Decision time for new Santa Rosa Sutter hospital

<p>Supporters and opponents of a proposed new hospital north of Santa Rosa will have their chance today to discuss transit, traffic, air quality and other environmental issues in a long-awaited hearing before the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.</p><p>The meeting marks what could be a final series of hurdles in the approval process for Sutter Health's proposed 82-bed, $284 million facility on Mark West Springs Road off Highway 101 next to the Wells Fargo Center. It is expected to produce an informal vote on the hospital's environmental impact report.</p><p>Critics claim the facility will lead to increased noise, traffic and sprawl problems and that it will be underserved by existing bus routes and the planned SMART rail line.</p><p>“Many things happen from an environmental perspective ... when you locate on the fringe (of Santa Rosa),” said Steve Birdlebough, a representative of Friends of SMART. The group has lobbied for two other locations near Coddingtown Mall and closer to a proposed SMART station at Guerneville Road and North Dutton Avenue. </p><p>Each of those sites is too small, at under 20 acres, Sutter officials said.</p><p>The proposed 25-acre site offers quicker access from Highway 101, an unobstructed flight path for helicopters and sits at the center of the county's patient population, they said. </p><p>“We have an excellent plan. It's been very thought out and thoroughly vetted,” said Mike Cohill, vice president of Sutter Health.</p><p>The Sacramento-based company took over the county's Community Hospital on Chanate Road in 1996 and has been pushing for a new facility for years to comply with state seismic safety standards. </p><p>Between 2001 and 2003, a panel of community leaders, physicians and Sutter officials selected about two dozen potential sites in the Santa Rosa area for a new hospital. Four of those sites, plus the current Chanate campus were studied in detail and later ruled out for access, environmental and other reasons, Sutter and county officials said.</p><p>Sutter Health purchased the Mark West Springs Road property from the Luther Burbank Foundation, owner of the Wells Fargo Center, for $10 million in 2006. </p><p>Today's discussion likely will center on the site's accessibility to patients and employees and its impacts on traffic and air quality.</p><p>Sutter officials insist the new location affords patients easier access to emergency and daily care. But opponents claim its reliance on auto traffic will clog major roadways and be hard to reach for those relying on bus and rail lines.</p><p>As part of the proposal, Sutter is required to pay $1.3 million in traffic impact fees and build two bus stops near the new hospital's entrance.</p><p>Still, critics say county buses serve the area with less frequency than the Chanate hospital and have called on Sutter to help fund an expansion of the bus service.</p><p>Sutter is working with the county and city of Santa Rosa on bus routes but will not investing in their expansion, said Cohill, the Sutter Health vice president.</p><p>Less than 3 percent of the patients at the Chanate campus use public transportation, he said.</p><p>County staff also have asked supervisors to consider requiring some form of mitigation to reduce the new hospital's larger carbon footprint.</p><p>The new facility is expected to produce up to 10,227 metric tons in greenhouse gas emissions each year. That is 3,834 tons more than the Chanate hospital and 2,734 tons over a limit set by state air quality regulators.</p><p>Most of those emissions will come from vehicles, according to a county staff report.</p><p>The report recommended Sutter be required to install a renewable energy source — solar panels in the parking lot, for example — or fund a public project such as a bikeway that would reduce local emissions.</p><p>Cohill said he has pushed back against those recommendations because they lack dollar figures.</p><p>“We're not quite happy about their proposal,” he said.</p><p>Ken Ellison, the lead county planner for the project, said staff would be looking for direction from the Board of Supervisors on how to arrange for mitigation.</p><p>After one more hearing before supervisors on Sutter's access-to-care contract with the county, tentatively set for Aug. 17, the entire proposal could come back to the board for approval before September. </p><p>If given the go-ahead, Sutter could break ground on the hospital in October and open the facility by 2014.</p>