Politics & Government

Zoning Board Says No To Gambling Addiction Facility in Parrot Mill Inn

An attorney for Michael Osborne, who was planning to open the facility, did not appear at the meeting to make his case.

It doesn't appear as if there will be a residential gambling addiction facility at the Parrot Mill Inn anytime soon.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment upheld an appeal from resident Robert Latorre Wednesday that argued converting the bed and breakfast into such a facility did not represent a continued use of the building. Board members argued that the residential treatment center, which Tricare Treatment Services owner Michael Osborne was attempting to place inside the inn's current space, was not similar enough to the bed and breakfast to allow it to exist inside the building without a variance.

"In my estimation, it's not substantially similar," said board member Michael Cifelli. "At its essence, it's not the same."

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The board's decision, which it settled upon after conducting what Chairman Walter Voytus called an "unusual" proceeding, effectively ends any hope for Osborne to open his facility anytime soon. If he still wanted to lease space in the inn for the treatment center, he would be required to receive a brand new use variance from the Zoning Board—and that process would likely take some time. He had previously run a residential gambling addiction facility, called Harbour Pointe, in Baltimore until August.

Osborne's attorney was not present at the meeting to make the case for his client, a fact that puzzled board members, who said they had been in contact with the attorney and had assumed he would be there.

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The board's decision pleased many in the audience that had come to watch the hearing. There has been vociferous opposition within the community to the planned facility, and residents who live near the inn have come out in numbers to Borough Council and Planning Board meetings to express their disapproval. Many said they did not want that type of treatment center near their homes.

"I think they acted judiciously and looked at the facts and did exactly what they should have," Tallmadge Avenue resident Michael Callahan said after the meeting.

Before the board's ruling, Osborne had been free to open his six bed, residential addiction treatment facility inside the inn without having to receive any more zoning approvals going forward.

The inn is inside a B-3 zone, which allows buildings within that zone to contain office space. Zoning officer Vincent DeNave had decided that because the one-on-one sessions that would be provided to patients would be conducted on the building's upstairs floors by professional psychologists and psychiatrists who would leave at the end of each work day, and because the residents would sleep downstairs, the conversion of what is now bed space into office space was legal under the borough's zoning law.

In his estimation, he said at the meeting, it created two uses within the building—office use and residential use—and because the inn already is used for residential purposes, he felt adding office space to the facility was allowable. It was that decision that was being appealed at the hearing.

Besides, he said, the two uses would essentially be separate from one another.

"The treatment would end at the end of the day and the lodging would begin," DeNave said.

Attorney Adam Pribula, who represented Latorre, cross-examined DeNave, asking him about the building's use historically, and touched on other matters as well. But DeNave stood by his decision.

"I think it's a sound judgment. Could people take issue with it either way? I'm sure they could," DeNave said. "I looked at it as two separate uses."

But planner Peter Steck, who Pribula brought before the board as an expert witness, disagreed, saying he felt the facility should be considered one composite use.

He said the fact that people were coming to the facility for treatment would significantly change the building's use. Therefore, he said, the board's "only logical" decision would be to uphold the appeal and to deny Osborne the ability to open his treatment center.

"The fact that there is something downstairs that is separate from what appears upstairs is immaterial," Steck said.

He also said sketchy historical circumstances surrounding the Parrot Mill Inn's beginnings—there is no record of a variance that allowed residential use of the building, even after Chubb Insurance, the previous owner, vacated the building in 1986—meant that DeNave did not have access to enough information that would allow him to deem the gambling facility a continued use.

And in the end, the board agreed with Steck. In comments after the hearing, board members made clear they did not feel Osborne's facility would represent a continued use.

"The only reason the people are in there is for treatment," Voytus said. "[That] substantially changes the nature of the beast."

Board members also said the fact that an attorney for Osborne declined to show up reinforced their resolve to overturn DeNave's decision.

It was not clear immediately whether Osborne would pursue a variance that could still allow him to open his facility in the inn. Toby Kennedy, who is the son of Parrot Mill Inn owner Betsey Kennedy and who was present at the meeting, said he did not know what would happen going forward.

"I'm disappointed with the decision," Kennedy said. "It would have been a great fit for the Parrot Mill Inn."

Zoning board members said during the hearing that it was not a normal proceeding. Generally, a zoning officer's decision is not directly appealed.

"I've been doing this for 20 years, and it's never happened," board attorney Alan Siegel said.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified, in a photo, resident Dave Andreasen.


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