Oak Park Hospital Wins
Vote, expansion to begin
The long-debated Oak Park Hospital expansion plan gained unanimous
approval Thursday night from the village board, which had its say on the
issue two days after the hospital and opposing residents had their final
comments.
Oak Park Hospital and the Partners '99 group that includes
Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago,
which manages
the Oak Park facility, now hopes to open in the spring
of 2001 a new
five-story medical office building proposed months
ago for the open area
to the south of Oak Park Hospital, 520 S. Maple Ave.
At a Monday, Nov. 29 hearing on the zoning variances
asked for by the
hospital, Oak Park residents in RUSH, Residents United
to Save our
Homes, presented their much-stated case that the new
building--with its
accompanying added parking and traffic and with demolition
of some
nearby homes--would hurt their neighborhood and its
safety. Partners '99
said the new building would not be so detrimental
to the neighborhood
and was needed for marketing so the hospital could
survive in the
changing health care field. Thursday's meeting was
devoted to the board
members' deliberations on the zoning ordinances, and
the seven-member
village board sided with the hospital and with the
stated added property
tax revenue for Oak Park and its local governments.
"We need Oak Park Hospital's development," said Trustee
William "J.J."
Turner. Not only is the hospital a needed institution
in the village,
Turner said, but the new building is estimated by
Partners '99 to
generate between $900,000 and $1.1 million per year
in property taxes.
"I really believe this project will be an asset," said
Trustee Gus
Kostopulos.
"I am confident we have not made an inappropriate decision,"
said
Trustee Joanne Trapani.
While siding with the hospital expansion, Trapani and
some other board
members, however, criticized Oak Park Hospital and
Partners' 99 for
pushing too hard to gain approval for the project
while initially
excluding residents and their concerns about the impact
on their
neighborhood.
Trapani called the hospital's attitude at times "arrogant."
And she said
the residents' concerns have to matter to hospital
officials "as much as
stockholders."
A major turnaround on the issue came when the project's
zoning variances
earlier this year came before the Oak Park Plan Commission,
a volunteer
panel of Oak Park residents that advises the village
board on planning
and development matters. After conducting several
public hearings, the
commission got the hospital officials to make some
changes to the
medical building plans, and last month, the commission
ultimately
recommended passage of the needed zoning--although
by a slim 5-4 vote.
Based on comments from residents, the Plan Commission
favored the
hospital building only if the placement of the five-story
building was
changed, the neighborhood's residential character
was not changed as
much, fewer homes than planned were demolished and
much parking was
relocated across Maple Avenue to the west and closer
to Harlem Avenue.
Village board members also mostly credited residents
for airing their
grievances during the debate and bringing to light
discussion that led
to the changes that were made--even if residents on
Thursday remained
opposed to the revamped project.
"You produced a better project," Village President
Barbara Furlong said
about the efforts of the involved members of RUSH.
Trustee Barbara Ebner also said "a lot of changes have
been made"
because RUSH residents raised concerns. But she also
said the residents
had not been fair to insult the hospital officials
at times during the
debate and had been "somewhat intractable, too."
Ebner also led the way
in pushing for those officials to stay in touch with
residents during
the coming construction project. The approvals granted
Thursday include
a provision that hospital officials must meet "periodically"
with
residents to keep them up to date on developments
and to gain feedback.
"There's a new game in town and it's called being a
good neighbor," said
Trustee Rick Kuner, who also encouraged hospital officials
to work with
residents to ease future fears.
Trying to allay some of the fears now, Kuner said village
hall has
undertaken several programs to improve traffic safety
throughout the
village and would work to lessen traffic impact on
the neighborhood near
Oak Park Hospital. Kuner also presented information
showing that homes
property values in the hospital area have grown faster
than most areas
of Oak Park and he expected that trend to continue
even with the
hospital expanding.
- By ERIC LINDEN
The Oak Park Hospital expansion
debate wasn't settled Monday, after the
latest round of nearly five
months of tense and bitter discussion, when
the Oak Park village board decided
that a final decision could wait
another couple of days.
The board held a special meeting
Nov. 29 to hear both sides of the
proposal by the hospital to
build a new medical office building next to
its main campus at 520 S. Maple
Ave. But after hours of hearing, the
board delayed a final ruling
on a requested zoning variance until after
a meeting on Thursday, Dec.
2, at 7:30 p.m. in village hall.
For three hours, the seven-member
village board heard the arguments in
favor of the hospital expansion
from Partners '99, which represents Oak
Park Hospital, and the opposition
from R.U.S.H., the Residents United to
Save Homes organization headed
by residents who own homes near the
hospital. The two sides have
been arguing the case in various public
forums since June when Partners
'99 applied for the zoning variance
necessary to undertake the project.
