BUENA PARK : Hospital’s Request for Facility Denied

Siding with concerned neighbors, the City Council has refused a request from Buena Park Community Hospital to convert an office building on Lincoln Avenue into a psychiatric care facility.

Administrators asked permission to change an existing office complex at 6800 Lincoln Ave. into a 43-bed facility for patients in the hospital’s drug- and alcohol-dependency programs. The hospital planned to move recovering patients from the hospital to the site for about four weeks of less-intensive treatment, Dr. Earl Bernard told the council last week.

Despite Bernard’s assurances that the supervised patients would not create problems for the surrounding neighborhood, a handful of residents spoke against the project.

“What concerns me the most is that there are two schools right in the area,” said resident Yvonne Shropshall of Via Vista Drive. “How do we know these patients are not previous sex offenders? You just don’t know.”

The council action was the latest in a series of disputes between neighbors and the hospital. In the past, residents fought to have a hospital recreation facility with volleyball courts near their homes moved to a different location on the same site.

That problem has since been cleared up, and city staff reported they have not received any complaints about the hospital “in some time.”

This time around, neighbors say that the alarm system at the hospital, which alerts doctors when a patient has left the grounds, is always going off and creating problems.

Bernard countered that it was unfair to prevent the hospital from developing its property, which is in a commercial area, as it sees fit.

“We feel it is unfair to permit commercial zoning and then not allow us to develop,” he said.

After hearing the neighbors’ fears, the council, endorsing the action of the Planning Commission, turned down the request. City staff had recommended approval.

“I think it is an unknown thing, what kind of impact those 43 people will have on the neighborhood,” Councilwoman Donna L. Chessen said.

Mayor Don R. Griffin said he did not believe that the facility could properly accommodate the 43 additional people.

“It seems to me the findings of the Planning Commission are well-founded,” Griffin said. “The applicant hasn’t provided a suitable environment for these people to live.”