Wellness center staying put in Decatur

A mental health center will continue to operate in a Decatur neighborhood now that residents have dropped their fight to get the facility to change or move.

The city’s Board of Zoning Appeals decided in a split vote earlier this month that the Peer Support and Wellness Center fit with the Decatur Heights neighborhood.

The several dozen residents who objected to the center because of its large and transient daily client base decided last week not to appeal the ruling to state Superior Court.

The two sides, it appears, plan to learn how to live together.

“We’re very happy with the decision and are very hopeful that bygones will be bygones,” said Sharon Jenkins Tucker, who heads the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network, the agency that oversees the center.

The center opened on Sycamore Drive in 2008 as the first of its kind in Georgia. Instead of professional or medical care, the center relies on trained peer counseling and activities to support people in crisis with mental illness.

Several dozen nearby residents objected to the center, which opened without a state license or city permit. They argued that city zoning allows for only residential homes for up to six people, not the day program that attracts up to 25 people daily.

The latest ruling supports that daily total for activities, as well as overnight respite care for up to three people on any given night.

One of the residents organizing the challenge said that opponents have decided to live with those numbers in part because they believe their criticisms will stop similar facilities from opening without warning elsewhere in the city.

“You will never see that happen again in this city,” resident Soren Christiansen said. “It is what it is.”

The city will have to create a zoning classification for such facilities. Decatur does not have a designation or a specific permit for a “wellness center,” given the uniqueness of the facility, said city planning director Amanda Thompson.

The city will also continue to enforce its loitering and noise ordinances, to avoid any quality-of-life complaints from residents who said they had problems with clients of the center in the past.