The bulk of the county zoning board’s three and a half-hour long May 15 meeting focused on the proposed Healing the Circle Lodge chemical dependency rehab facility at 2601 Jasper Road.
The board voted to continue their meeting until a future date when the application was completed and signed.
After lengthy public comment, Board Chair David Deffenbaugh said many of those comments focused on whether the application was valid and asked county staff to address that.
Michele Levine, a deputy county attorney, said the legal office hadn’t gone through the application with planning staff before the public hearing.
She said that Healing the Circle’s assertion that their proposal would be a residential use was incorrect since the patients wouldn’t be permanent residents.
That would require Healing the Circle to update their application, answering more of the questions they’d left blank when asserting it was a residential project.
Mike O’Reilly, Healing the Circle president, said they’re planning an intensive inpatient rehab facility with a maximum of 18-beds.
The applicants also didn’t sign the application documents, which is required, Levine said.
The county planner on the project said the applicants had technical issues with the application and weren’t able to sign it electronically.
“I do think that the applicant should supplement their special use permit and use statement form and provide the rest of the information and that this meeting should be recessed until you get that information,” Levine recommended to the zoning board.
She said she didn’t want the public to feel like the meeting wasted their time since it was good the applicant heard their concerns and could address them in their updated paperwork. Levine said she thought it was in the applicant’s best interest to address with specificity their intent to mitigate those concerns or reconsider the Jasper Road location.
John Harding, zoning board member, said he had about 17 pages of notes and throughout the public comment period was wondering whether it was a residential use.
“I wish I would have asked that a couple of days ago,” Harding said.
“Me too,” Levine replied.
Harding said he’d based his previous opinion on the proposal being a community residential facility and was willing to go to bat for it since that was allowed under the county zoning rules.
Katie Hanning, zoning board member, said that “this has never been a home,” and she didn’t like the lack of detail in the application or staff report.
She said she needed a letter from the fire marshal and more information from the health department.
During the meeting, O’Reilly had said a state fire marshal had inspected the property and said they didn’t need sprinklers but did need to install fire extinguishers. He said that they couldn’t install extinguishers until they closed on the property.
Hanning said that the letter from Great Falls Public Schools stated they weren’t provided enough information about the proposal to offer an opinion on the project.
In their letter, Brian Patrick of GFPS wrote that the proposed rehab facility is within a residential area that’s home to 75 elementary and 58 high school students. There are eight established bus stops in the vicinity.
The proposal was vague and Hanning said she was “baffled” by the lack of signature on the permit application documents, making it confusing in terms of property ownership.
The documents include the name Nancy Landa as the property owner, but Cadastral shows the Liggett Family Trust and Mark and Mary Liggett as owners.
Levine said that staff had sent information to various local agencies requesting comment and that staff can’t force them to respond.
“Those agencies also need to do their part,” she said.
If Healing the Circle Lodge owners and property owners submit the additional required application information and sign their paperwork, planning staff will review the documents for completeness, county legal and planning staff told The Electric in written responses to questions.
If county planning staff deem the application complete, they’ll reset a public hearing following the required public notice process with the agenda documents on the county website.
If the hearing is reset, the zoning board will already have all of the written and spoken comments from the May 15 meeting and “interested parties will not need to rehash or repeat comments that have already been submitted. Interested persons will be encouraged to focus new comments on any new supplemental information received from the applicant after May 15,” according to county planning and legal staff responses to The Electric.
The zoning board gives conditional approval of special use permits and applicants must meet the conditions set specific to their project before receiving a location conformance permit and SUP. Applicants that don’t meet the conditions, such as CCHD approval for water or septic, won’t receive their permits.
“An applicant will not receive a special use permit until all conditions imposed by the [zoning board] have been met,” according to county staff.
During the meeting, several neighborhood property owners said that the application was incomplete and that there were existing zoning violations on the property.
In a written response to several questions from The Electric, county planning and legal staff said that many special use permit applications are submitted with limited information or deficiencies. They said planning staff works with applicants to ensure they’re complete and signed before scheduling a hearing.
