A group home for rehabilitation has become a hot button zoning issue in Pell City since a ruling last week.

The contention arose after the city’s planning and zoning board previously approved the conditional use of the Lakeview community property for what is deemed a “family care home.”

The home on the property houses Recovery Journey, a residential rehabilitation center for women that offers treatment in a Christian setting as an option to serving court ordered drug or alcohol rehabilitation program or jail.

Last week’s zoning board meeting saw residents in the area and supporters of the group home go toe-to-toe with heated words about what should be done about the home, which was set up last August.

One of the main parts of the debate is how the property is zoned. From the front steps to the front of the yard, it is zoned as a business area. From those steps to the back of the property it is zoned residential.

Councilman Donnie Guinn has been a vocal opponent of the facility because of its location.

“There are some things that have been said that are inaccurate,” he wanted to make clear. “Am I against this house? Yes I am because of where it is, how [things] have been done there and how it’s been handled. But don’t get me wrong. This is something the community needs. Things haven’t been handled above the board. The people there in that community have not been given an opportunity to speak and voice their opinions. They were never notified of what was going in there.”

He said that he is not against a facility like Recovery Journey, but said “there is a better location for that in Pell City rather than on the edge of the subdivision. That’s why people buy in to a subdivision; so that they don’t have to have something like this there.”

But Curtis Capps,  owner of Royal Foods of Alabama, who financed Recovery Journey, said that when he was fixing up the house he wasn’t thinking about any zoning issues and added that it sits next door to a large storage facility.

“We’re giving them a chance,” Capps said of the women at Recovery Journey.

The women must complete a 28-day step program, are under 24-hour supervision seven days a week, attend church or counseling each day and are only allowed visitors who attend church with them.

“If they come there and  they mess up in anyway at all they go back to jail. Permanently,” Capps said. “They’re drug tested at least every week and sometimes twice a day. It’s not like these are drug heads and drunks in our community. These are recovering girls.”

He said that he would gladly show any members of the city council who have a problem with the home what goes on there and noted that Guinn was for the home when he first toured it.

It is not clear what the outcome for the property will be, yet. The city council will most likely not have a vote on the matter.

 Capps said that he is not making money on the facility and said that his faith guided him to help others.

He said that there have already been successes in the program and that he would gladly continue to operate the facility with no state funding.

It costs $15,000 a year to house someone in a state facility. Recovery Journey has yet to receive the $10 a day per resident for operating a facility of its nature.

“I don’t think we still know all the facts as to what it is and what’s going on out there,” Giunn countered.