HILLSBOROUGH: Rehab center withdraws plan

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Applicants have withdrawn their plan for a 56-bed long-term residential adult addiction treatment center proposed for Route 206 at Old Somerville Road and Flanders Drive.
   In a letter to the Planning Office, Jessica Sweet, attorney for Harding Corona, asked the application be ended “without prejudice,” which means they reserve the right to reapply.
   Residents and Planning Board members heard details Dec. 6 on the operation — and type of patient — of the proposed facility. Answers to questions on the type of clientele and security of the site were crucial to owners of neighboring homes, particularly on Flanders Drive.
   ”My concern remains the same. I am concerned for the safety of my neighborhood,” one woman told the board.
   Testimony was to have resumed Feb. 7.
   Georgette Jungels, licensed clinical drug counselor, a private counselor for 20 years, was Harding Corona’s only witness Dec. 6.
   She’s a private counselor who said she has joined with Dr. Henry Odunlami in developing mental health programs for clients with substance abuse issues. She said she was hired to makes sure substance abuse programs are organized and run to meet state guidelines that would need approval by the state Division of Addiction Services. The local planning board could place conditions limiting facets of the operation, and they would be part of the application.
      Harding Corona proposed to demolish a dwelling and detached garage and build five buildings with a total of 34,115 square feet on the 8.5-acre tract.
   Two buildings of 28 bedrooms, and buildings for medical administration, activities and dining/recreation were proposed.This plan is reduced in scope from a previous 73,000-square-foot proposal. In July 2012 Harding Corona filed the five-building campus plan.
   The project would have been located near the proposed intersection of existing Route 206 and the future Route 206 bypass.
      In an answer to a resident’s question, Dr. Jungels said the facility projects treating “high-functioning” private clients who require a longer treatment span, perhaps as long as six months or more. An applicant would be screened for employment, education, stability and lack of legal problems. She said the proposed facility would be for profit, and take clients who paid privately or with private insurance, and not with public health funding, Medicare or Medicaid.
   She said the facility would not accept clients who are under court order to enter a drug rehabilitation program as an alternative to jail. If it wanted to do that, Harding Corona would need to reapply to the state for a different type of license, she said. Planning Board Attorney Eric Bernstein said it would also require board reapproval, as would a change of ownership.