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23 (43)Jennifer L. Hall From: Jane Gibbons < Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 9:38 AM To: Public Comment Subject: [EXTERNAL] In opposition to Conditional Use Permit NO. 2021-06106 Attachments: CUP DEV2021-06016.pdf Warning: This email originated from outside the City of Anaheim. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and are expecting the message. For distribution to the City Council members and the Mayor. Please see attached letter in reference to the appeal of the denial of the CUP application. 10-25-21 To the Anaheim City Council My name is Jane Gibbons, I live 450 feet from the proposed location of this large transitional bridge program house, and I am writing this letter in continued opposition to the Conditional Use Permit application (DEV2021-06016) submitted by Grandma's House of Hope. The applicant, who has appealed the unanimous denial by the planning commission, has submitted a new operating agreement which is interesting in its operational changes as well as its explanations for the impact on the neighborhood. Although this revised operating agreement purports to be different in its approach and delivery, it is actually very much the same with the exception of the number of participants being 16 instead of 20 supposedly in order to bypass the need for sprinklers. This in and of itself is puzzling as the original application was firm in its statement that the number could not be reduced below 20 as the Bridge Housing Program is contracted for 20 people. Do we have any assurance that there will not be an expansion to 20+ people if the CUP is granted? It will house the same type of residents as were previously proposed, coming from the same Bridge Program location that Grandma's House of Hope wants to repurpose for an unrelated expansion, except this time they are describing the population in a more benign way by saying they have a mental health disability. This same population was described previously as having severe and persistent mental health disabilities such as depression, PTSD, Bi -polar, and Schizophrenia. This change of description seems disingenuous as the applicant seems to believe that it was her specificity as to the severity of the mental illness that was partly the reason for the denial of her CUP. She states in her submission that "the only difference in the CUP submission for this property and others, even 36 -bed program 700 feet away, is that we were specific about the population we would serve there. After providing that specificity, the Planning Commission implied that individuals with a mental health disability would have an undue and excessive need to utilize the sewer system, more than the participants that reside at our other properties." This a complete mischaracterization of the concerns expressed by the planning commission. What they were clearly expressing is a concern for the sewer capacity in the city, and that the addition of another large scale operation serving a large number of people adding a burden to the system when they wrote "the proposed project is in excess of the capacity estimated to be accommodated by the city's existing sewer infrastructure related to the public sewer and water." This is not specific to this project. I personally had to get clearance related to sewer capacity before I could start planning to build a guest house in my back yard. It's apparent that the City oversees all potential increase to the expected burden on the capacity of our sewer system and a household of 16+ people and all the ancillary staff is certainly a much higher burden in a single family home than what would be expected or planned for. The applicant attempted to minimize the impact of the proposed staffing plan on her original application and she doubles down on the minimization in the new operations agreement. The most obvious, and hard to believe statement is that these residents, with all their needs, will be served by one volunteer therapist who will be there 2-5 hours/WEEK. This very needy population will see a therapist for 20 min per week assuming the 5 hours; if the therapist is only there for 3 hours then that time is reduced to 12 minutes per week. If, as stated on the original application, the therapist will be doing group meetings as well as individual sessions then some will not have any interaction at all. This is just not believable. Stating that there should be no more than 2-3 staff members at any one time is also not believable based on the population being served. It seems to me that the applicant has retooled the description of her operation to describe a pared down operation in order to obtain approval. She has expressed her surprise at the result of the hearing in front of the planning commission, having stated that she has never been denied in the past. She has now essentially used the hearing in front of the planning commission as a trial balloon and has made the changes on paper that she sees as the road to approval of her appeal. I, for one, do not believe that these changes are meant for the long haul, but rather are just meant to get the approval before launching into an expansion of services as that has been her practice in the past and she will need to get to that 20 person contracted number for her Bridge Program contract at the very least. If the City Council decides that you believe these proposed changes to be true, and you vote to overturn a thoughtful and considered unanimous decision by the planning commission, then I strongly suggest that you prevent the predictable next steps by the applicant and condition the approval on no increases in residents served at this location, the random audit of actual staff size and impact to the neighborhood based on on-site staff at any given time, as well as a demand for an actual professional staff member on-site 24 hours rather than their cost-saving model of deputizing a program resident as responsible enough to oversee this population after hours. If the community leader is a long term resource- needing resident of one of GHH's programs then they are not prepared to make decisions related to a mentally ill population on their own. Although they defend this model of staffing it is ludicrous on its face and they, and all of us, are just lucky that there have been no reported adverse events. Respectfully, Jane Gibbons Anaheim, 92805