A full crowd in the boardroom of the community center Dec. 5, 2024 for appeals to the Board of Supervisors regarding a residential substance abuse treatment facility planned for north Carson.
Photo by Scott Neuffer.
After a contentious journey from the Carson City Planning Commission to the Board of Supervisors, Vitality Unlimited’s 36-bed, 9,200-square-foot residential substance abuse treatment center is moving forward.
Supervisors on Thursday voted unanimously to reject three appeals and affirm planning commissioners’ approval of a special use permit (SUP) for the project at 1625 Vista Lane. The approximately .79-acre property, zoned retail commercial, is part of a medical park south of the Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center and sits just north of the Silver Oak subdivision and golf course fairway.
In October, planning commissioners conditioned their approval that the SUP be nontransferable, meaning another organization could not take over operations. They also required an 8-foot, non-wood, opaque fence or wall be constructed around the facility’s interior courtyard shielding neighbors to the south.
Supervisors modified some of the conditions of approval and added another. In the first condition, they stipulated the development follow the approved plans and the project’s “operational representations.” They also changed condition five, stipulating the applicant comply with setback requirements or obtain a variance, removing language in the previous condition about the zoning of the adjacent golf course.
To the fence condition, supervisors added a sentence: “The wall shall be screened with compatible vegetation and natural elements to the satisfaction of the community development director.”
And a new condition was added to prohibit the facility from accepting civil protective custody clients, which Nevada law defines as “a custodial placement of a person to protect the health or safety of the person.”
“Civil protective custody does not have any criminal implication,” reads NRS 458.010.
The modified conditions allayed fears among the board that the facility would be used for temporary clientele or not follow the rigorous screening process or operational integrity promised by the nonprofit.
Vitality Unlimited operates a 25-bed residential treatment center in the Carson City Health and Human Services building off Long Street and has been awarded $3 million through the state (ARPA dollars) plus a $500,000 commitment from Carson City (also ARPA funds) for relocation due to the city’s need for the current space.
The October SUP was appealed by a resident of Silver Oak and property owners directly west and east of the subject parcel. The appeals included charges that planning commissioners abused their discretion, lacked evidence and based their decision on classifying the facility as a congregate care housing facility instead of a “halfway house,” arguing it would diminish property values.
Vitality has maintained the facility is not a halfway house and that applicants to the residential treatment program (running 30 to 45 days) are screened for prior incidents of violence or sexual offenses. The treatment center would be a closed campus, alarmed but not locked down.
Vitality representative Sarah Adler clarified Thursday everyone who is admitted to the facility, even those who might need detox and medical observation, are screened on the front end.
Mayor Lori Bagwell informed the sizable audience at the beginning of the three-hour-plus hearing that public comment would not be taken due to the quasi-judicial nature of the proceedings. Each appellant and the applicant were given time to make their respective cases.
Appellant Michael Hartman, the Silver Oak resident, relayed to supervisors that two neighbors had already listed their houses for sale because of the Planning Commission’s approval.
“So, the exodus has already begun, and Vitality and the Planning Commission found that this project would do no harm to property values? What kind of fools do they take us for?” he said.
Attorney Frank Gilmore, representing an adjacent owner and tenant, Carson Periodontics and Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, argued property owners should know what kind of development can take place near them.
“By virtue of the fact that the existing property owners are already there, they have rights, so we’re talking about the property rights built into the code for the existing property owners, not property rights attendant to people who want to move in,” he said.
Gilmore said concerns over property values are speculative but added, “There are certain stigmas, I’m sorry to say.”
“I’m not propagating these stigmas. I’m simply acknowledging there is a stigma associated with this type of practice, this type of proposed use, and property values don’t care about whether stigmas are appropriate, whether they’re outdated, whether they’re good, bad or indifferent. They don’t,” he continued. “Property values are: When my client built this building and established this practice, they had an explanation that certain types of businesses would be built in this medical park. It’s a medical park. And declarations that were created in order to establish this medical park said that it will be a medical office. And probably people don’t know it, maybe it doesn’t matter for purposes of this argument, but those declarations were changed in order to put this square peg in this round hole.”
Michelle Joy, CEO of Carson Tahoe Health, said in a Dec. 4 letter she’d shared CTH’s “long-term goal to establish a Behavioral Health healing hub campus adjacent to our Sierra building, on Medical Parkway and just a block away from Vista Lane.”
