CLAREMONT — An application before the Zoning Board of Adjustment for a variance to allow a substance misuse recovery home for up to 11 women has been continued a second time as the board seeks legal advice on a possible approval.
“We want to know we are doing it correctly,” Mike Hurd, chairman of the Zoning Board, said at the Dec. 5 meeting.
Shawn Cannizzaro — who operates a Hope 2 Freedom Recovery Home for eight men, two in each of four apartments at a home on Factory Street — has applied for the variance at 15 Skinner St. Ordinances allow up to five unrelated people to live in a residential home and still be considered a family, but above that number a variance is required. If approved, it would mean the home is still considered a single family.
Cannizzaro told the board on Dec. 5, as he had in a previous meeting in November, that the key to success for his recovery model is a community or family atmosphere in the home so residents are not isolated.
“The community is how we thrive,” Cannizzaro said. “Roommates are important and isolation is dangerous. We can’t let them isolate. A roommate can be the thing that prevents reuse through support.”
Under his model, licensed by the state affiliated New Hampshire Coalition of Recovery Residences, Cannizzaro said residents are like a big active family and there is always somebody to talk to.
“It would be harmful with only five residents,” he said. “That is not enough to form a social model.”
Cannizzaro has been sober for nearly four years and is now a state-certified recovery coach, he said on Friday. He is working toward earning his community recovery support certification.
“I changed my life around and this has been a dream of mine,” Cannizzaro said Friday about his Hope 2 Freedom Recovery homes.
Under his plan, the residents do everything together from having meals to attending meetings. They all must have a job.
To approve a variance, the board must review five criteria. One of those is whether denying a variance would create an unnecessary hardship for the applicant. Cannizzaro argued it would because he could not operate as planned unless he can have more than five residents.
The building has eight bedrooms and 2,346 square feet of living space. It previously had a variance approved for an assisted-living facility, but that expired.
At a Zoning Board meeting in November, residents on Skinner Street spoke against Cannizzaro’s plan, citing safety and traffic concerns. To bolster his assertion that recovery homes do not pose a danger to the neighborhood, Cannizzaro had told the board in November that the recovery home on Factory Street has operated for about a year with no calls to police.
Cannizzaro does not have a signed lease for the property and said he is waiting to see whether he will be given a variance. He said the property owner is aware of how he wants to use the home and her only condition is that the residents be women.
At the Dec. 5 meeting, Hurd said the hardship criteria is the hardest one to meet and he wants to be sure applicants meet the hardship test and the board is on solid legal ground in case of an appeal or it goes to superior court.
“We want to be sure to dot our I’s and cross our T’s,” Hurd said.
Before its next meeting in January, the board wants a legal opinion on the hardship standard.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
