After nearly a year of considering how to control the rapid proliferation of the sober-living facilities that have bloomed throughout neighborhoods in recent years, the Costa Mesa City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the first reading of an ordinance that would curb their spread.

But while Mayor Jim Righeimer said he thinks the ordinance strikes a balance between the rights of homeowners and sober-living residents, detractors from fair housing nonprofit groups say the group homes will likely sue the city for discriminating against recovering addicts – a group protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Costa Mesa is home to between 130 and 400 drug-rehab facilities and group homes, depending on the source. Even city officials don’t know the true number but estimate that one in four of Orange County’s sober-living homes operates in Costa Mesa.

City documents state the facilities have “presented problems not typically associated with more traditional single-family uses,” including excessive noise, disproportionate traffic and too many people smoking outdoors.

The city’s proposed ordinance attempts to curb these effects by requiring a 650-foot buffer between group homes, limiting the number of beds in single-family homes to six (the city alleges one residential home currently houses 15 beds), requiring residential facilities to apply for special-use permits within 90 days of the ordinance’s passage and giving the facilities one year to comply with the new regulations.

The number of Costa Mesa sober-living homes has grown substantially since 2008 when Newport Beach passed an ordinance practically barring group homes from single-family neighborhoods, causing many to shutter. Several group homes subsequently sued Newport Beach, costing the city at least $3.6 million to defend.

In 2013, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Newport Beach’s law was discriminatory, overturning a previous ruling, and opening up the city to further litigation. Newport Beach has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of that ruling and currently awaits reply, though Righeimer said he thinks the court will not choose to hear the case.

Righeimer said Costa Mesa’s ordinance differed from Newport’s because it did not discriminate based on “alcoholism or drugs,” but rather “(laid) out the impacts they cause” and sought to control those.

But that rationalization won’t protect the city from litigation, said David Sheridan, executive director at the Sober Living Network, a fair housing advocate nonprofit operating in the Greater Los Angeles area.

“The bottom line is that these are attempts to circumvent fair-housing laws and discriminate against people with disabilities,” Sheridan said. “As soon as you (attempt to control) who lives in a property, you are discriminating. Would you put a 650-foot buffer around Mormon households?”

A 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision stated that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires states to place people with disabilities in integrated community settings rather than institutions. A “Joint Statement of the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development” released the same year emphasized that “the Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to utilize land use policies or actions that treat groups of persons with disabilities less favorably than groups of non-disabled persons.”

Sheridan said those rulings make it clear that the city can force sober-living homes to abide by laws that apply to any single-family residence, but it cannot pass laws that target how those homes are distributed.

City attorneys said Costa Mesa supports well-run group homes and that the ordinance would target mostly those facilities that operate ineffectively and disturb neighborhoods. Sheridan countered that Costa Mesa’s existing nuisance laws and housing codes should allow the city to regulate problems without legislation targeting only rehab facilities.

Residents at Tuesday’s council meeting spoke on both sides of the issue. Some said they felt unsafe in their neighborhoods. Some said the group homes attract addicts from across the country, not just Orange County.

Others pointed to the city’s mounting legal fees ($8.1 million since July 2011) and wondered aloud why the city was inviting more litigation.

“We don’t want litigation,” Righeimer said, “but I don’t think that one person on this council, one person running for council is going to back down from (this) overconcentration… If it costs $5 million, we’ll do that to make sure (people’s neighborhoods are safe)… People who operate properly are not the problem. But we hear about a lot of people who don’t.”

The City Council welcomed residents and organizations to contact staff and council members with suggestions to improve the ordinance before the final vote, which will likely take place at the council’s Oct. 21 meeting.

“It has been the wild, wild west in Costa Mesa. This is a start,” Councilwoman Wendy Leece said. “Not having structure and order is not supporting recovery.”

Contact the writer: jgraham@ocregister.com