Facility for Problem Teens Seeks to Allay Tujunga Fears

The directors of a Tarzana high school for mentally disturbed teen-agers, who want to relocate the school to a hillside residential area of southern Tujunga, defended themselves Thursday against charges by Tujunga residents that the facility would produce congestion and crime.

“I know there are doubts, but I feel we will be good neighbors and we won’t lower your property values,” said Ian Hunter, executive director of the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, which sponsors the school, the Erickson Center for Adolescent Advancement.

Officials of the school, now located in an industrial area of Tarzana, want to move into the Sunair Home for Asthmatic Children, a 15-acre facility in a rural neighborhood which closed in January due to a dwindling patient population and new government funding regulations.

Wants Permit

The Erickson Center, a special high school and residential program for 13- to 17-year-olds with “emotional and life problems,” is seeking a conditional use permit from the City of Los Angeles to use the facility for the treatment of up to 82 mentally handicapped students, with live-in facilities for up to 54. But, at a public meeting held at Sunair by the Erickson staff to reassure their prospective neighbors in Tujunga, residents repeatedly attacked the proposal.

“This is a residential community and we are not prepared to handle behavior problems of this magnitude,” said Don Sucich, 43, who has lived in the area all his life. Some residents said they were already opposed to sharing the neighborhood with a home for autistic children, located next to the Sunair building. Others complained that the staff for the Erickson Center and supply trucks would bring day-long congestion on Mt. Gleason Avenue, which ends at the Sunair facility.

Despite the often heated opposition expressed by several of the 40 residents who attended the meeting, Hunter said he believes the community is slowly becoming convinced that the teen-agers attending the school would not be a threat.

Thursday’s meeting was the second which school officials scheduled with residents to assure them that the facility would be compatible with the community.

There will be a hearing at the Van Nuys Women’s Club on Jan. 5 before a city zoning administrator.