“This healing hub is designed to provide inpatient adult and adolescent behavioral health beds, adult inpatient substance use beds, crisis stabilization services for both adults and adolescents, and some outpatient services,” Joy wrote. “Currently, Carson Tahoe is already seeing and treating many of the same patients who would benefit from Vitality’s services across from our medical campus. Without the proximity and accessibility of Vitality, these patients often have no appropriate discharge options and end up staying in the Emergency Room (ER) for extended periods. This is not an appropriate use of the ER and creates a ripple effect.”
She went on to describe such ripple effects as increased ER use and overcrowding; longer wait times for community members seeking emergency medical care; and extended holds for hospital beds for substance use treatment, “delaying care for those in the community with acute medical needs.”
“We know this outcome firsthand. Before opening our crisis stabilization unit, we regularly experienced these challenges, and they placed immense strain on our resources and staff. Vitality’s presence on the medical park campus which includes Medical Parkway and Vista Lane aligns with the operational goals of the entire campus and is essential to alleviating these pressures,” Joy wrote.
In a Nov. 25 email, Sheriff Ken Furlong said CCSO does not participate in final decisions or recommendations to planning commissioners or supervisors but provides clarifying information based on facts. Asked to review four criminal incidents in the neighborhood of Vitality’s current facility from the last six months, Furlong said he found no connection between the incidents and the current Vitality facility and patients.
Asked about the history of the last 12 years at the Vitality center, Furlong said, “I am not aware of any significant incidents that have occurred at the Vitality center which have resulted in a significant response by the Sheriff’s Office. This may well result from the internal rules of the facility and the discharge of patients who do not follow those rules or treatment plans.”
Hartman and a representative provided the Appeal with CCSO call logs from 2022 to Nov. 15 of this year. The seven-page document shows numerous calls arising from the HHS building including from Vitality, though it doesn’t show who made the calls.
Furlong told the Appeal after the hearing many calls for service in the area are related to nearby apartments, and he maintained call logs are not the same as criminal incidents.
A Nov. 26 memo from Carson City Supervising Deputy District Attorney Todd Reese said the appellants had standing to appeal, but the standard of review was to determine if an abuse of discretion occurred, if the Planning Commission’s decision was arbitrary or capricious.
Bagwell on Thursday reminded fellow board members and the audience of this standard of review.
“I need to be clear with you,” she said. “It’s not whether or not we would approve or disapprove of the facility. It’s the job of the Planning Commission to make the initial review, and then you can appeal it if you think they did an abuse of power, or something was arbitrary or capricious.
“I know this is going to be difficult for everyone. I know each and every one of you fully believe everything you brought forward, and that evidence is near and dear to your hearts. Every single one of you, I believe, is telling the truth. I want to make that statement. You’re telling the truth from your perspective, your thoughts, your beliefs. So, our job here, though, is to weigh what the Planning Commission did and say, ‘Did they ignore something so vital that was there for them and how in the world could they come up with that answer, right?”
Supervisors went over required findings for SUP approval and mostly agreed planning commissioners did not abuse their discretion.
“I feel like based on all the conversation tonight, all the conversation that took place during the Planning Commission meeting, reviewing all the materials, I do not believe the director (Community Development Director Hope Sullivan) nor the Planning Commission abused their discretion in regards to the definition of use of congregate care,” said Supervisor Maurice White.
Other SUP findings included the project would not be detrimental to the neighborhood or public health and safety. Supervisor Stacey Giomi worried planning commissioners might not have had evidence or a full understanding of the fact the facility could take civil protective custody patients.
“I think that that changes the potential to make finding number six because those are patients who are not screened, who are not there for 30-45 days. They are there for 12 hours. They are there for 24 hours,” he said. “I believe that that is something the Planning Commission should have considered that I didn’t find or hear was discussed at any length, or discussed at all, at the Planning Commission and only sort of tangentially mentioned in the application.”
Giomi’s stated concerns led to the added condition that civil protective custody patients be prohibited from admission to the new facility.
Adler told the Appeal design of the project was far enough along to obligate ARPA dollars before the end of the year. Construction could begin by late spring or early summer.