CLIPBOARD

What began as fields of Valencia oranges, avocados, tomatoes, potatoes and cabbage in this northwest section of Yorba Linda are today residential tracts, churches, and nurseries and wholesale growers with phone numbers like 52-GRASS.

Congregations of Quakers and Presbyterians, who are among the Midwesterners who settled the area in 1909, are today Baptists, Koreans and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Forgiven Sinners Know and ‘Show’ Love reads the sign posted outside Friendship Baptist Church at 17145 Bastanchury Road.

Development began in the 1950s while this area was still unincorporated and within the jurisdiction of the county. Talk of incorporation began as early as 1956, but the Board of Supervisors denied annexation of the property that would later become Yorba Linda to Brea, Anaheim and Placentia. In the end it took a ruling by the California Supreme Court to allow the city to vote for incorporation in 1967.

By the 1960s, farmland was turned into residential areas. Street names such as Abbey Lane and Liverpool Street suggest development during the Beatles era, though the album and recording studio were, more correctly, Abbey Road.

In this largely residential community, houses vary in size from a modest two or three bedrooms to palatial proportions, with buildings filling their lots from nearly end to end. Home prices range from $205,000 to $500,000. Condominiums are in the $150,000 range.

The single parcel of relatively undeveloped land within northwest Yorba Linda--on Valley View Avenue in the vicinity of El Cajon Avenue--is slotted for development.

In the fields still being harvested on Bastanchury Road at the corner of Rose Drive, the crop is strawberries. Farm Fresh Strawberries--Picked Fresh Daily, reads the notice.

A site near the strawberry fields was once a point of controversy: the Yorba Hills Hospital and Mental Health Center.

The corner of Bastanchury Road and Rose Drive had been the home of St. Jude Hospital, Yorba Linda, which had a reputation for the charitable care for patients regardless of financial circumstances.

The nonprofit hospital was acquired by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange in 1981, but had lost money ever since. St. Jude suffered from high rates of uncompensated patient care. It was additionally hurt by its proximity to other hospitals such as the Placentia-Linda Community Hospital less than a mile away, also on Rose Drive.

When the hospital, which closed its doors on Nov. 14, 1989, was sold to National Medical Enterprises of Los Angeles and Santa Monica, there was public outcry because of the plan to convert the hospital to a psychiatric facility.

More than 200 residents signed a petition opposing the conversion. They feared placing patients who could be unpredictable and in some cases even violent in a suburban setting around homes and schools.

In fact the 80-bed psychiatric facility, operated by the National Medical Enterprises subsidiary, Psychiatric Institutes of America, was set to treat people who suffer from depression, chemical dependency, eating disorders, sleep disorders, anxiety and chronic pain. Seriously ill or violent people would be kept out of the hospital by a strict admissions process.

City Councilman Irwin M. Fried said the hospital has had no adverse reaction after the initial controversy.

The Yorba Hills Hospital and Mental Health Center has been in operation since mid-February, 1990.

To alleviate people’s fears, the hospital started an advisory committee of residents to maintain contact with the community. Diana Hanyak, a the hospital’s public relations representative who lives within mile of the hospital, doesn’t sense discomfort in the community. “Neighbors are very comfortable in terms of people walking around the grounds, walking their dogs.

“(It) may be the (participation of) residents in the committee but also the free community services, free lectures,” she said.

The hospital offers lectures on subjects such as effective communication, promoting self-esteem in children, chemical dependency and addiction. The lectures drew a positive word-of-mouth response, Hanyak said.

“Not knowing, not understanding was part of the fear, part of the discomfort,” she said. Since she began working there a month after the hospital’s opening, she said, “I’ve gotten no complaints.”

Population: Total: (1990 est.): 4,016 1980-90 change: +37.3% Median Age: 32.8

Racial/ethnic mix: White (non-Latino): 83 % Latino: 9 % Black: Less than 1% Other: 8%

By sex and age: MALES Median age: 31.8 years FEMALES Median age: 33.7 years

Income Per capita: $21,201 Median household: $80,742 Average household: $94,541

Income Distribution: Less than $25,000: 4% $25,000-49,999: 14% $50,000-74,999: 27% $75,000-$99,999: 21% $100,000 and more: 34%