Carol Eychaner's Review of the Draft EIS

Seasoned land use planner Carol Eychaner has made her initial review of the Draft EIS available for CAC review. You may find it helpful to you in composing comments on the EIS (due July 28th). She provides:

• Additional Comments on the Draft EIS (from June -- very specific)
  
• Comments on the Preliminary Draft EIS (from January -- provides best overview)
• Supporting Materials:
• Hospital's letter to the Department of Health objecting to additional pediatric beds at a Swedish facility (see excerpts here)
• Field Study on Bed Needs
• Map of Hospital's Property Acquisitions

Carol finds that car trips to the larger hospital could increase by a factor of 2.9 (from 9,200 to 26,680), far more than the increase factor of 1.9 used by the Hospital in its EIS:

"Under all the DEIS alternatives, hospital facilities and beds would increase by more than the factors projected by CHRMC and used for the trip generation... Applying these factors to the number of existing average daily trips of 9,200, would result in a range of 22,080 to 26,680 total trips at full build out - many more than the 17,600 trips estimated in the EIS."

Additional items of interest provided in Carol's documents:

"The requested 160-foot height increase is more than five times the height allowed by the campus' underlying and surrounding zoning." (Comments on the PDEIS)

"The magnitude of CHRMC's proposed on- and off-campus expansion -- in a low scale, low density area outside of any urban village -- is wholly in conflict with the urban village growth strategy that is the foundation of the City's Comprehensive Plan. The impacts of the development proposal ... on the character, scale, land use, viability and livability of the surrounding community are significant and unmitigatable. CHRMC has also made it clear that its plans will not stop with this master plan proposal, but that it is the building block for more to come." (Comments on the PDEIS)

"When CHRMC proposed its current master plan for the Laurelhurst campus, adopted in 1994, it argued that it was essential to have its clinical and research space in close proximity on the same campus... Apparently the need was not so essential after all, since all of CHRMC's research is now located off campus at or near the Denny Triangle site. " (Comments on the DEIS)

"CHRMC has ... proposed... 194 psychiatric beds. This large a psychiatric facility would likely have economies of scale allowing for a viable separate campus or co-location with one of the other existing psychiatric hospitals in the Seattle area... a reasonable discussion of alternatives would include CHRMC’s establishment of a pediatric psychiatric hospital at a location separate from the current campus." (Field Study)

“In Seattle, Swedish Hospital’s inpatient pediatric services now care for more King County children than does CHRMC.” (Field Study)