As state pressure over housing mounts, Costa Mesa agrees to rehear Ohio House appeal

The shift in thinking comes as state housing officials question the legality of the city’s sober living ordinances, with one official opining in a letter such regulations violate state fair housing laws by discriminating against individuals with disabilities.

Ohio House opened as a residential facility in 2012 to help men recover from drug and alcohol addiction via a suite of single-family homes located on a half-acre lot at 115 E. Wilson St.

But after the city enacted new rules regulating sober living homes in 2015, mandating a 650-foot buffer between such businesses, Ohio House remained unpermitted, due to the existence of a state-licensed facility roughly 550 feet away on Wilson Street that had already obtained a permit.

A panel of judges with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion, finding Costa Mesa’s sober living laws did not discriminate against those whose substance abuse constitutes a disability.

Operators sought an exemption from the separation requirement in 2017 but were denied by city planners attempting to head off an overconcentration of rehab facilities. Subsequent appeals to the Planning Commission and City Council were similarly denied, while federal and state appellate court rulings, in 2022 and 2025, respectively, sided with Costa Mesa.

Undaunted, Ohio House last year renewed its request for accommodation, based on the state’s designation of those dealing with addiction as disabled and arguing the overconcentration of group homes observed in earlier years was no longer an issue, as the number had dropped from 94 to just 16.

The business asked the city to minimize the law’s distance buffer, from 650 feet to 550 feet, or consider its dwellings as single housekeeping units, similar to a roommates in a shared ownership or lease, rendering the distance issue moot.

Since 2012, a five-residence lot at 115 E. Wilson Street in Costa Mesa has served as a sober living facility called Ohio House. Operators have been in a legal dispute with the city for years. (Google Maps) Those urgings bore no fruit, forcing operators to once more appeal to the Costa Mesa City Council, where the case has sat pending since September 2025, with postponements by both parties.

But what a difference a year makes. Since then, the city has struggled to fully certify its housing element — a document required by law and the subject of a July 16 lawsuit filed by Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta against Costa Mesa and four other cities.

While the lawsuit made no mention of Costa Mesa’s sober living laws, a June 8 letter to the city penned by an employee of the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) suggests its Ohio House denials violate state law.

“Denying the application is part of Costa Mesa’s ongoing group home and reasonable accommodation policies and practices that violate state fair housing and planning and zoning laws,” Melinda Coy wrote.

In addition to anti-discrimination land use and fair housing laws, Coy maintains in her letter that the city’s actions defy portions of housing element law that require cities to remove governmental constraints hindering them from meeting the housing needs of people with disabilities.

Coy cites an earlier letter from HCD, written in 2023, advising Costa Mesa’s sober living ordinances be scrapped altogether.

“To comply with state law, the city must, among other things, immediately stop enforcing its group home ordinances, repeal them and revise its reasonable accommodations policies,” it states. “These actions are also necessary to timely and effectively implement the programs in the 6th cycle housing element that the city adopted.”

Councilmembers Tuesday voted to remand the Ohio House matter back to Community Development Director Carrie Tai for reconsideration. The case is scheduled to be reheard by the council in an Oct. 20 de novo review.

Although officials gave no comments, resident and local activist Cynthia McDonald asked that Coy’s letter be included in the staff report for any future Ohio House hearings.

“Could this lead to changes in the city’s sober living ordinance? Could additional sober living homes be approved in the future? How much will the city’s current regulatory framework be substantially altered?” she posed. “Those are exactly the questions that deserve a transparent discussion.”

In a statement to the Pilot Thursday, Costa Mesa City Atty. Kimberly Hall Barlow said the city was motivated to revise its reasonable accommodation policies both due to its adoption of the housing element and a 2024 federal court ruling and settlement with residential treatment center Insight Psychology & Addiction.

“Other than that ordinance, we can’t address whether other ordinances may change in the future,” Barlow wrote.

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Sara Cardine covers the city of Costa Mesa for the Daily Pilot. She came from the La Cañada Valley Sun, where she spent six years as the news reporter covering La Cañada Flintridge and received a first-place Public Service Journalism award from the California News Publishers Assn. She’s also worked at the Pasadena Weekly, Stockton Record and Lodi-News Sentinel, which instilled in her a love for community news. (714) 966-4627