FILE PHOTO/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
The Hope4Recovery house last month moved into the former Shirley Grace Pregnancy Center in Berlin, while the center moved into another building on the same property. Because the group home is the first of its kind, town officials recently sought to add definitions of what group homes may be and where they may go to the town code.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Nov. 22, 2018) The definition of a “group home” and regulations regarding its location were introduced during a Berlin Town Council meeting last Tuesday.

A first reading for both ordinances was the first part of a two-step process, culminating in a public hearing scheduled for Nov. 26 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall on William Street.

According to the proposed definition, “group home means a state-licensed community residential facility housing and providing habilitative services to eight or fewer persons, not including staff, who are developmentally disabled or are recovering from drug or alcohol addiction.”

A related ordinance would only allow group homes “as a conditional use in the B-1 Town Center District subject to the approval of such conditional use in that district by the board of zoning appeals. The area in which a group home may be permitted as a conditional use shall be restricted to the area of Old Ocean City Boulevard east of U.S. Route 113 in the B-1 Town Center District.”

Planning Director Dave Engelhart said the ordinances were drafted after the Hope4Recovery house was permitted to open last month on Old Ocean City Boulevard.

“In that process, we figured out we didn’t have a definition in our town code of a group home,” Engelhart said. “We consulted with the town attorney, Mr. [David] Gaskill, and staff, and we developed a definition of a group home to be included in our definition section of the town code.”

He added the homes would be limited “geographically to the small area that’s within the B-1 Town Center district … in the vicinity of the hospital.”

“From now on, it will be a permitted conditional use, but just in that small area of town,” Engelhart said, adding the Hope4Recovery house “lies right in the middle … [of] that district.”

Mayor Gee Williams said the definition was helpful because, “quite frankly, we never had an application [to open a group home] before this year.” He called it a housekeeping item “to make sure that it’s addressed” so that when future applications occur “there’s something to go by.”

Williams added, “The key provision is that it allows for up to eight persons” to live in a group home.

Gaskill confirmed there would be a public hearing during the next regular Town Council meeting, followed by a council vote on whether to approve the ordinances.