Planning Commission Approves Saint John’s DA Amendment

By Gene Williams
Lookout Staff

June 17, 2011 – The Planning Commission gave a green light Wednesday to a controversial proposal that will allow Saint John’s Health Center to get out of an agreement to build a 440-car subterranean parking garage – despite years of outcry from residents who oppose the plan.

The commission’s five-to-one decision sends the proposal forward to the City Council for a vote in July.

Saint John’s says it should not be held to its agreement to build the garage because it leases the same number parking spaces nearby at the Yahoo! Center and Saint Anne’s Parish.

The proposed amendment to the 1998 development agreement (DA) could save the hospital $25 million in construction costs.

In exchange for the concession, the City would require Saint John’s to maintain the level of off-site parking and institute a Trip Demand Management (TDM) program to reduce traffic.

The hospital would also have to pitch in for a number of community benefits – including a proposed $200,000 for construction of the nearby Memorial Park Expo Rail station.

The off-site parking program would be augmented with shuttle and valet service.

Noting that the amendment is one of the first such agreements under the Santa Monica’s new Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) update, Commission Chair Jim Ries acknowledged the plan may have some flaws.

But, more importantly, it gives planning officials the ability to learn from their mistakes and fix them, he said.

“We’ve built in a lot of checks and balances into this agreement and flexibility that allows us to adjust,” Ries said.

“We’re still going to look back at this in ten years and probably say we missed this mark, but we can’t wait for the perfect solution,” he said. “I think we just have to go forward.”

However Commissioner Jenn Kennedy – who cast the one dissenting vote – worried the City would “keep chasing” TDM targets for the hospital without ever achieving its goal.

“I am not completely convinced that (this) is the functional equivalent” of on-site parking, Kennedy said.

Hospital employees are, in essence, “essential service workers,” Kennedy said. That makes parking standards different for them than for other kinds of employees, she said.

“Would we build a firehouse without any parking? Would we build a police station without any parking? Would it be okay for them to just have a valet? Kennedy said.

The commission hearing, which lasted more than four hours, included more than two dozen members of the public who registered pros and cons for the proposal.

In a clearly organized show of support, nearly 20 employees, doctors and volunteers from Saint John’s urged passage of the amendment (although one speaker, who claimed to represent the nurses union which is in negotiations with the hospital, spoke against it.)

Residents who opposed the plan blamed the hospital for traffic and parking problems in the neighborhood. They said Saint John’s should not be allowed to walk away from its obligation to build parking.

But a majority of commissioners disagreed with the residents’ complaints that the hospital was breaking its deal.

“I don’t share that concern,” Commissioner Ted Winterer said.

“I think our understanding of parking has evolved since this development agreement was originally negotiated, Winterer said. “People perceive this as a contract, but certainly contracts are subject to renegotiation.”

The commission’s decision comes one day after the City Council approved another controversial DA amendment allowing nearby Yahoo! Center to continue a contested policy of leasing its surplus parking spaces to Saint John’s and other off-site businesses.

Passage of the Yahoo! amendment was essential for the Saint John’s plan to go forward.. The hospital leases about 400 parking spaces at the business center.

Representing Saint John’s at Wednesday’s hearing, Santa Monica land-use attorney Chris Harding said the commission’s decision was not as difficult as it might seem.

“This is not an experiment, by the way, that we’re proposing here tonight. Saint John’s has leased parking at the Yahoo! Center for the past ten years,” Harding said.

“We recognize that this is complicated in some respects, but at its core this is a simple matter,” Harding said. “This comes down to the City’s commitment to implementing the LUCE vision for parking in the health care area and in the community as a whole.”

“And that vision is quite clear,” he said. “We’re supposed to build no more parking than is necessary.”

Harding said the terms of the deal were worked out with Planning Director Eileen Fogarty, whom he called a “tough but fair” negotiator.

The amendment puts the City in a better position to monitor and control Saint John’s parking, Harding and City staff agree.

By requiring the hospital to maintain the off-site spaces, the amendment guarantees more parking for patients, staff and visitors than the hospital would otherwise have to provide, Harding said.

In addition, the amendment requires Saint John’s to undergo an annual review process and requires City approval for any adjustments the hospital’s parking program, staff said.

Under the amendment, if Saint John’s loses it’s parking at Yahoo! Center and Saint Anne’s, it will have to find “functionally equivalent” replacement parking elsewhere.

If all else fails, the City could then require the hospital to build parking on-site, the amendment states.