Submitted by Former Coronado City Councilwoman Barbara T. Denny, Esq.*
INTRODUCTION
Coronado residents who oppose the dangerous Hansen Mansion experiment plan to attend the community meeting today Tuesday, May 30 at 6:30 pm in the Nautilus Room of the Community Center/Recreation Center next to City Hall on Silver Strand.
At today’s meeting, it is expected that state and local politicians and others intentionally will lie to residents about the respective roles of California state and Coronado city governments in order to force a risky business experiment by out-of-towners into a residential neighborhood in Coronado.
Hopefully the out-of-towners supporting the experiment will show respect and compassion for Coronado residents. Instead of the bullying, emotion and sanctimony displayed at the last community meeting, the advocates for this doomed experiment should stick to the facts, law, reason and common sense.
BACKGROUND
According to the 2 March 2017 San Diego Reader, the unknown owner(s) of a Colorado limited liability corporation “reached out” to out-of-town business owner(s) of GenerateHope Inc., who decided to operate a business in a residential neighborhood for women recovering from the abuse of sex trafficking and child sex slavery by members of undisclosed gangs from parts unknown.
Street gang members are the middlemen between the international crime cartels that control them, and the victims of sex trafficking and child sex slavery that they control. In order to drag sex abuse victims back into criminal gang life, gang members commonly threaten to torture and kill the family and friends of sex abuse victims, no matter where they live.
Unknown out-of-state owner(s) of the Hansen Mansion aside, according to the same Reader, at a March 1 community meeting filled to capacity mayor Richard Bailey falsely claimed, “transition homes are allowed in residential areas” because “state law overrides local jurisdiction.”
Shame on Bailey for shifting blame to the State with his brazen lie. The city, not the State, controls the Coronado General Plan for land use.
In years gone by, the State was a convenient scapegoat accepted by many residents as an excuse for the mayor and councilmen’s bad decisions. But today, Coronado residents aren’t so easily duped.
ACT NOW TO STOP THIS DOOMED EXPERIMENT
Before there are no residential neighborhoods left in Coronado, residents should act immediately and simultaneously to:
- Hire a good land use attorney to immediately sue to stop (enjoin) all further city action on the Hansen Mansion, then take further legal action as necessary and proper,
- Demand your mayor and councilmen fix the mess they made. They have the power to put items on their council agenda to undo their mistake. Make them use it.
You have leverage at the ballot box sooner with recall, and later when you refuse to re-elect all of them. Use it.
Predictably, they will dismiss you with their usual lie, “There’s nothing we can do. The State mandates this.”
City and state politicians have proven themselves to be untrustworthy many times over. They don’t have the best interests of Coronado residents at heart. Trust them at your peril.
Swift and decisive action now will bring benefits to all Coronado residents that will far outweigh the associated costs.
WHO CAUSED THIS LAND USE CONTROVERSY OVER THE HANSEN MANSION?
The Coronado mayor and councilmen.
Here are the relevant votes that caused the Hansen Mansion controversy:
- CORONADO GENERAL PLAN CHANGE in 2013: Richard Bailey, Al Ovrom, Casey Tanaka and Mike Woiwode voted YES in the exercise of their local land use power to change the Coronado General Plan Housing Element section to force controversial “transitional home” businesses beyond the Orange Avenue Corridor Specific Plan, roughly the business district, into every residential neighborhood in Coronado. In contrast, I voted NO in order to keep “transitional home” businesses out of residential neighborhoods in the best interests of residents.
- CORONADO ZONING LAW UPDATE in 2016: Richard Bailey, Carrie Downey, Bill Sandke, Casey Tanaka and/or Mike Woiwode voted YES for the latest update to the relevant Coronado Municipal Code (CMC) in alignment with the 2013 General Plan change.
By law, the CMC must align with the Coronado General Plan. Updates to the CMC are secondary to changes in the General Plan. Still, those who voted for the CMC zoning change facilitated the General Plan change instead of reversing it.
Here is their General Plan Housing Element change:
Furthermore, transitional housing pursuant to Health and Safety Code Section 50801(i) should be permitted in all zones where housing is permitted and subject to the same development standards as the same type of housing in that zone. [Bold added for emphasis.]
Click HERE to see their General Plan change, noted in blue underline toward the bottom of page 50.
It is important to note that ALL residential neighborhoods are targeted by their bad General Plan change. Unless you hire a good land use attorney, every residential neighborhood in Coronado is open to “transitional home” businesses. Do not trust the mayor and councilmen to bargain with you or help you.
