Wareham homeowners back in court seeking injunction against group home

9-28-2011 Massachusetts:

WAREHAM — Attorneys for a homeowners association have turned to the Massachusetts Appeals Court in their efforts to block a planned facility for people with mental health problems.

The appeal, filed Monday, asks for a reversal of a Plymouth County Superior Court judge's denial earlier this month of a motion for preliminary injunctive relief.

The latest filing requests a preliminary injunction to prevent defendant Jeff A. White from using or leasing the property at 7 Lynne Road for anything but a single-family residence and also requests "further relief as is appropriate under the circumstances."

Staffed around the clock for up to six adults who would be referred by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, the program planned at 7 Lynne Road is "primarily intended for people who are in need of some additional support," said Joseph Dziobek, president and CEO of Fellowship Health Resources Inc. of Rhode Island.

"They're people ... having symptoms of their mental illness and they need, really, some short-term support so that they can go back to whatever their living situation is."

It's "not intended for people whose illness is so severe that they're going to need weeks and weeks and weeks," according to Dziobek, who said Fellowship Health makes the final decision about serving individual clients and ultimately accepts liability.

The governing Beaver Meadows Homeowners Association, however, has taken issue with the plans.

"These people ... could range (from having) a different variety of disorders," said Sean Murphy, speaking as a trustee in June, while describing how many children live in the neighborhood. "We're talking schizophrenics. We're talking bipolar. Potential sex offenders."

Monday's appeal argues that White's revamping the property for the new facility violates multiple restrictive covenants of Beaver Meadows but focuses on a covenant lawyers say prohibits commercial businesses there.

"The trial court has improperly concluded that neither White nor Fellowship operate a commercial business at 7 Lynne Road. However, the undisputed facts establish that 7 Lynne Road is being used for a social service (not residential) purpose," attorneys from New Bedford law firm Beauregard, Burke & Franco wrote in Monday's filing.

The attorneys say White "executed a commercial lease agreement" with Fellowship Health of the property before he bought it and contend that by offering short-term housing and treatment, the facility "is not a group home but a short-term respite facility more akin to a medical treatment or counseling facility."

White has been unreachable for comment, as was his lawyer Anthony Savastano Tuesday. But "it's not a commercial business," Dziobek said, adding that Fellowship Health is a private, nonprofit organization.

"I think that the homeowners are wasting their money because ultimately they won't win in court," Dziobek said.

As for the oft-repeated sex offender concerns, Dziobek said that within the past year or so, out of an estimated couple hundred people living in Fellowship Health's community facilities, two were registered sex offenders. "There's a higher probability that you're going to have somebody living in your neighborhood who's a registered sex offender than there is that someone's going to be in that home," he said. ..Source.. by ANIKA CLARK