Rehab Center Plan Now Divides Neighbors

A six-hour zoning hearing on a drug rehabilitation center proposed for Lake View Terrace made one thing clear Monday: The project has now divided a community that once was solidly opposed to it.

Phoenix House, a national non-profit corporation, first sought to open the 210-bed Nancy Reagan Center in the former Lake View Medical Center in 1988. Widespread neighborhood opposition helped kill that proposal, but Phoenix House returned earlier this year with a slightly scaled-down bid for a 150-bed adolescent treatment facility.

On Monday, pro-Phoenix residents clashed with opponents, neighbors accusing neighbors of squirrelly tactics, misleading representations and downright lies. Of the nearly 200 people who attended Monday’s hearing by a Los Angeles zoning administrator, at least a third were Phoenix House residents from Venice and Santa Ana who wore yellow pro-Phoenix House buttons.

One homeowner leader who led the opposition in 1988 and 1989, Lewis Snow, said that after he reversed his position earlier this year he was repeatedly accused of “being bought off” by Phoenix House. Snow said his about-face was actually brought on by the reduction in size of the proposed center and the increased willingness of center officials to negotiate.

“In no way, shape or form have I received anything from Phoenix House or anyone who in even the remotest sense can be connected with Phoenix House,” said Snow, a representative of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn.

Fred Taylor, a Pacoima community leader and center opponent, accused Phoenix House of manipulating the community to cause infighting and “going behind closed doors to circumvent” efforts to unify the often-fragmented northeast San Fernando Valley on this and other issues. A Phoenix House representative responded that he has merely tried to meet with as many community groups as possible to describe the proposal.

The opposition challenged the legality of Phoenix House’s application, which was made under a zoning section reserved for schools. They said that the proposed center should be viewed more as a detention facility or prison than a school, threatening to sue if the project is approved.

However, Associate Zoning Administrator Andrew B. Sincosky said the city attorney had already discounted that contention, made in advance by the attorney representing an opposing residents’ group, the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn.

Sincosky did not rule at the end of Monday’s meeting on the center’s quest for a conditional use permit. He said he would take at least some of the 75 days allowed by city law to review the testimony.

“This is not a done deal,” he said, in answer to one opponent’s question.

The supporters’ key message was that the drug rehabilitation program--which relies heavily on counseling and peer pressure--works and has caused few problems in other communities, although opponents dispute that.

“Unless we allow residential facilities like this to be located, we will not be able to address the problems this city is facing,” said George Mihlsten, a planning lobbyist who said he is providing his services free to Phoenix House.

But Monday, as in 1989--when another zoning administrator granted a conditional use permit for the center--much of the testimony on both sides relied more on emotion than on land-use policy.

Two Phoenix House residents provided moving testimonials about their past drug addictions and rehabilitations. Parents of past residents tearfully recounted how the program had saved their children from addiction and perhaps death.

“Another young life may be lost while we stand here discussing the pros and cons,” said Melody Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the Parent Teacher Student Assn. that represents the San Fernando Valley.

Opponents complained that many of those who testified in support of the center do not live in Lake View Terrace. One of them read aloud a list of home addresses of Phoenix House board members--some of whom spoke at the hearing--which included locations in Malibu Colony and Beverly Hills. Several suggested that if the board members like the center so much they should build it in their own back yards.

“Most of us in this community cannot afford to move at this point,” said Dorene West, who has lived two houses away from the former hospital for eight years. Then West repeated a common fear, saying that if residents from the unlocked center decide to leave “they would need money to buy drugs, they will need something to sell to get that money and that something will be my TV, my car.”

Phoenix House has repeatedly denied that there have been theft or violence problems traced to runaways from its other centers, and has produced statistics from police stations near other Phoenix House centers attesting to their nearly spotless police record. In rebuttal, on Monday opponents brought in their own letter in which a Yorktown, N.Y., police official suggested such statistics may be misleading because Phoenix House “has adopted the posture of not reporting criminal activity to us” for fear of negative publicity.