commission members spoke negatively Tuesday about a prospective new sober-living home for recovering addicts, after a couple dozen residents of the nearby east Northbrook and west Northfield neighborhoods complained about it.
The public hearing on the home’s application for…
Most Northbrook Plan Commission members spoke negatively Tuesday about a prospective new sober-living home for recovering addicts, after a couple dozen residents of the nearby east Northbrook and west Northfield neighborhoods complained about it.
The public hearing on the home’s application for…
(Irv Leavitt)
"If there’s a tremendous rise in crime, and the forest preserves are burned down by careless smoking … the board will have a chance to look at it," Scolaro said, to peals of laughter.
He said he doubted such events, or feared heavy traffic, would occur.
"The neighbors will not know what’s going on there, and won’t care if it’s at capacity," he said.
Several board members, including Frum, said they backed some form of Scolaro’s idea. Frum said that her positive vote would not depend on Zwilling’s acceptance of the concept, but she didn’t want a response from the social worker in coming days to be "just "no," she said.
"I want to hear why would it work, or why wouldn’t it work," she said.
Trustee James Karagianis was the only board member who said he was against the project, saying, like many neighbors, that the current limit of six non-related residents in a house was enough. Beyond that, he said, was a knotty problem caused by changing the code text: would more people tend to sell their houses for such uses, creating a glut of them following Providence to the southeast Northbrook neighborhood?
The plan commission had tried to cut down the possibilities of such special-permit requests by confining the possibilities for 11 residents to parcels of at least 2.25 acres, but that wasn’t seen as a good idea by some neighborhood residents at the Village Board session, since several of the nine other such parcels are in their general area.
"Who is going to be the high bidder when those other properties come up for sale?" asked Scott Subeck, a Northfield resident living a couple of blocks east of Sunset Ridge Road.
"We don’t want to see our neighborhood turn into a neighborhood of 10-plus-one group homes," said Brad Hughes of Northbrook’s Bridlewood Road.
Northbrook’s development staff was assigned to work on the acreage minimum and on new requirements of space between facilities, to try to reduce the possibility that southeast Northbrook or any other neighborhood would be especially attractive to such "transition home" providers.
Proposed Northbrook home for recovering addicts picks up support Irv Leavitt
Northbrook’s Plan Commission migrated from mostly negative to tentatively positive on a proposal for a addiction-recovery home in an upscale neighborhood, as more supporters testified at a Tuesday hearing, and some commission members reported changed their positions.
Member Muriel Collison, who…
Northbrook’s Plan Commission migrated from mostly negative to tentatively positive on a proposal for a addiction-recovery home in an upscale neighborhood, as more supporters testified at a Tuesday hearing, and some commission members reported changed their positions.
Member Muriel Collison, who…
(Irv Leavitt)
Northbrook’s code calls for five votes, instead of a majority of those present, if the owners of more than 20 percent of the property on the boundaries of properties up for such changes file formal objections. Northbrook Village Attorney Steve Elrod said that has occurred. The vote, therefore, coujld be postponed if absences would affect the outcome, if village officials handle the situation as they have in the past.
About a dozen people rose during the session to tell trustees about their addiction histories and how much they would have appreciated such a home.
Early on, in response to questions from Scolaro, Zwilling said that monthly rates would be about $5,000. She said she planned to pay $1.27 million for the property, which includes a five-bedroom house, according to officials, an old barn, two small corrals and a pond.
The figures fueled some opponents’ arguments that an 11-bed group home was a commercial enterprise in a residential neighborhood.
"This is a transient motel," said Jerry Glunz of Voltz Road. "You’re talking about $600,000 a year. This is a for-profit enterprise. This is not good for the neighborhood and not good for the town."
He and others said that Providence would change the character of their neighborhood, while supporters said that with overnight parking tucked behind the building, no one would even notice it.
"We’re talking about regular folks" living at the group home, getting a new start on life in their own community, supporter John Philbin said. "I think that doing this would absolutely change the character of our town – in the way that we’d like it to."
The Rev. Robert Heinz, pastor of both St. Norbert and Our Lady of the Brook Catholic parish churches in Northbrook, also spoke, but only generally in favor of the concept of the group home.
"I believe that acknowledging this disease (of addiction), especially in the young, would be a powerful step in healing in all of the communities that I’ve served, making our community even more distinct, and more home, for everyone," he said.
Ileavitt@pioneerlocal.com
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