“It is incorrect to say the project is in violation of zoning regulations. It is not. Planning staff reviewed the original application from when the house was built to look at that site plan. The original site plan was stamped by an architect with conforming setbacks. The applicant for this current special use permit is not changing the boundaries of the existing structure. The site plan that the applicant in this matter submitted is misleading and does show a front side yard to be 28 feet but the front side yard was measured by the applicant from the wrong place. Planning staff verified on Cadastral that this existing structure is in conformance with the required setbacks for this zoning district,” county staff wrote in their response to The Electric’s questions.
Staff said that violations are typically brought to the county through citizen complaints that are investigated. If a violation was documented, it would become a known violation and staff said 2601 Jasper has no known violations.
City public works staff told The Electric that they have a meeting scheduled with Healing the Circle this week to determine if the property must be annexed into the city to connect to utilities.
“The applicant and the city did not tell the planning office that the applicant had a meeting with the city about annexation. Given the comments from City-County Health Department, planning staff recommended to the applicant that they meet with the city. The applicant wished to proceed with the May 15 public hearing,” according to written responses from county planning and legal staff.
On May 13, Rhonda Knudsen, CCHD’s environmental health division manager, told The Electric that an environmental health specialist from CCHD was in contact with Healing the Circle to let them know that the septic system was permitted for a five-bedroom residential unit, but it has seven bedrooms so a new septic system needs to be permitted and sized based on the new use.
CCHD also informed the drug rehab company that they may be required to connect to city water and wastewater systems since the property appears to be within 200 feet of the existing city systems, under a state rule.
Knudsen said CCHD also contacted the city to determine if the property is indeed within 200 feet of city connections and requested an estimate for connection.
She said CCHD typically requests septic permit applications to submit three system installation estimates to claim that it’s “economically impractical,” under the state rule.
Mark Juras of city public works told The Electric that the city typically requires annexation to connect to city utility lines.
Knudsen told The Electric that CCHD is not actively working on any permitting for the proposed 2601 Jasper Road project since they haven’t received a location conformance application yet from the county planning office.
She said CCHD is gathering and providing information pertaining to the property but don’t formally start the application process until they receive the location conformance application from county planning, which is part of the normal permitting process for new construction, changes in use and other land use actions.
Once that application is submitted, CCHD will review the information and contact the applicant to start the septic permitting process which involves a site evaluation and soil profile. Permits to construct septic systems are based on the application, soil type and septic regulation requirement, Knudsen said.
During the May 15 meeting, Levine said that legal hadn’t reviewed the permit application.
In a response to The Electric’s question asking if there was a county process to ensure full review and completeness of land use request hearings, county staff wrote that the county attorney’s office doesn’t review SUP applications.
“That function is handled by the planning department. Typically, planning staff provides the county attorney’s office a copy of the packet prior to the meeting and does not usually request or receive comment from the county attorney’s office on a packet, unless a planning staff person has specific questions about a particular permit application or proposed condition to mitigate a negative impact identified by the applicant, public comment or agency comment.”
The county attorney’s office didn’t review the other two SUP applications on the May 15 agenda either, staff said.
Those applications were both for accessory structures on residential properties.
The county attorney’s office did answer some questions from planning staff about their ability to recommend certain conditions for approval, staff told The Electric, and county zoning regulations allow the zoning board to require conditions of approval that it determines will mitigate potential conflicts.
Asked if the May 15 public hearing could have been paused once legal staff realized the Healing the Circle proposal wasn’t a residential use under its zoning regulations, staff told The Electric that once the zoning board convenes a hearing on a SUP, it needs to take public comment. The board can table a matter for further consideration, but only after the public hearing portion is closed, according to county staff.
The Electric asked if the county would make any changes to its process to avoid situations similar to the Healing the Circle permit hearing.
Staff responded that planning staff will “still solely make the determination whether an application is complete or not, unless planning staff members have particular legal questions or concerns. Going forward, the planning office will strictly enforce the application requirements, even if that means further frustration by members of the public and future applicants.”
SUP applications are assigned to a planning staff member who is the one to determine when an application is complete and schedule a public hearing, following the legally required notification process, according to the county’s responses to The Electric.
The county planning department is currently without a director.
The position has been vacant for more than a year.
Staff said there have been a few applicants for the position but some didn’t meet the minimum requirements or have planning experience.
