KILLINGTON — Residents of the North Sherburne neighborhood are up in arms about a proposal by a new nonprofit to put a small rehabilitation facility for troubled youth in an old school dorm.

A petition with 58 signatures has been filed, aimed to stop Hope and Community Inc., from using the former Killington Mountain School dorm at 274 Stage Road as a community-based adolescent treatment center, and dozens of residents flooded a March 10 town planning commission meeting with concerns.

"The people of North Sherburne do not want this type of facility," said Ed Fowler on Thursday, the former owner of the property who has lived directly across the road from it for the last 29 years.

"I'll have a $700,000 or $800,000 property across the street from a rehab facility," he said. "That would affect my property value … I think it will affect property values all around town."

Newly incorporated nonprofit Hope and Community Inc. is proposing to house and treat eight patients between the ages of 14 and 22 who have drug and substance abuse issues in the 10-bedroom dorm, over a minimum period of six months to start.

According to Town Planner Dick Horner, the community doesn't have a say in the matter if the owners of the facility maintain eight or fewer patients because state law says no town permits are needed and the town has to treat it as if someone was purchasing a single-family home.

Neighbors' outcry won't matter, according to Horner and other residents who have researched the issue.

"It was as if you bought a house in Rutland, you wouldn't need a permit from the city," Horner said Thursday.

The property, being sold by a bank for $230,000, is in a residential or R3 zone, requiring a minimum of three acres to develop anything, but Hope and Community Inc., plans to move into a preexisting building, Horner said.

No application for expansion has been filed, Horner said.

The nonprofit registered with the Vermont Secretary of State's office last November.

The Killington facility would be its first, according to Jerod Sherman, a Rutland resident who would be the director if the facility goes ahead.

Sherman says he's a counselor who has worked in public and private schools and is looking to help troubled youth from around the state by bettering their lives through education and life skills.

"We always appreciate community support but it's not necessary," Sherman said. "The state only requires a state application for licensing."

Sherman said Thursday that the facility would not be a "hospital or a correctional facility, it's an alternative residential program" for nonviolent youth who would go to area public schools or be taught at the facility.

"What we are looking at is a long-term rehabilitative approach that's innovative, that's out-of-box," Sherman said.

"There is an epidemic with pharmaceutical drugs among kids and its gateway is marijuana," he said. "Everyone is in denial until it hits someone in their own family."

Killington was chosen for its recreational opportunities and the youths would live full-time at the house for a minimum of six months until they achieved high school diplomas or found a trade, Sherman said.

Sherman said funding would come from public and private sources but declined to name those sources or provide details on what type of staff members would be working there.

"You're asking about a lot of personal information I'm not going to have published," Sherman said.

Hope and Community Inc., doesn't have a license to operate as a residential child-care facility and has yet to meet numerous conditions required by the state Department of Children and Families, said Brenda Dawson, licensing social worker.

They've started the licensure process but the department can't act on it until the organization has a facility, she said.

Dawson and Sherman visited the Stage Road property recently but Dawson said she didn't inspect it because the key couldn't be found, Dawson wrote in an e-mail Friday.

"From a licensing perspective, we'll visit the physical facility, review their program description, treatment modalities, plans for documentation of treatment, policies and procedures that are required by our regulations. We will run criminal background checks prior to employees being hired … require resumes and evidence of reference checks," Dawson wrote.

According to the Secretary of State's Web site, the registered agent of the nonprofit is Dr. Mark Edward Logan of 71 Allen St. in Rutland.

Through his receptionist, Logan refused comment on the proposal when reached at his office Thursday.

Logan has an active license with the state of Vermont and specializes in both emergency medicine and addictive medicine, went to medical school at the University of Vermont with residency training at Indiana University and the University of Virginia, according to a practitioner profile listed on the state Department of Health Web site.

In 2005, conditions were placed on his "reinstated physician license as a result of a history of chemical dependency," and those conditions were removed on March 3 of this year, according to the Web site.

Logan is the founder of Rutland's Sanctuary Integrative Medicine, confirmed by his receptionist.

Neighborhood residents said they weren't opposed to helping kids but they wanted more details on the plan — from what drugs would be given out to who would be working there and what type of youth would be served.

Bob Montgomery, a resident and real estate broker, said he knows of properties in Rutland that would be cheaper to purchase and more fitting for the program.

"We bought in a residential R3 neighborhood and we're told that the state of Vermont can dictate that this happen," he said. "What's the point of zoning?"

Maureen Prencipe, who lives down the road from the proposed site of the rehab center, said she would like more information.

"There's no record of success," she said.

On April 15, the Hope and Community Inc., board of directors will hold a public forum at the Paramount's Brick Box theater in Rutland from 6 to 8 p.m., Sherman said.

The Killington Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the community's petition to ban schools in the R3 district, aimed to stop the proposal, at 7:30 p.m. April 7 at the Killington Town Offices on River Road.

cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com