West Chester puts moratorium on rehab centers

West Chester Twp. trustees placed an eight-month moratorium on any new on drug addiction rehabilitation centers even as they acknowledged the need for them.

The issue arose after a Mason doctor presented a plan to turn a vacant nursing home into a rehab center that residents say would be too close to a day care, ball fields and Lakota students.

“We do need facilities like this,” Trustee George Lang said. “So this is not about regulating these businesses out of the township. It is, in my opinion, about looking at the potential secondary effects that may be detrimental to neighboring property owners and looking for ways to mitigate the negative impact.”

According to the coroner’s office, 189 people died from drug overdoses last year, and 149, or 79 percent, were heroin-related.

A number of neighbors came out last week to oppose a plan — some the same who protested a similar proposal in 2013 — by Professional Psychiatric Services (PPS) to turn the vacant West Chester Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on Ohio 42 into a mental health and addiction center. The site is across from Pisgah Youth Organization ball fields, and a daycare center sits next door.

Karen Werling, owner of Hickory Dickory Tots daycare, said 3,000 Lakota school students are in the immediate area, and many of them are walkers to and from school who would be exposed drug addicts and to people visiting them in the proposed inpatient rehab.

Werling said rehab centers are necessary, “… just not in the middle of our community where we are serving so many young children,” she said. “Birds of a feather can sometimes flock together, so not only do you have the inpatient people, but you have all the people coming in to visit with those people.”

PPS hasn’t applied for zoning yet, but the Mason-based company, owned by Dr. Muhamed Aziz, outlined its services in a letter to the township development department. Sherry Harbin, business and operations manager for PPS, noted 60 percent of the services would be outpatient, research and pharmacy, and 40 percent would be residential services for mental health and substance abuse.

Harbin would not comment on the moratorium, but neighbor Matt Campbell, who is a Pisgah Youth Organization coach, supports the PPS plan. He said Aziz has helped several people he knows.

“Addiction and mental health are largely ignored in the United States, and some communities try to prevent progress on this issue by fear mongering a topic they do not understand…,” Campbell said. “The fact of the matter is most of the people are everyday students, teachers, coaches, parents, and they are right here in our community.”

Executive Director Scott Rasmus said he isn’t certain if they would need to add more providers, like PPS, but they definitely want services that are “convenient” to all Butler County residents. There are other addiction services in West Chester, like the recently expanded Beckett Springs Hospital of West Chester Twp., but Rasmus said they need to tackle the issue.

“We respect their concern, but also we need to look at providing additional services that would work within the communities that are in Butler County,” he said. “I’m not quite sure with the business plan, if the expansions we’re looking for need to be additional facilities beyond the existing provider set.”

Scott Gehring. executive director of Sojourner Recovery Services, which manages nine facilities in the county, said all of their recovery services are in neighborhoods, and they coexist just fine.

“When you’re in social services, you come to expect the NIMBYs, the not in my backyard,” he said. “But we have established great relationships with all of our neighbors.”

Gehring did commend the township trustees for “doing their due diligence” and said he thinks they’ll find recovery services are a “positive for the community.”

All three trustees backed the moratorium, which will last until Dec. 31.

“It gives us more time to study on … the effects of it,” Trustee Lee Wong said. “And we will decide what is good for the public.”

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