Debate Over Drug Rehab Plan Grows : Lake View Terrace: A group that had been neutral after first backing the 150-bed facility now says it will fight the proposal.

Neighborhood politics surrounding a renewed proposal by Phoenix House to build a 150-bed drug rehabilitation center in Lake View Terrace have grown even more tangled.

The Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn., which had once supported the plan and then adopted a neutral stance, notified Phoenix House on Friday that it will fight plans to convert the vacant Lake View Medical Center site into a drug treatment center.

Two weeks ago, Lake View Terrace’s other longstanding homeowner group announced support for the Phoenix House project. That was shortly after yet a third homeowner group was formed to oppose it.

Chris Policano, a spokesman for Phoenix House, minimized the importance of the improvement association action. “It’s clearly not a strong mandate” when a third of the group’s members did not care enough to vote in the poll, Policano said.

“Other than this, things have been going very well in our relations with the community,” Policano said. “We’re certainly not facing the overwhelming opposition we found in 1989--as the poll shows,” he said, referring to an earlier attempt to establish the treatment center.

A poll of its membership triggered the improvement association’s change of heart, said Eileen Barry, the organization’s secretary. Of 250 members polled, 140 opposed the project and only 27 supported it, Barry said.

When Phoenix House earlier this year revived its long-dormant plan for a drug center in Lake View Terrace, the improvement association board supported members who were attempting to negotiate a compromise with Phoenix House. Later still, the group’s board adopted a neutral position.

But in recent weeks, under pressure from a newly minted third group called We the People, organized specifically to fight the project, the improvement association tested the sentiments of its members with a poll.

“We saw the results and now we are opposing the project,” Barry said.

We the People leader Sandy Hubbard said her group was encouraged to have the improvement association as an ally. Hubbard contends her group has 350 followers.

We the People’s position is that the Phoenix House program will offer an “inappropriate role model for the youth in our community,” Hubbard said. This more militant group has picketed the residences of community leaders supporting the project. Also, members tie red ribbons around their own mailboxes to demonstrate opposition to the Phoenix House proposal.

Two weeks ago, the Lake View Terrace Homeowners Assn., a separate organization from the improvement association, held a news conference to announce that its board was supporting the Phoenix House plan.

In the late 1980s the improvement association and the homeowner association were allies in vehemently opposing Phoenix House’s plan for a drug center at the same Lake View Medical Center site. Phoenix House abandoned those plans after former First Lady Nancy Reagan, once a backer, dropped her financial backing of the project.

But earlier this year, when creditors of the bankrupt Lake View Medical Center slashed the asking price for the property, Phoenix House jumped in to buy the site, reigniting the debate.

Lew Snow, a leader of the homeowners association, said Tuesday that his group’s support would not be affected by the improvement association’s decision to oppose the project.

Snow also predicted that his group would be the target of a “take-over attempt” by members of its rival. “We can deal with this,” he said.

In fact, 22 improvement association members, including several of its top officers, recently joined the homeowner association, Barry confirmed. Their plan is not to take over the group but to demand at a homeowner association board meeting tonight that the board poll its membership on the issue of Phoenix House, Barry said.

“We will ask them to see if their members back their position,” Barry said. “We know of people in their group who are unhappy with their board’s position of support for Phoenix House.”

But Snow said his group has entered into a “binding agreement” to support the center’s application for city operating permits and could be sued if it reneges.

In return, Phoenix House promised to implement numerous security, lighting and landscape improvements sought by the association. The deal is a good one for the community, Snow said.