Here is the related CMC section which describes the type of “transitional home” businesses now allowed on every street in every residential neighborhood in Coronado:
86.04.793 Transitional housing.
“Transitional housing” means temporary housing, generally provided for a few months to two years, with supportive services that prepare individuals or families to transition from emergency or homeless shelters to permanent housing. Such housing may be configured for specialized needs groups such as people with substance abuse problems, mental illness, domestic violence victims, veterans, or people with illnesses such as AIDS/HIV. Such housing could be provided in apartment complexes, boarding house complexes, or in single-family homes. (Ord. 2062 § 2 (Exh. A), 2016)
Click HERE to see the CMC 86.04.793 for zoning.
The choice to force “transitional home” businesses into every residential neighborhood in Coronado was within the sole discretion of the mayor and councilmen.
Local land use decisions are within the exclusive control of your local politicians, not State politicians or State bureaucrats.
In general, the State requires Coronado to have a General Plan, and for Coronado land use decisions to follow that plan. But what is in the plan is up to the mayor and councilmen.
Click HERE for a guide to local land use law in California.
WHY DID THEY FORCE “TRANSITIONAL HOME” BUSINESSES INTO EVERY RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD?
Money. Follow the money.
No, the State didn’t, and couldn’t under the law, hold a gun to their heads and force them vote YES against your best interests to force “transitional home” businesses into all of your residential neighborhoods. That’s not how land use law works.
Land use is an essential function of your local city government. Even though the State will always find ways to meddle in the local land use decisions of financially weak cities, strong cities are able to maintain their independence by swatting away attempts at State interference.
In reality, the Coronado mayor and councilmen voted YES because they are addicted to “state funding,” a.k.a. more of your tax dollars redistributed back to Coronado from Sacramento, which they need to keep Coronado city government afloat.
Obviously Coronado’s dependency on “state funding” here is one of many red flag signals that your city isn’t “well managed,” doesn’t have “ample resources,” and can’t “balance the budget” without the additional “state funding” it gobbles up because your elected officials sold you out and voted YES to the bad land use change which caused the Hansen Mansion controversy.
The government racket is easy to figure out: For profit, statewide lobbyists sold your State officials in Sacramento on the idea of forcing “transitional home” businesses into all of your residential neighborhoods against the best interests of Coronado residents.
For profit, power or social re-engineering, your state officials rubberstamped that bad idea. But it was a hard sell. So they repackaged it and tossed it off to the mayor and councilmen as a suggested change to the Coronado General Plan, along with the carrot of “state funding” to follow, but only if they took the stick of the bad idea — the bad General Plan change against your best interests.
The name of the stick routine in bureaucratic mumbo jumbo is “state certification.” The State claims it will redistribute “state funding” only to cities whose General Plans it certifies. The State also said it would “certify” Coronado’s General Plan Housing Element section if your mayor and councilmen changed it to include the bad idea of “transitional home” businesses in all residential neighborhoods. Apparently, Sacramento thinks it knows better than Coronado how to make land use decisions in Coronado.
To cover up their financial mismanagement, the mayor and councilmen voted YES to rubberstamp the bad idea of forcing “transitional home” businesses into all of your residential neighborhoods. They changed your General Plan Housing Element section in order to keep the “state funding” flowing, or else the jig would be up. The Coronado financial crisis would be revealed for all to see.
Rather than admit the financial crisis they created, the mayor and councilmen avoided accountability, grabbed onto the “state funding” carrot for dear life, took their State beating with the stick by voluntarily voting YES to the bad General Plan change, and lied to you about the whole thing. It’s irrelevant whether their underlying motivation was stupidity, incompetence, corruption or a combination thereof.
In this way the mayor and councilmen manipulated you into allowing them to continue to vote YES against your best interests on ever more agenda items, and dig Coronado further into a financial hole by overspending your tax dollars, instead of exposing and ousting them from public office so they can’t harm you anymore.
According to some delusional folks, you are supposed to feel comforted by the fact that the same State officials, who flout federal immigration laws and federal drug laws, have “certified” your General Plan as they try to force “transitional home” businesses into all of your residential neighborhoods, with the full cooperation of your weak mayor and councilmen who didn’t stand up for you when it really mattered in 2013 and 2016.
In a nutshell, the Coronado mayor and councilmen who voted YES were so desperate for “state funding” that they acted against your best interests by making a bad change to the General Plan. They simply couldn’t have cared any less about Coronado residents.
This is where the wheat is separated from the chaff. Now you will see if anyone you elected to city council will stand up for you to fix the mess they created, or if instead they will try to thwart you as you take the immediate and simultaneous actions recommended above.
