Providence Hospital opposition group loses latest appeal

Published 10:26 pm Thursday, April 16, 2009

EVERETT — A Snohomish County Superior Court judge Thursday dismissed a neighborhood group’s lawsuit challenging Everett’s decision on a contentious rezone, but the battle over future growth of a north Everett hospital will likely continue, opponents say.

Superior Court Judge Bruce Weiss ruled that Everett followed the spirit of the law when it gave Providence Regional Medical Center Everett the go-ahead to expand onto a 9.4-acre athletic field north of 13th Street.

Claims that residents felt they were misled by the hospital had merit, Weiss said, but opponents failed in their lawsuit to prove that the city’s land-use rules were violated in any meaningful way or that the public was shut out from the process.

While he pointed out “harmless errors” in the process, Weiss said “legally, they didn’t meet the burden” to reverse the city’s decision.

The dispute is not over a high-rise hospital tower now under construction. It has to do with future growth of the hospital onto land across 13th Street that the hospital is acquiring from Everett Community College.

Barb Lamoureux with Neighbors for Neighborhoods, a nonprofit group that formed and filed the lawsuit shortly after the City Council’s August decision, said she believes the hospital did a poor job sharing its plans with the public.

“The wind is temporarily out of our sails, but we are not going away,” Lamoureux said.

Neighbors for ­Neighborhoods won’t likely appeal, but is ­weighing its options, Lamoureux said.

Meanwhile, a separate neighborhood group is challenging the hospital’s growth plan with the Growth Management Hearings Board. The board is expected to issue a decision by May 1 on whether the city violated the Growth Management Act.

Outside the courtroom Thursday, Providence Chief Executive David Brooks said that the hospital has continued to talk with neighbors and adjusted its growth plans based on public concern.

One example, he said, was a decision last summer to redesign and move a planned utility plant farther from homes than originally planned.

Eric Laschever, a Seattle attorney who is representing Everett in the lawsuit and the challenge before the hearings board, said there were ample opportunities for the public’s concerns to be heard.

David Chircop: 425-339-3429, dchircop@heraldnet.com.