“Not in my backyard.”
That is what some Walnut Creek residents are saying about a proposal to open a mental health facility in their quiet neighborhood. The Contra Costa County zoning department will have the final say on the location.
A psychiatric facility right next door to a new housing development is being proposed on Tice Valley Boulevard in Walnut Creek. The proposal is currently under consideration by the Contra Costa County zoning department.
The land use permit seeks to convert a former elder care facility to a residential ambulatory facility for 16 adults with no improvement to the existing property. According to a website that matched patients with doctors, the psychiatrist who is seeking the permit currently has a medical facility in San Jose and specializes in treating patients with bipolar disorder, mental illness, depression, and schizophrenia.
“This location? I don’t know the county, the ones who were first looking at that had any idea that it was right in the middle of a residence, so many small children,” resident Lisa Munekawa said.
Munekawa says her family would have considered other options before moving into the new housing development next door to the site of the proposed mental illness facility.
“It is certainly something everyone is going to think about before they commit to such an investment where their homes are going to be,” Munekawa said. “A lot of our neighbors have small children. This is within 400 yards of where their homes are”
There is a petition circulating encouraging people in the neighborhood to say no to the mental health facility. It currently has 255 signatures.
A public hearing on the proposal is set for Monday in Martinez.
KRON4 reached out to the doctor behind the proposal to get his side of the story.
We were told he was not available.