Zoning for Drug Center Is Approved : Lake View Terrace: Neighbors opposed to Phoenix House’s proposal say they will contest the permit decision.

Los Angeles city zoning officials Tuesday approved a permit allowing Phoenix House to open a drug rehabilitation facility in Lake View Terrace, but homeowners opposed to the center vowed to appeal.

Associate Zoning Administrator Andrew B. Sincosky’s decision to grant the permit is the latest development in a long and tangled battle Phoenix House has fought with homeowners to convert the former Lake View Medical Center into a drug abuse center and private residential high school for up to 150 youths, ages 13 to 17.

Although he granted the drug treatment organization’s permit request, Sincosky imposed 24 requirements to address concerns about security and noise.

The decision drew mixed reactions from a community that is deeply divided on the issue.

Sandy Hubbard, chairwoman of We, the People, and president-elect of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn., two groups opposed to the facility, said the decision does not reflect the wishes of the community and vowed to take the issue up with the Board of Zoning Appeals.

If residents still are not satisfied they could appeal further to the City Council.

“We do not believe the facility is appropriate in a single-family home neighborhood,” Hubbard said. She said Tuesday’s decision will “reinforce for us our belief in the need for neighborhood empowerment.”

The head of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn., which supported the proposal, said Tuesday’s decision came as no surprise.

“I feel there is a great silent majority in Lake View Terrace that feels that the project will be very beneficial to their community,” Lewis Snow said. “The easiest thing and the most popular thing for us to do would be to oppose it, but it would not have been right.”

First proposed in 1988, the Phoenix House proposal has been a source of controversy in Lake View Terrace. Phoenix House is the largest private nonprofit drug abuse services agency in the nation. It operates 10 treatment centers in New York and New Jersey and four in California. The initial plan was to convert the hospital into a 210-bed facility dubbed the Nancy Reagan Center. But the former First Lady, once a financial benefactor of the project, withdrew support after opponents vowed to picket her Bel-Air residence.

The proposal was virtually dead until earlier this year when Phoenix House officials announced that they had reached an agreement to buy the hospital property and introduced plans for a scaled-down version.

After its revival, two community groups switched positions on the proposal. The Lakeview Terrace Home Owners Assn., which helped lead the fight against the earlier proposal, endorsed the new plan. The Lakeview Terrace Improvement Assn., which at one point supported Phoenix House and then took a neutral stance, came out against the new proposal.

Snow said the Lakeview Terrace Home Owners Assn. changed its position because the new proposal was “less intense” and because of “a willingness on the part of Phoenix House to bend and make concessions.” Those concessions included agreeing to 18 conditions covering security arrangements, lighting, landscape improvements and other issues.

Nearly 400 people attended an emotional seven-hour hearing on the facility conducted by Sincosky in October. Opponents argued that the facility would bring more crime and traffic and cause property values to decline.

Homeowners and residents also were concerned about runaways from the facility and worried that the youths would overburden police. Hubbard and others had asked that an environmental impact report be done to determine how the project would affect the community. “What the neighborhood is asking is, review the project, review the impact prior to allowing operation,” Hubbard said.

Fred Taylor, president of Focus 90, an umbrella organization of 20 community groups that oppose Phoenix House, said many of those supportive of the proposal were uninformed about its specifics and had not heard the argument in opposition.

“In most cases people are going to say, ‘Sure, we need drug facilities’ and I agree with that premise,” Taylor said. “The problem is when you go up there and you see the proximity, the closeness of the hospital to the houses.”

The facility will serve teen-agers who are former drug users who do not have “a history of violence, arson, mental illness” and who are not “under treatment with a psychotropic medication,” the decision reads.

The youths must be supervised 24 hours a day and an 8-foot decorative wrought-iron security fence must be installed around the facility’s perimeter.

The decision also requires formation of a community advisory board, to be appointed by the City Council member who represents the area and to include representatives of Phoenix House and the community. A 24-hour hot line for residents who have complaints against the facility also is to be created.

Although they had not read the 30-page decision in its entirety, or had the chance to analyze the operating conditions it imposes, Phoenix House officials said it “represents a major step forward” for the project.

Phoenix House’s director of operations, Steven Taylor, said, “We look forward to working through the city process to resolve any issues that would affect our ability to deliver a program that has proven successful throughout the past 25 years.”