LAKE ELSINORE: Drug and alcohol rehab clinic approved

Plans had been held up due to parking concerns

By AARON CLAVERIE - Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 2, 2008 10:30 AM PDT ∞

LAKE ELSINORE ---- A drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic will be allowed to operate in a business park at Collier Avenue and Third Street, the Planning Commission ruled Tuesday night.

The commission voted 5-0 to approve the request submitted by nonprofit Riverside Recovery Resources, which moved its corporate offices to Lake Elsinore in 1992.

Associate Planner Justin Carlson told the commission in his staff report that the results of a recent traffic study show there is adequate parking at the site to accommodate the clinic's patrons.

The commission held up its decision on the project in February to give the city's staff time to conduct the study because of parking concerns.

While Riverside Recovery will eventually pay for the staff study, it will be less expensive than a study conducted by a private company, a concession approved last month by the commission.

Riverside Recovery's executive director, Derrick Bruce Harvey, has said his organization would have a hard time affording the $5,000 to $7,000 that a private traffic study would cost.

The commission, at a meeting in mid-February, worked with Harvey and allowed city staff to conduct the traffic study.

Harvey has been trying since last summer to find a new home for the clinic, which offers counseling and other programs to addicts and people attending state-mandated alcohol abuse classes.

The clinic had been operating in space rented from the Lake Elsinore Unified School District, but the district severed its relationship with Riverside Recovery last year, forcing it to find a new location.

After finding the site at Collier and Third with close access to a bus stop and plenty of street parking, Harvey's plan to open the clinic were stymied by the city's planning department staff, which said he needed to pay for a traffic study to make sure there were enough parking spaces for clinic visitors.

There are 13 spaces at the site, bracketed by three businesses in the office park, but the formulas used by the staff to determine the proper amount of parking spaces for different uses required 20 spaces.

Harvey has long maintained that the clinic does not need 20 spaces because many of the clients it would serve, people with suspended driver's licenses and minors too young to obtain a license, would not be driving.

Harvey, a Corona resident, has said the rehab clinic likely will serve more than 400 adults per week and many of the clients will be using public transportation or will be dropped off.

Contact Aaron Claverie at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or aclaverie@californian.com. Comment at www.californian.com.

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