Variance Order Halts County Plans to Open Mental Health Center

A Los Angeles County mental health center that tried to move from Van Nuys to Reseda, where prospective neighbors protested vehemently against the move, will not open this summer and officials say they will probably look for a new site.

Claus Marx, chief of real estate for the county Mental Health Department, said Friday that the city of Los Angeles is now requiring the owner of a building on Sherman Way near Lindley Avenue to obtain a zoning variance before the West Valley Mental Health Center can move in.

But Marx said he did not expect the owner, Gregory Uttal, to be willing to go through the lengthy process of getting the variance and that the county will probably end up finding a new home for the center.

County officials said the search could take eight months or longer, a period during which mentally ill people receiving treatment from county facilities will continue to have to travel to Van Nuys or beyond to see a doctor or counselor, or to receive other assistance.

The building the county wanted to lease was near St. Catherine of Siena Catholic School and church. The school principal and the church pastor gathered more than 1,000 signatures of people opposed to the move. School and church officials said “disoriented, depressed and dangerous” clients of the center might congregate nearby, endangering the school’s students.

School and church officials were on vacation outside the city Friday and could not be reached for comment on the latest developments.

Ed Rose, an aide to city Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represents Reseda, said opponents of the center had contacted Picus when they found out about the move. Rose then asked the city’s Building and Safety Department to inspect the building to determine whether it had complied with zoning ordinances.

Rose said the city inspection determined that the facility is a clinic, which under zoning rules cannot be located within 600 feet of the school.

Marx said, however, that the school is more than 610 feet away from the center, which county officials do not consider to be a clinic. He said, however, that the county will accept the city’s determination.

County officials said the community’s negative reaction to the center was based on misconceptions about the center’s services and clientele.

Fernando L. Escarcega, deputy director of the county Mental Health Department, said the community’s reaction was “very, very unfortunate.”

“There was this perception that . . . this was a drug program, that we would be busing people in who were criminals,” he said. In fact, the program would have served “people in the community who live there now . . . who have no place to go to receive” mood-altering medication and other treatment.

He said the program was not a drug rehabilitation program but instead offered clients help before they become severely ill as well as assistance in coping with day-to-day life.

The decision to move the Van Nuys center to Reseda was part of an overhaul of the Mental Health Department’s operations in the San Fernando Valley, Escarcega said. The only county mental health clinic in the West Valley closed four years ago, he said, and the decision to relocate a facility to that part of the city resulted from a yearlong study of what services were available and needed there. The review found that 1,200 of the “episodes” of mental illness that the center dealt with at its Van Nuys site involved clients who lived west of Balboa Boulevard.

Although the county and Uttal are continuing to discuss the $22,600-per-month lease, several county officials said they expect they will have to find a new site.

Uttal said, however, that “as far as I know, I have a signed lease and I have a tenant and they’re supposed to occupy it.”

He said he has not decided whether to seek the city zoning variance.