Reminder: CAC Meeting this Tuesday, Dec 9

This Tuesday's Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting will be held from 6-9 pm in the Hospital's Sound Café (5th floor in the Whale Zone). Public input is invited.

Likely under consideration: LCC's Proposed Motion for the Hartmann Property. This motion favors replacement of the housing lost from Laurelon with new housing at the Hartmann property -- instead of expansion of the institutional boundary across Sandpoint way to Hartmann.

Laurelhurst Community Club has formally appealed the Hospital's EIS

The announcement of the appeal summarizes the LCC's concerns:

The Laurelhurst Community Club (LCC) has appealed to the Seattle Hearing Examiner the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Children’s Hospital Expansion. Located in Laurelhurst, Children’s proposes to virtually triple in size, leapfrogging its current boundaries and crossing Sand Point Way. LCC’s appeal, filed just before the Hearing Examiner’s office closed on November 24, charges that the Hospital EIS understates the expansion’s harmful impacts, including gridlock, and refuses to study any compromise alternatives that would help prevent them. The LCC appeal therefore asks that the Hearing Examiner send the EIS back to the drawing board.

The transportation deficits of the EIS are covered in detail in the appeal. A few excerpts:

• The FEIS [Final EIS] continues to withhold data and analysis necessary to examine its trip projections. For example, the FEIS assumes 1410 daily peak hour trips when the ITE standard would result in 2800.
• There remains a 100% discrepancy in the EIS for critical minor stopped approach volumes. It is these that determine the approach LOS [Level of Service] and queuing... This has not been addressed in the FEIS.
  
• The FEIS answer did not address the inadequacy of using 1998 concurrency volumes for a 2030 build out year. Nor does it provide data necessary – and requested in DEIS comments -- to knowledgably assess calibration, queuing analysis, or bottlenecks (e.g. on Montlake Boulevard or 45th Street). Therefore, the FEIS off-site analysis continues to underestimates the delay along these corridors and the impacts of the proposal.
• The failure of the FEIS to disclose and analyze an actual construction management plan in light of the size and implications of the construction and related vehicle trips (e.g. 140 truck trips per day for a period of years) and related cumulative impacts is a significant deficiency under SEPA.
• The FEIS continues to omit queuing/blocking impacts important to assessment of operation of emergency vehicles.
• It does not provide any real alternatives for reducing and/or mitigating traffic impacts on the neighborhood.
  
• The Montlake/45th Street/5 corners intersection LOS is not supported by actual improvements or travel time calibration.

The next Citizen's Advisory Committee Meeting will be Tuesday, December 9, 6-9 pm, Children's Hospital, Sound Café (5th floor in the Whale Zone).