Panel OKs letting Wichita recovery house have 9 residents

The Metropolitan Area Planning Commission on Thursday approved a request by a Wichita substance abuse recovery house to let up to nine men live there.

The 6-2 approval by the commission came after the commission staff recommended that the request be denied, after some residents in the north Wichita neighborhood said they were concerned that nine residents was too many and after a board that advises the City Council voted against the conditional use.

At issue Thursday was whether the Oxford House recovery home at 1055 W. 31st St. North could receive a “conditional use, limited” status that would allow up to nine men in recovery to live there.

When an Oxford House recovery home opened within the past few months in the College Hill neighborhood, city officials said that eight residents was the city’s occupancy limit for people in recovery homes in single-family zoning.

Oxford House is a national program in which private owners rent homes to men and women in recovery who run the houses themselves, remaining sober as they put their lives back together. Members caught using again have to immediately move out.

Members and owners of the Oxford House seeking the conditional use on West 31st Street North said having approval for one more bed is important because every bed counts with the high demand for recovery settings.

A Planning Commission staff report had recommended that the conditional use to allow nine residents be denied. The report said the neighborhood is “almost unbroken … single-family residences.” The report noted the relatively transient nature of the people living in a recovery house. Another neighborhood with multi-family, non-residential or more diverse zoning would be more appropriate, the staff report said.

In a letter filed with the commission, Steven Polin, general counsel for Oxford House Inc., argued that the conditional use to allow nine residents at the house is reasonable and should be granted.

Under state law and “ultimately” under city law, up to 10 people can live in a group home, Polin said in the letter. The house on 31st is known as Oxford House-Wedgewood and has been serving people in recovery since 1994, he said.

“Any suggestion Oxford House-Wedgewood changes the character of the neighborhood is unfounded and can be construed as a pretextual reason to discriminate on the basis of disability,” Polin wrote.

As recovering alcoholics and substance abusers, the residents are a “protected class” under the federal Fair Housing Act, he said.

Oxford House spokesmen said Thursday that there are 29 Oxford House homes across Wichita.

One of the Oxford House representatives, John Agnew, told the commission that having a sufficient number of people in a home makes it easier for them to share the bills. “And we want to put them in nice neighborhoods,” where they can thrive as they recover, he said.

“Every house we have in the city blends in with that neighborhood,” Agnew said.

This story was originally published August 4, 2016 at 7:52 PM with the headline "Panel OKs letting Wichita recovery house have 9 residents."