STARS – C-VILLE Weekly

STARS saga: Occupancy request receives a unanimous “no”

When the owner of a Park Street group home for at-risk adolescents went before the Board of Architectural Review November 21 to request permission to increase the number of teens allowed to live in the house, the board opted not to make a recommendation.

“It was out of our purview,” says BAR member Carl Schwarz. “There’s no negative effect on the historic district, but it’s not something we could recommend for or against.”

Twenty years ago, Kara Gloeckner started the Structured Therapeutic Adolescent Residential Service program in Charlottesville. Five years in, she moved some of the STARS operation into its current location at 517 Park St., where the organization’s administrative offices are housed and eight girls rest their heads each night.

The home, built in 1984, was originally designed to house 16 mentally disabled adults, says Gloeckner, who interned there at that time. Allowing that many girls to live there would be fulfilling its intended use, she says, and replacing the offices with bedrooms would make for a more home-like environment and alleviate parking stress.

Gloeckner’s original special use permit request doubled the number of girls living there, but after a community meeting at which most residents were adamantly opposed to having 16 troubled teenagers living in the same home in their neighborhood, she asked the City Planning Commission November 14 for permission to house 12.

“With more girls, there is more negative energy for them to feed off of,” local teacher Jennifer Ferguson said before the planning commission. “The proposed expansion is harmful to a group of girls who need undivided, individualized and committed attention even more than the average teenage girl.”

Gloeckner says she’s aware of community concern. When she first asked for the permit in 2001, because neighbors were worried about increasing the number of girls in the home, she says she withdrew the application. “We just felt like time would help them understand what the experience of being our neighbor would be like. Fifteen years later, I feel like we’ve been a really great neighbor.”

Regardless, the planning commission unanimously voted to recommend that City Council deny Gloeckner’s permit.

“I don’t question the intent or the goodwill of the program,” said planning commissioner Corey Clayborne at the meeting. “The part that I’m struggling with is when we’re assessing the impacts, whether it’s parking or whether it’s noise, we’ve heard the public testimonies that have come before us and have read multiple emails and documents, and I’m really struggling to see how this benefits the public necessity.”

Gloeckner will go before City Council with her request later this year.

‘Pressure cooker:’ Neighbors speak out against group home doubling its residents

The owner of a group home on Park Street is requesting a special-use permit to double the house’s occupancy from eight to 16 girls, but some neighbors, citing the 51 times police have already been called to the house this year, don’t think it’s a good idea.

“Putting 16 troubled girls into one house is like a pressure cooker,” says Jackie Lichtman, who has lived next door to what’s known as the Structured Therapeutic Adolescent Residential Service house for nearly 20 years. For about 15 of those, the residence has existed as a home for at-risk girls between the ages of 13 and 19.

“With eight girls there, it’s not really a problem,” says Lichtman.

The home, built in 1984, was originally designed to house 16 mentally disabled adults, says owner Kara Gloeckner, who interned there at that time. Allowing that many girls to live there would be fulfilling its intended use, she adds, and because the space at 517 Park St. also houses administrative offices, replacing them with bedrooms would make for a more home-like environment and alleviate parking stress.

Almost as soon as she bought the house in 2003, Gloeckner was denied a request for the same special-use permit, with lack of parking being a main issue.

Though Lichtman says she’s counted as many as 15 spots taken by STARS staff, social workers, tutors and visitors, Gloeckner says the seven staff cars parked in the lot would be reduced to four, with four on-street permits remaining the same.

At an October 12 public input meeting, a requirement for those applying for a special-use permit, Gloeckner addressed safety concerns.

“I think having been your neighbor for 15 years, that the fears of what bad kids moving into the community was going to do—I think we’ve lived in the neighborhood long enough to see that those things didn’t happen,” she said, adding that 41 of the 51 police calls this year were due to missing children.

Only five calls were the result of an incident or disorder within the residence, where at least two STARS staffers are stationed at the house 24 hours a day, and none involved residents and the surrounding community, such as theft or break-ins.

“Anybody still concerned about the safety of the community?” Gloeckner asked the crowded room. Several hands shot up as one voice squeaked, “Everybody.”

Other community members accused her of wanting to profit from serving more kids.

“We’re not trying to expand the business and we’re not bringing more kids to Charlottesville to serve,” says Gloeckner, because her team already serves 16 girls in the community, but they’re currently divided into two homes.

Though Gloeckner says her residents are regularly seen by physical and mental health physicians, some community members worry about how well the kids are cared for.

Will Cooke, a choir teacher at Charlottesville High School, has interacted with many STARS students in his 11 years at CHS.

“They’re kids who are already so massively traumatized because they’re removed from their families,” he says. “Without exception, all the kids who live there have all told the same story, about how they are further traumatized and are not, in any way, given anything therapeutic. It’s just a different kid telling it.”

Adds Cooke, “Upping that number is one of the worst possible things that could ever happen to the children in that house.”