Arguments apparently are now
over as the village board--Village
President Barbara Furlong and
Trustees Barbara Ebner, Carolyn
Hodge-West, Gus Kostopulos,
Rick Kuner, Joanne Trapani and William
Turner--will continue their
deliberations about the case at Thursday's
meeting.
In summary, the hospital and
its partners are seeking to have a new
office building to better compete
in the changing healthcare field,
while the RUSH members want
to block a project they see as dangerous to
their neighborhood, as hurting
the area's character and as unnecessary
to the village as a whole--in
its current form and placement.
"We do not object to (the new
building); we object to it in the middle
of our neighborhood and the
poor planning," said Dominque Frigo, an
attorney who lives near the
hospital.
"The future viability of Oak
Park Hospital ... rests with the decision you
(village board members) make,"
said Bruce Elegant, president and CEO of
Oak Park Hospital.
Proposed is a $25 million project
that would include a five-story office
building on what is now a surface
parking lot to the south of the
hospital, additional parking
either south of that lot or--as proposed
last week--across Maple Avenue
and close to Harlem Avenue, landscaping,
traffic controls and other features.
Partners '99 principal Todd Bryant
estimated Monday that between
$900,000 and $1.1 million in additional
property taxes would be generated
for Oak Park local governments, which
is a major reason for it to
be favored, the officials said.
"But at what cost to the immediate
neighborhood and the community at
large?" asked Lendell Richardson,
who lives on Wisconsin Avenue south of
the hospital. He and other RUSH
members--who attended Monday's hearing
brandishing "No Rezoning" signs--said
the adverse traffic and other
conditions caused by the proposed
project should be rejected by the
village board. Besides their
personal feelings, RUSH members also said
the project does not meet development
standards set forth by village
government.
The Oak Park Plan Commission,
a volunteer panel of village residents
that advises the village board
on planning and development issues, had
favored the building plan by
a 5-4 vote on Nov. 17. Both opponents and
supporters of the plan saw it
as beneficial to their side that the Plan
Commission favored the building
plan narrowly.
To gain that majority, Partners
'99 changed the project somewhat,
agreeing to turn the building
and mitigate its impact on the adjacent
residential area, to move the
parking across Maple and to take down
fewer homes in the neighborhood.
RUSH members continued to oppose the
project's impact on their neighborhood.
"It's a neighborhood filled with
children," said Anne Fueh, an attorney
who lives on Wenonah south of
Oak Park Hospital.
Also Monday, the two sides continued
to disagree on virtually every
aspect of the planning and zoning
debate, including the following
issues.
1. When RUSH charged that the
Partners '99 group had wrongly negotiated
private settlements that took
two leading RUSH members out of the
discussion, Partners '99 attorney
Mark Burkland of Oak Park called the
charges "untrue and unfair."
2. When the hospital bragged
of additional property taxes, Frigo
cautioned that the builders
might in the future seek a waiver to negate
those extra taxes, and neighbor
Margaret Abbott said the new revenue
would be only a fraction of
the government budgets involved.
3. When Partners '99 pointed
to increased property values since the
construction of a larger physicians
office building near the West
Suburban Health Care hospital
in Oak Park, RUSH members suggested those
increases were not so rosy.
4. RUSH again encouraged Partners
'99 to put up the office building
either on Madison Street north
of the hospital or near Harlem Avenue.
The Oak Park Architectural League,
a group of architects who live and
work in Oak Park, in a letter
sent earlier Monday to Furlong, said
either alternative location
could be done without much impact. But
Partners '99 officials said
the Madison site would raise building costs
by $6 million and the Harlem
site would cost $5 million more.
Such large extra costs would
hurt the hospital, officials said, because
rents in the new building would
be too high to attract doctors needed to
make the project successful.
Both sides also brought in others
to make personal testimonies on their
positions. RUSH said a petition
signed by 850 Oak Park residents against
the hospital project included
60 percent who do not live in the
immediate neighborhood. And
included in the backing of the hospital
project were statements from
the Madison Street Business Association,
the Oak Park Development Corporation,
the Oak Park-River Forest Chamber
of Commerce and Oak Park residents
who volunteer at the hospital.
The supporters said Oak Park
Hospital has made progress since two years
ago when world-famous Rush-Presbyterian-St.
Luke's Medical Center in
Chicago began managing Oak Park
Hospital.
"It would be a shame to stymie
this [hospital's] improvement," said
Margaret Zangrilli, who lives
in Oak Park, volunteers at the hospital
and serves on its auxiliary
board.
Finally, among those also opposing
the project was Oak Park resident
William B. Sullivan, an attorney
who is a Democratic candidate for state
representative of the 7th District,
which includes the hospital area,
other parts of Oak Park and
parts of some other near western suburbs.
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