2005/12/05 Council Agenda Packet

Yahoo! Mail X Page I of 2 W 40M A t L Print - Close Window From: Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:40:10 EST W Subject: Fwd: PEMC To: - - Forwarded Message From: "Drew Nielsen" <dnielsen@seanet.com> To: CC: "Mary Jane Anderson" <ken.mj@gte.net> Subject: PEMC Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:56:08 -0800 HTML Attachment Jeanne and Bob, Mary Jane Anderson forwarded your question to me. There has never been any agreement between the Hospital and the Neighborhood, or between the Hospital and anyone else, to refrain from developing west of Colby. In fact, in 2000 (if memory serves), the Hospital announced that it would seek a change in the Comprehensive Plan to build the new birthing center on the park site. They released a site plan and elevation drawings, then, shortly before the June 30 deadline, announced that they had decided instead to build it at the Pacific campus which was already appropriately zoned. (This was, of course, at a time when they still planned on operating a two -campus facility.) After the Hospital decided to place that facility at the Pacific campus, it sold the two parcels it owned on the 1200 block between Colby and Hoyt, one of which was adjacent to the Hospital's property on the Hoyt side, and another in the middle of the block on the Colby side. Here is the history in a nutshell of the Hospital's decision to expand to the east, according to the best of my recollection. In 1983, the Hospital had a parking lot on the 1300 block between Wetmore and Rockefeller. It was planning the expansion that exists today. The Hospital applied to use its vacant property at 13th and Colby for temporary parking until the new parking garage was completed, on the grounds that otherwise the loss of its parking lot on the 1300 block of Wetmore would impact the neighborhood. A group of neighbors, fearing that the use would not really be temporary but would be followed by a request to allow permanent use of the site, organized in opposition. These were primarily people living on the affected block, plus property owners fronting Colby on the east and 13th on the south, and a few others, including me. We lost before the hearing examiner in all respects except that he took the Hospital at its word that the use was to be temporary and conditioned the parking lot on the Hospital's fumishing a bond that would insure that the property would be restored to its prior condition before any subsequent request could be made for permanent use. The neighbors appealed the hearing examiner's decision to City Council, which upheld the hearing examiner 4 to 3. However, the City Council overlooked or ignored the fact that the Hospital had also appealed the condition to extinguish the requirement for the bond, so that condition remained. The Hospital was not willing to furnish the bond, and it withdrew its request to use the site. Judy Baker and Carl Gipson, who both sat on the Hospital's Board of Directors and on City Council, persuaded the other members of the Hospital Board that relations between the Hospital and neighbors were poor, and that the Board should conduct an open process to determine and disclose well in advance what the Hospital's future expansion plans would be_ The Hospital announced that it intended to purchase homes on the 1200 block of Wetmore where it now has a parking lot. Hospital administration also met with City planning staff_ No neighbors were included in the http://us.f417.mail.yahoo.comlynVShowLetter?box=lnbox&MsgId=286_2094977_905_ 11... 1/30/2005