HANSEN MANSION IS A BAD LOCATION FOR THIS EXPERIMENT
According to a concerned resident, after the March 1 community meeting San Diego Deputy Chief District Attorney Summer Stephan apparently told another concerned resident that the Hansen Mansion is a bad location for GenerateHope Inc.’s business. She is absolutely correct.
Indeed, in Vancouver approximately ten years ago “transitional home” businesses for recovering criminal drug addicts, many suffering from the effects of sexual abuse, were forced into residential neighborhoods along school routes outside of the downtown business core.
The lax security, self-reported check-ins and unenforceable curfews for the clients made the residential “transitional home” business a failed business model. For these and other reasons, “transitional home” businesses were a complete disaster in Vancouver neighborhoods, as the Hansen Mansion business would undoubtedly be in Coronado.
No matter how trendy the proposed Hansen Mansion experiment may seem to some misguided folks at the moment, it is a bad idea.
HANSEN MANSION EXPERIMENT IS TOO RISKY
First, it was a fatal mistake to publicize the purpose of the “transitional home” business GenerateHope Inc. wanted to operate in the Hansen Mansion. The risk of clients’ relapse has increased substantially.
Regardless of how long ago the victims of sex abuse officially removed themselves physically from their criminal gangs, it will take decades for them to mentally process the sexual abuse they endured.
Those decades are filled with the risk of relapse to old habits. Anonymity could have provided victims some protection from relapse.
Second, only magical thinkers could believe that a well-publicized experiment in a famous house in a residential neighborhood in popular and overcrowded Coronado would be risk-free for the recovering sex abuse victims, the “house mother” employees working for GenerateHope Inc., and neighboring homeowners and their families, visitors and invitees.
Unarmed “house mother” employees of GenerateHope Inc., as well as unarmed neighbors, are no match for the armed criminal gang members who will prey upon the proposed clients of the Hansen Mansion because zealous advocates have painted a target on the Hansen Mansion by publicizing its purpose.
Third, reasonable people who care about Coronado residents are concerned about the increased risk of crime because publicizing the purpose of the proposed “transitional home” business makes it a potential magnet for gang-related crime.
Fourth, there is the risk of change in the business plan of the “transitional home.” The vague business plan informally discussed by GenerateHope Inc.’s executive director Dan DeSaegher at the March 1 community meeting could change in the future. In fact, it’s reasonable to expect that it will change.
Future changes could bring more of the same type of clients into the Hansen Mansion. Or perhaps the unknown homeowner(s) will become disenchanted with GenerateHope Inc. and “reach out” other “transitional home” business operators who will try to rehabilitate different types of clients with different problems.
Who knows? There are no legally enforceable guarantees upon which Coronado residents may rely with any degree of certainty. And no one ever thought to ask them before the city started down this dangerous path.
PROPERTY VALUES WILL DECLINE BECAUSE OF THE HANSEN MANSION EXPERIMENT
As the proposed “transitional home” business in the Hansen Mansion decreases the quality of life for neighbors due to overcrowding, traffic, parking, crime, noise, pollution and other problems, there will be a decline in either the property values, or the rate of increase in property values, of homes in the residential neighborhood.
This intentional diminution of neighbors’ property rights is a violation of their property rights.
In effect, it is a constructive “taking” of private property without proper compensation, which is unconstitutional.
THIS ISN’T CHARITY
It isn’t charity when you forcibly reduce your neighbors’ quality of life and property values by forcing a “transitional home” business into a residential neighborhood.
If you want to help with the extremely worthy cause of rehabilitating victims of sex trafficking and child sex slavery, then please consider joining residents who donate their own money or personal time to charities that directly aid victims.
REASONABLE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
All of the costs and risks to Coronado residents, as mentioned above, are very high.
The benefits to residents are non-existent.
By any reasonable cost benefit analysis, the Hansen Mansion experiment is a non-starter.
CONCLUSION
The Hansen Mansion experiment is doomed to fail.
Believe the self-interested lies of city and state politicians at your peril.
Act now or there will be no residential neighborhoods left in Coronado.
The bad change in the General Plan currently forces “transitional home” businesses into ALL Coronado residential neighborhoods.
Barbara Denny
* Barbara Denny is a military (retired) wife who moved to Coronado in 1995. Denny, who has practiced law since 1989, is licensed in California, Washington, D.C. and New Jersey. Denny earned her J.D. from Seton Hall University Law School and her LL.M. in Environmental Law/Land Use & Water Law from the University of San Diego Law School. From 2009-2014, Denny served Coronado residents as Coronado city councilwoman with the highest ethical and intellectual standards.
