Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993 TAG: 9306150035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that the city Board of Zoning Appeals used "erroneous principles of law" when it approved a request for Hegira House to relocate on the 1900 block of Andrews Road.
Although the group of Andrews Road residents prevailed on a procedural challenge to the board's vote, the opposition also was based on racial issues.
George Riles, who joined 23 other property owners in a lawsuit against the board, said the predominantly black community may have been selected as the site of least resistance.
"I'm quite sure that if they tried to establish this in Hunting Hills, they wouldn't have it to start with," Riles said.
Residents were concerned that putting a drug-treatment home in their neighborhood would increase crime and decrease property values.
Many blacks moved to the middle-class community around Andrews Road after losing their homes years ago to developments such as the Roanoke Civic Center and the Coca-Cola plant, Riles said.
Like a proposal to build a road through the Gainsboro community, the planned Hegira House relocation was seen by some black residents as another effort by the city to take over their community.
"The city fathers are always telling us what's good for us," Riles said. "They don't let us involve ourselves in the decision-making process.
"I'm just glad that in this case, the black community showed it had some backbone."
City Attorney Wilburn Dibling said the city's only involvement in the Hegira House relocation was to represent the board after residents filed a lawsuit.
Dibling said it's up to Hegira House - which selected the Andrews Road location - to decide what to do next.
Hegira House Director Henry Altice and officials with Mental Health Services, the agency that operates the drug-treatment home, could not be reached for comment Monday.
Hegira House, now located on Second Street in Old Southwest, provides an intensive group-therapy program for 24 drug and alcohol abusers. Most of its occupants are there in lieu of jail sentences.
Friday's Supreme Court decision was the latest step in a complicated legal fight that began two years ago. The Board of Zoning Appeals has been sued by both sides - first by Hegira House when it refused to rehear the case after deadlocking 2-2, then by neighborhood residents when the board's full membership voted 3-2 to approve the move.
Circuit Judge Roy Willett upheld the board's second vote, a decision the residents appealed to the Supreme Court.
The decision to grant Hegira House a zoning variance to operate in a residential area was flawed, the Supreme Court ruled, because the board did not make three findings required by law.
Those findings would have been that:
Strict application of zoning laws would have created an undue hardship for Hegira House.
The hardship was not shared by other property owners in the area.
A variance would not be of "substantial detriment" to adjacent property.
The court reversed Willett's order upholding the board's decision and dismissed Hegira House's application.
"To grant [Hegira House] a variance under the facts presented would give it impermissible `special privilege or convenience,' " the court ruled.
by CNB