City implored to take another look

Published 4:23 pm Wednesday, August 13, 2008

In 2005, “not for profit” Providence Everett Medical Center built its case for the rezone and demolition of an entire block of the historic Donovan District with millions of dollars in advertising, legal experts and paid consultants, and threatened to leave Everett if the plan was not approved.

Their plan included a 175-foot bed tower, the tallest building in Snohomish County, which has not broken ground yet. The theory was “it was needed” to keep up with population growth. When asked by the city Planning Commission “will this be enough?” PEMC said that the 500 beds they sought was as “big as a hospital needs to be.”

Just three years later, PEMC is asking to rezone the 9-acre Everett Community College athletic field to accommodate a 20-year construction plan, including another 175-foot hospital tower, an 85-foot high utility plant with 10-foot exhaust stacks, another parking garage and rows of office buildings up to 75 feet high bordering one- and two-story homes.

The obnoxious utility plant would be constructed first, near the middle of the site, forever spoiling the remaining property for future generations. The Planning Commission considered PEMC’s plan inadequate and required them to come back with significantly more details. After just four business days for the public to review those changes, the commission asked for citizen comment and then ignored questions that were raised. With only four members present and little debate, they voted to recommend approval of the plan to the City Council.

The final public hearing for this ordinance is Wednesday. I implore the City Council to ask and answer a lot more questions before this is rushed through. We asked that more thought be put into the rezone in 2005 because we feared the plan was flawed, and we were ignored. Turns out we were right and now PEMC is coming back with even greater demands. Who does the City Council represent? We hope it is the citizens.

Barb Lamoureux