Future of Burnsville sober house unclear after fight with city

A residential treatment center in Burnsville has won approval to house two more clients than the city allows, but it now faces restrictions that had not been in place during the center's nearly 10 years in the city.

The monthslong saga highlights the challenge communities face in managing sober housing, as well as the battle care providers sometimes have to fight to win accommodations that are supposed to be provided under federal law.

"Most addiction and mental health issues are very treatable. People can and do get well every day," said Carol Ackley, who owned and operated the River Ridge Treatment Center for nearly 20 years. "They need a supportive community for that to happen. I guess I had hopes that our neighborhood was that kind of community."

In 2007, Ackley opened A Woman's Way, an inpatient recovery program in a southeast Burnsville neighborhood. A few years later, she bought the house next door, and it became an outpatient center called Lotus House. Each had housed up to eight women, though under city code A Woman's Way was allowed up to six and Lotus House was allowed up to four.

The discrepancy didn't come to light until December, when Ackley sold River Ridge to Options Family and Behavior Services. The news stalled the process, leaving Ackley holding the deeds to the two houses while Options took over the parent company.

On March 28, Options founder and program administrator Brian Sammon visited Lotus House and told the women living there that it had to close because of zoning issues.

"The decision was made that [A Woman's Way] was our priority and that we were going to need to make a very difficult call to stop services at Lotus House," Sammon said in a statement.

Under the law, cities must allow flexibility when it comes to occupancy, so long as doing so doesn't create an undue economic burden and doesn't require substantive zoning changes.

Burnsville does not have an administrative process for handling requests under the Fair Housing Act. This request was the city's first.

"I hope communities will observe this process, learn from it, and perhaps requests in the future won't be so difficult and drawn out," Griffith said.

The city held four public hearings on the issue in less than two months, and neighbors turned out consistently with reasons to deny the request. Among them: limited parking, maintenance issues and a lack of interaction between the women and the rest of the neighborhood. They also noted that there's a concentration of group homes in the area — something the city has tried to restrict.

Women who lived and worked at the houses countered many of the complaints. Clients aren't allowed to have cars, there are strict maintenance rules and the women keep to themselves because of privacy concerns, they said.

Still, city leaders appeared to sympathize with the neighbors. Planning Commissioner Ram Singh said he'd pledged, when he took the position, to build and maintain residential neighborhoods. Expanding this house could set a precedent, he said.

"When I go back to my commitment I made, and when I listen to people who live in that neighborhood, I just … cannot vote to recommend this application," he said.

Before the City Council's final vote, Council Member Mary Sherry went further, reading a statement condemning both founder Ackley and attorney Griffith.

"This lawyer lives on Summit Avenue," she said, referring to a St. Paul street where Griffith does not, in fact, live. "This lawyer knows that if the City Council — in an effort to maintain the nice, affordable, middle-class neighborhoods we have here in Burnsville — denies this request … he will have us in court faster than you can say 'Summit Avenue.' "

She also said that Ackley's interest in adding two beds was an attempt to turn a profit. Ackley called Sherry's statement vitriolic and shocking.

The council approved the two additional beds, but with conditions that include building a fence and holding open houses. Employees and visitors will no longer be allowed to park on the street.

Sherry suggested at the meeting that if someone sees a car sticking out of the driveway — as one neighbor reportedly saw — that they call 911.

After Lotus House closed, the five women living there went their separate ways. Four found housing; one relapsed.

Erin Malkow is among the four who found homes. Had Lotus House not closed, she said, she likely would have stayed until the end of the summer. The programming, which treated both addiction and trauma, "really turned everything around for me," she said. "I started realizing that there is hope."

It remains to be seen what will happen to A Woman's Way, and how the new conditions will affect those living and working there. It's also unclear whether it or other River Ridge programs will be shuttered under the new ownership.