North Delta Neighbors: Protesting Commercial Re-Zoning, Proposed Hospital on North Delta Highway, RiverRidge

Eugene City Councilors and Mayor
Eugene Planning Commission and Department of Planning & Development
Lane County Board of Commissioners
City of Springfield City Councilors and Mayor
State of Oregon Department of Health Services/Public Health Officials
Oregon Department of Transportation
Triad Hospitals, Inc.
McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center

The undersigned want the officials listed above, and all other interested parties, to know that we oppose the siting of a hospital and any commercial rezoning of the property located on North Delta Highway, specifically known as RiverRidge Golf Course. We want this property to remain zoned for residential use only, in accordance with the Willakenzie Area Refinement Plan, and Parks and Open Space, per the Metro Plan.

We oppose the proposed rezoning of the RiverRidge property and subsequent building of a hospital for reasons including, but not limited to:

1. Siting Criteria submitted to the City of Eugene on November 20, 2003, recommending citizen involvement in the hospital site-selection process, was not considered.

2. Triad's proposed hospital is less than 4 miles from the new 800,000 s.f. PeaceHealth/Sacred Heart Regional Medical Center at RiverBend and 1.5 miles north of Belt Line Road. With this concentrated hub of hospitals, the rest of the region will not have adequate hospital coverage.

3. Mitigation measures proposed in Triad's Traffic Impact Analysis appear to be a band-aid approach to relieving existing congestion at the Delta Highway/Belt Line Road interchange and in the immediately surrounding area. None will mitigate the inferior access attributes of the proposed site or the capacity issue on Belt Line Road at the Willamette River. Increased traffic from the proposed hospital will only exacerbate these issues.

4. The proposed site does not offer the basic requisites for a hospital to serve ALL citizens, such as a central location accessible from and to the populated areas from ALL directions.

5. Amendments to the Willakenzie Area Refinement Plan and the Metro Plan, affecting Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County, will mean the loss of both the Low Density Residential zoning and Parks and Open Space designation of the proposed site and will result in an incompatible use with the surrounding neighborhood.

Time is of the essence: The City and State have said they will make their decision by 08.31.06. Triad states they intend to break ground on 09.01.06.

We request that ALL issues be addressed with validity concerning other viable sites (using Hospital Siting Criteria), accessibility, traffic and safety issues, funding for road improvements, complete application materials, environmental impact, and the true answer to, "How compatible is a hospital with surrounding neighbors?" (The answer is not, "Yes," as given by Triad in their application to the Planning Department). We also require valid justification for locating a hospital away from the central core of the city on a dead-end, one-way-in, one-way-out road, in a residential neighborhood, using a reason other than that it is "shovel-ready."