LUMBERTON —The Robeson County Board of Commissioners shot down a request Monday that would clear the way for the establishment of a reintegration center in the Burnt Swamp community near Pembroke.

The request, which was for the rezoning of a 3.34-acre tract of land on Lonnie Farm Road from a Residential Agricultural R-A District to a Neighborhood Commercial C-1 District, was the second made by Hope Alive Inc. and denied by commissioners within the last two weeks.

Monday evening’s 7-1 vote mirrored one made at the Aug. 1 business meeting, during which commissioners voted against the rezone of a 9.4-acre tract of land near Parkton from a Residential Agricultural R-A District to a Neighborhood Commercial C-1 District for the establishment of a rehabilitation facility. Again, Commissioners David Edge was the sole commissioner for the rezoning.

The Lonnie Farm Road facility, acquired in April by Hope Alive Inc., is intended to be a 20- to 25-bed facility with a food outreach program geared toward reintegrating into society people who have completed drug addiction rehabilitation.

“Our request for the Parkton facility was for a 12-month medically assisted treatment program,” Rev. Ron Barnes said. “The current request for the Lonnie Farm location is to develop it to be a step-down facility in our reintegration program. The facility would be for those who have completed an intensive long-term rehabilitation program and are preparing to reenter the community.”

Hope Alive is a nonprofit organization established by Barnes, the pastor of Greater Hope International Church in Lumberton.

Commissioner Judy Sampson, the representative of the district the facility is proposed, said if she was approached prior to the decision to buy the property, she would have “strongly encouraged them to go somewhere else.”

“Let me make this perfectly clear, all of us commissioners agree, we need a drug rehab facility,” Sampson said. “We need a halfway house but location is everything and I don’t think that anybody looked at Lonnie Farm the way they should have looked at it.”

About half of the roughly 60 people who attended the public hearing on the matter were in opposition of rezoning. The other half seemed to be for.

Barnes told commissioners about the intentions for the facility and why he felt it would not be a threat to the safety of residents in the area.

“I’ve been told on numerous occasions to speak my heart,” Barnes said. “I’ve done that before and really it has just not been accepted. Tonight, I’m not speaking from my heart. I’m speaking what I believe to be legal. I’m speaking the raw facts.”

Speaking for the facility was Bart Grimes, the chief of Behavioral Service for the Robeson County Health Care Corporation.

“People are dying in this community at a rate that’s extremely alarming … this is not a problem unique to Robeson County … But Robeson County is unique in that it’s one of the hardest hit communities in the country, definitely in the state,” Grimes told commissioners.

“The resources are here. The support is here to make a change,” Grimes said.

Delois Lowery, a resident of Lonnie Farm Road spoke in opposition to the facility. She brought commissioners a petition that she said contained more than 600 signatures from people in the area.

“Hope Alive does not have a plan to monitor as we see that they should and inform the community when an individual was to leave this facility,” said Rita Locklear, another speaking in opposition of the rezoning. “We need to be careful of what happens in the neighborhood if someone were to leave and might be wondering about … who knows what could happen.”

“The community has spoken. I don’t know what else to say,” Sampson said.

The project is to be funded by a $10 million allocation to Hope Alive by legislators in the state budget signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper on Nov. 18.

The allocation will be distributed by providing $5 million this fiscal year, which ends June 30 and $5 million in Fiscal Year 2022-23, according to Senate Bill 105.

Hope Alive, which has not provided such medical care before, will partner with Robeson Health Care Corporation in the effort to provide services.

Hope Alive’s executive director Oryn Lowery told The Robesonian the next step for Hope Alive, Inc. is to appeal the commissioners’ decision in court.

In other business, commissioners approved issuing a special-use permit to allow for the establishment of a family cemetery in a Residential Agrulcultar R-A District in the East Howellville community. The applicant Susan McNeill Blackmon said the cemetery will accommodate 20 plots on a 0.53-acre tract of land on Regan Church Road.