LAWRENCE: Detox center zoning meeting canceled

By Lea Kahn
   The Zoning Board of Adjustment has canceled this week’s public hearing on a controversial application to locate a drug and alcohol detoxification center on Federal City Road because the applicant’s attorney, Michael Hartsough, was unable to attend.
   The hearing on the application, which was slated for Wednesday, April 13, will be carried over to the zoning board’s April 27 special meeting, according to Lawrence Township officials. The April 27 meeting will be held in the Township Council chambers at 7:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building.
   The applicant, Simone Investment Group LLC, owns the office park at 100 Federal City Road and is seeking a use variance to open a 38-bed residential detoxification center in one of the three buildings at the office park.
   A use variance is needed because a residential substance abuse detoxification center is not a permitted use in the Professional Office zone. The property in question, which consists of three office buildings, is located in the PO zone.
   At the board’s March 16 meeting, a planner for the applicant told the Zoning Board of Adjustment that if the zoning had not been changed from Education Government and Institutions zoning, then the proposed Sunrise Detoxification Center would not need to appear before the board for a use variance.
   The EGI zone permits health care uses, such as rehabilitation hospitals, outpatient facilities, residential health care facilities, long-term care and assisted living facilities, and “ancillary hospital functions,” Mr. Mueller said.
   At an earlier session in January, Linda Burns, the chief nursing officer for Sunrise Detox Center, explained the difference between a substance abuse detoxification center and a substance abuse treatment center. She said Sunrise Detox Center would “medically stabilize” a patient and then send that person to a drug and alcohol treatment facility for more help.
   Dr. Morgan Poncy, who is the medical director and founder of Sunrise Detox, said the goal is to take patients off the prescription drugs or alcohol that they are abusing, and then send them to another facility for treatment.
   Sunrise Detox does not take patients who have psychiatric issues, nor does it accept criminals who are referred to a substance abuse treatment center by the criminal court system, Ms. Burns said. It does not take walk-in patients — addicts who walk into the office seeking help.
   Neighbors, however, are wary and have expressed concern about the potential clientele.
   Residents of the Traditions at Federal Point age-restricted development and the Federal Hill single-family-home subdivision, which border the proposed detoxification center, are concerned about increases in crime and increases in traffic from the delivery trucks that would be needed to service the facility.