Drug Center May Have to Undergo Site Impact Study

After a six-hour public hearing on locating the Nancy Reagan Center for drug-abuse treatment in Lake View Terrace, a Los Angeles zoning official appeared to be leaning toward ordering an extensive review of the project’s potential effect on the community.

“It’s clear to me that there is a lot of confusion and a lot of misunderstanding about this project,” said Darryl L. Fisher, associate zoning administrator. “I have to consider if it wouldn’t be possible that an environmental impact report would resolve a lot of those questions.”

Fisher said he will decide within two weeks whether to require the report, which would delay the project several months.

Want to Open in Spring

Officials of Phoenix House, the nonprofit company proposing the center, said they want to open the facility by spring because the former First Lady is back in California. She would have an office at the center, but her duties have not been announced.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi said during the hearing that he will ask the City Council on Tuesday to require the environmental study. Fisher said he will determine the feelings of the council before making his decision.

About 300 people attended Friday’s hearing at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center, more than half of them supporters of the center who wore yellow buttons that read “Save Kids.” Most of the supporters were clients, counselors or teachers from other Phoenix House programs--in Santa Ana and Venice--who were bused in for the hearing.

Also among them were a sprinkling of San Fernando Valley residents who have decided to support the center.

Fred Nobles, managing partner of the Van Nuys-Pierce Park apartments in Pacoima, said that although his efforts to clean up the area’s drug and crime problems have helped, “we need Phoenix House. What we are doing is not enough.”

Anne Finn, widow of Councilman Howard Finn, who represented Lake View Terrace, said that during tours of other Phoenix House centers, she was impressed with how grown-up and clean-cut the youngsters were.

“If only we could have such a haven for cure as Phoenix House on every block,” she said.

When Pacoima public-housing advocate Mary Cooley heard about plans for the center, she was against it. But she said she changed her mind after her drug-addicted daughter was referred to the Phoenix House facility in Turlock by Mayor Tom Bradley’s Valley assistant, Doris (Dodo) Meyers.

“I think sometimes a lot of us operate out of fear instead of out of reason,” Cooley said.

Supporters emphasized Phoenix House’s track record in other locations and the need for in-patient drug treatment in Los Angeles.

Opponents said there are blemishes on that record and noted that the hospital site is within 25 yards of homes. They also noted that the site is on the edge of an already drug- and crime-riddled area.

They said the northeast Valley shoulders more than its share of halfway houses, juvenile detention centers and sanitariums.

“We have reached the point of saturation where this community is about to give up . . . and stop fighting,” said Fred Taylor, political adviser to the Minister’s Fellowship of the San Fernando Valley.

Inappropriate Use

Opponents said an environmental study would prove that the center is an inappropriate use of the former Lake View Medical Center site.

But Phoenix House representatives said that while they do not welcome the additional expenditure of time and money that such a study would require, they believe that it would vindicate them.

An environmental study would only mean “there’s going to be a period of time where we’re saying the same thing we’re saying now, just in greater detail,” said Larraine Mohr, senior vice president for Phoenix House’s California properties. “There is no environmental impact of this facility.”

Attorney George J. Mihlsten said the center would generate far less traffic and other nuisances than the Lake View Medical Center did before it closed three years ago. Mihlsten, known as one of City Hall’s most effective lobbyists, said he is representing Phoenix House at no charge because he believes in its cause.