Drug Center Won’t Need Environmental Impact Report

Opponents of the Nancy Reagan Center for drug-abuse treatment said they are alarmed by a Los Angeles zoning official’s ruling Friday that no environmental study will be needed for the proposed Lake View Terrace facility.

Residents of a neighborhood surrounding the former Lake View Medical Center, where the drug center is planned, had hoped such a study would find drug treatment incompatible with residential living.

However, Associate Zoning Administrator Darryl L. Fisher did not indicate whether he will grant a conditional-use permit for the center.

“My decision on the conditional-use application will be issued in two to four weeks,” he said. The center needs a special permit because the hospital site is zoned for agricultural use.

Neighbors of the bankrupt hospital, who fear the center will contribute to the area’s drug and crime problems and undercut their property values, vowed to appeal the ruling to the Board of Zoning Appeals and the City Council if Fisher approves the permit.

“I’m disappointed, I’m also surprised,” said Lynne Cooper, president of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn. “I think the evidence was overwhelming that there was a need” for an environmental impact report.

A vice president of Phoenix House, the private nonprofit company proposing the center, said the ruling proved what she has been saying since May.

“We believe our record really speaks for itself,” said Larraine Mohr. “We’ve done everything the city wants us to do. We’ve already done a traffic study on our own. And there are no environmental issues to this.”

But City Councilman Ernani Bernardi accused Fisher of “ducking his responsibility.”

“If the city wanted to convert that hospital to a library, a fire station or a police station, it would have to provide a full EIR. That’s a law,” Bernardi said. “This is like night and day going from one use to another use.”

In the past, Bernardi threatened to ask the council to require the in-depth environmental review. But Friday he said he would wait until the permit consideration reaches the council through the normal appeal process. He said he is afraid that if the council usurps the usual process, it will give Phoenix House ammunition in a future lawsuit.

Delay Urged

“Looking at the situation and the kind of pressure being used to ram this thing through, I think we should wait,” he said.

Phoenix House wants to house 150 adolescents and 60 adults in an in-patient rehabilitation program in the hospital buildings. They maintain that the center would be far less irritating to its neighbors than a hospital.

The center would include an office for the former First Lady, although her exact duties have not yet been defined. It also would function as a drug-treatment research and training institute for Phoenix House’s national network of 10 centers.

At the project’s first public hearing Jan. 20, Fisher said he might require the report to help answer the myriad questions posed by homeowners. However, he said Friday he had reconsidered.

“It just isn’t the most appropriate vehicle to answer the questions,” he said, adding that instead they would be addressed during the conditional-use permit process, where he can ask Phoenix House officials to prove that their track record is as clean as they say.

“Most of that can be dealt with in my determination, whether I approve it or deny it,” Fisher said.