“Further, the planning director position is a challenging position that frequently receives anger and frustration from the general public, applicants, and developers. It is a tough position to fill. It can also be tough to retain planners and a planning director due to the conflict that comes with controversial projects. The planning office is in the difficult position of enforcing statutes and regulations that some members of the public oppose including floodplain regulations, subdivision regulations and zoning regulations,” according to county staff.
During the May 15 zoning board hearing, several people spoke in favor of the proposed rehab facility.
Brianna Grismer said addiction runs deep in her family and she’s the first woman in four generations to break the cycle.
Treatment facilities, she said, are a “matter of life, legacy and the kind of future we want for our community.”
Grismer said she understands the neighbors concerns about safety but, “addiction already exists in every neighborhood. The center isn’t a threat, it’s a lifeline and it may one day serve someone you love.”
Madeline Amato said she has worked in substance abuse treatment and supported the proposed facility.
Access to quality care is important for treatment and recovery, she said, and that the proposed Healing the Circle facility would help address the “urgent need” in Cascade County, reducing the burden on hospitals, law enforcement and emergency response.
Terea Mouser, who owns a local addiction counseling company, said that her clients have a difficult time getting into treatment. She said there are two existing Level 3.7 facilities, which are medically monitored withdrawal management and detoxification.
The next highest level of treatment is hospitalization, according to O’Reilly and Samantha Romero, the center’s medical director.
Mouser said having another Level 3.7 facility would be a “huge benefit” to the community since there’s a bar or marijuana shop on just about every corner.
“If we’re going to create the addicts, we should treat the addicts,” she said.
Lisa Thomas is an emergency department nurse in Great Falls and the mother of an addict.
She said she supported the proposed rehab facility though she understood the neighborhood concerns.
Denying the permit doesn’t make addiction disappear, she said, it just makes treatment more difficult to find.
“Every community including ours is impacted by addiction,” Thomas said. “Addiction doesn’t discriminate.”
To neighborhood concerns about safety, Thomas said, it’s “critically important to understand this facility is not a threat, it’s a solution.”
Using the publicly available state register, there are 10 sexual or violent offenders within one mile of 2601 Jasper and 83 within two miles, she said.
Dylan Romero, the facility medical director’s husband, said that he was injured playing soccer.
Doctors put him on painkillers, leading to a heroin addiction that let him homeless on the streets.
“I never thought that I would have a life,” he said, and now has a family, business and owns a home, which he attributes to treatment.
Sara Sexe, former city attorney, lives near 2601 Jasper and said that she has deeply personal reasons to support treatment facilities as a close relative is in recovery, but she’s opposed to the proposal.
She said the application should be denied on its procedural deficiencies since the application isn’t complete or signed.
Sexe said the site plan in the packet showed a violation of county zoning regulations, but as noted above, staff said they checked the original plans to determine the setbacks were correct.
She said there was a vast difference between residential use and the commercial use of a residential property for a transitory purpose.
Other area property owners said they opposed the project on the grounds of moving a for-profit business into a residential area.
Some noted the lack of sidewalks, street lights and snow removal, saying there were other potential locations in the city for such a rehab facility. Others said the patients could potentially need emergency medical care and it would take too long for ambulances or emergency responders to reach the property.
Meghan Sutton, a local attorney, said that application was incomplete so a hearing shouldn’t have been called.
She said she believes the neighboring homes would be attractive to an addict walking away from treatment.
Sutton said there’s a need for treatment facilities in Great Falls, but the proposed neighborhood isn’t an appropriate location.
“This is within your discretion to deny it and I’m asking you to do so,” she said.
Josh Goroski lives in the area and said he understands the importance of recovery resources but that the permit application was incomplete and misleading.
He said Healing the Circle should provide more details on their plans and operations.
Doug Sexe said “this whole thing just strikes me as being extremely premature. Amazed me that you actually called a hearing on this.”
Eric Borggard said that the neighborhood was unified in its opposition and that was worthy of the board’s consideration.
Brian Hopkins, a former deputy county attorney, said that the county’s zoning regulations state the applicant bears the responsibility of presenting sufficient information.
He said that the application “does not meet the standards and the applicant was required to meet the standards.”
