County puts an end to hospital deal
October 8, 2008
By Ed Farrell
The effort to relocate Snoqualmie Valley Hospital to a 72-acre site at state Route 18 and I-90 in Snoqualmie is dead.
In a 5-3 vote — in which Council member Kathy Lambert, who represents the parcel in question, was absent — the King County Council declined to expand Snoqualmie’s Urban Growth Area to include the parcels necessary to allow the hospital to move forward with its relocation plans.
Council members Reagan Dunn, Jane Hague and Pete von Reichbauer voted in favor of the expansion, while Council members Bob Ferguson, Larry Phillips, Dow Constantine, Julia Patterson and Larry Gossett were opposed.
Hospital officials had previously stated they feared such a vote was possible, and have already shifted their focus to alternate sites, including the Snoqualmie Business Park on Snoqualmie Ridge, in part because of mounting expenses involved with the I-90 location.
The council vote, part of that body’s quadrennial update of the Comprehensive Plan, leaves the parcels at their current rural residential zoning of one home per five acres.
It also effectively eliminates any plans for other potential uses, such as a possible move by Bellevue Community College to place a satellite campus on the site, for at least four more years.
King County Hospital District No. 4, which operates the hospital, as well as Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson, who had asked for UGA expansion to be approved regardless of the hospital’s plans, had aggressively sought the UGA expansion.
Concerns regarding environmental impacts had prompted County Executive Ron Sims to impose a 4:1 Transfer of Development Rights, or TDR, requirement on any such UGA expansion, meaning the hospital would have been required to purchase and dedicate four acres of preservation land for every acre it wanted to develop.
A preliminary deal that would have allowed the district to purchase $1 million in credits from the county’s TDR bank – an agreement hospital officials previously said virtually guaranteed the UGA would be expanded – apparently dissolved once the district concluded it could not afford to move forward at the desired location.
The district had already planned to spend up to $24 million to purchase the necessary land, and had intended to resell portions to BCC and other prospective partners, such as a hotel and a residential care facility.
A recent cost analysis reportedly unveiled unexpected costs to the district due to the need to enter into a late-comer’s agreement with the city of Snoqualmie, which would have required the district and other potential partners to pay a fair-share cost of already installed infrastructure to the 72-acre site.
The district has already sold its existing hospital and 50-acres of land to the Snoqualmie tribe for $30 million in an agreement that gives the tribe up to two years to pay off the balance. The tribe intends on using the former hospital, which is located near the tribe’s reservation and casino property, as a regional Native American healing center.
Hospital officials have previously stated their commitment to building a new facility in Snoqualmie, and identified the business park location as their new desired location.
Mayor Larson, in a previous interview, said such relocation would be allowed under the park’s development plans, but was not as desirable as the I-90 site.
Hospital legal counsel Jay Rodne declined to comment Tuesday morning on the council decision, referring all questions to hospital director Rodger McCollum, who was unavailable for comment. Mayor Larson was also unavailable Tuesday for comment.
Reach reporter Ed Farrell at efarrell@snovalleystar.com or 392-6434. Comment on this story at www.snovalleystar.com.
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