CC Minutes - 09/08/03 Mtg - Laserfiche WebLink

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Councilor Bettman questioned the usage of a high school site for purposes of comparison to a hospital site. She asked if the parking impact of visitors and patients had been considered in this equation. Mr. Coyle responded that such statistics would be built into the Institute of Traffic Engineers manual (ITE) estimates, but would not be built into the employee count. Councilor Bettman called the numbers "artificially low" and recommended that the statistics be revised for better accuracy and presented for further consideration by the council. In response to another question from Councilor Bettman, Mr. Coyle affirmed that the Planning Commission recommendation was consistent with the Metro Plan and an amendment would not be needed. Councilor Bettman asked why the issue of the placement of larger clinics had been included for considera- tion at this time, given the limited resources and the desire to streamline, when possible, such actions. Mr. Coyle replied that the Planning Commission had recommended initiation of a broader discussion, but that the staff recommendation, in terms of modification of land uses, only related to hospital uses. He said that the discussion had broadened to ancillary uses at the behest of the commission, but that staff was still of the opinion that consideration for such uses should be deferred to a more general code update. Councilor Nathanson asked how the Certificate of Need would create geographic restrictions and how this would impact the discussion. Mr. Coyle expressed his belief that the service area did not align with the options and did include a broader base in Eugene than was envisioned in the Planning Commission's option. Councilor Nathanson declared the most important objective to be the insurance of good quality health care in the City of Eugene, including a full service hospital and emergency room. She felt that the proposal made by the Planning Commission could be so prescriptive that it would "chase away" the options for a hospital. She expressed her preference for having a hospital that was located on the south side of the river, noting that this was the side that she resided on, but stressed that, above all, it was important to have a hospital that served all of Eugene rather than the City finding itself with no hospital service. She underscored that this was someone else's project and not a municipally owned hospital and that the location for the hospital would ultimately be decided by the company that would build it. She could not support the Planning Commission's recommendation without some modifications, though she appreciated some of the issues that had been raised and the work done looking at the appropriate zones and the ancillary uses. Councilor Meisner refrained from sharing his comments until the record was closed, as per his preference. He asked three questions for staff to respond to prior to the meeting scheduled for September 22 meeting, as follows: · How did legal counsel think a negotiating committee could function in terms of real estate negotiations and whether the meetings would be public or confidential? · Could staff analyze the degree to which incentives or disincentives could dictate where a hospital could or could not locate? · Noting that, from the time that Peace Health Hospital announced it was leaving, every staff presentation regarding this issue had featured a different dollar amount and a different amount of employees, what were the most accurate statistics in this regard? Councilor Pap6 moved to keep the record open until September 15. Ms. Taylor pro- MINUTES--Eugene City Council September 8, 2003 Page 10 Regular Meeting