Valley Cities officials recently announced they will slow down on the development of the Woodmont Recovery Center after receiving backlash from legislators and the community in August.

“Our state elected officials and the county said, ‘OK, let’s be sure this is the very best site that’s available,’” said Valley Cities CEO Ken Taylor. “They said, ‘Let’s look at other potential sites in the county’ and we said, ‘Yeah, OK we can do that with you.’ We’re cooperating.”

The evaluation and treatment center would serve the mentally ill and those addicted to drugs or alcohol through inpatient psychiatric treatment. It was scheduled to break ground this fall with completion in late spring 2016, but Taylor requested the city put the project on hold until Dec. 31.

“I’m pleased that Valley Cities is responding to community concerns and working with local leaders to explore other locations for these much needed services,” said Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, in a news release. “It’s important to include residents’ concerns in the discussion. I have been, and will remain, fully engaged in this process.”

Although five buildings are planned for the entire 8-acre campus, including a methadone dispensary, Valley Cities said they only have funds for the evaluation and treatment center, which will house 16 involuntary beds and eight voluntary beds.

The center’s proposed location sits at the Pacific Highway and South 272nd Street intersection in the Des Moines neighborhood, Woodmont. And it’s less than 1,000 feet from Woodmont K-8, a school in the Federal Way school district — the biggest point of contention.

“I’m so cautiously optimistic,” said Kelly Carlile, a Federal Way resident whose children attend Woodmont K-8. “My emotions were so raw in August, I’m afraid to feel relieved at all.”

About 20-25 percent of Woodmont’s students live in Federal Way due to school boundaries.

Carlile said she’s optimistic because of legislator support but, as a parent, she is cautious because she didn’t find out about the project until right before it was supposed to break ground.

“I support the services but my job as a parent is to limit my kids exposure to that,” she said, adding that she’ll have to prepare her children to leave the school if officials cannot find another location.

Two months ago, Valley Cities, city of Des Moines officials and 250 parents congregated in the school’s gym to discuss details of the project. Hundreds expressed fear of the center, which included in its plan the construction of a methadone dispensary and four other buildings.

Legislators from Federal Way’s 30th Legislative District agree.

“I’m very pleased that a greater effort is going to be made to site the recover center in a different location,” said Rep. Carol Gregory, D-Federal Way. “I think it’s a critical service to South King County but so close to that school is not a good location.”

Rep. Linda Kochmar, R-Federal Way, is also pleased they’re looking at a different location for services, in particular the methadone dispensary and the “lockdown” clinic.

“Anything I can do to help the residents, I’m going to do that,” she said.

Jim Vollendroff, the mental health and substance abuse director for King County, said officials have identified a number of alternative locations for the center but was unable to disclose where those are.

“As we get closer to having some more definitive sites, we’ll have a series of community conversations,” Vollendroff said, noting the first one is expected in mid-November. “We plan to talk about the needs and present the data.”

He said there are essentially three options: Find an alternative site for the entire project, keep the plan as-is and stay in Woodmont or adjust what services will stay at Woodmont and either cut them or find a new location.

“We started this because we wanted to build an evaluation and treatment center because there’s a crisis in this county that hardly anybody seems to be speaking about,” Taylor said, referring to the lack of inpatient beds for psychiatric patients.

More than 3,000 patients, who were involuntarily committed the first half of this year, were turned away from emergency rooms with no place to go because of this shortage. Last year, Valley Cities served 7,500 people needing mental health counseling or chemical dependency treatment in King County. Other services include domestic violence services, homeless outreach and housing programs, family support and specialized services for veterans and families.

Putting the center in South King County is especially important because there are currently 500 people who travel from the area to Seattle to get treatment every day.

Valley Cities applied for the project’s Conditional Use Permit on Dec. 2, 2014 in the city of Des Moines. On Feb. 2, the city issued eight mitigation measures under their determination of non-significance under State Environmental Policy Act review.

Based on several comments and letters that were received from the community, the city extended the deadline to appeal that decision from Feb. 27 to March 16, however, no one appealed. The permit hearing before the hearing examiner was April 3, which many citizens attended and testified. The examiner issued a findings of fact and conclusions of law with project approval on April 15. Instead of the eight mitigation measures, the project would now have 11. But no one asked the examiner to reconsider the decision and the deadline passed on April 26. The appeal deadline passed on May 6 but neighbors were still upset, so the city held informational meetings on Aug. 18 and Sept. 16.

A legal analysis by city of Des Moines attorneys indicate the conditional use permit “processes were proper and timely,” the project was accurately described and there is “no legally justifiable basis for a moratorium involving this project or property.”