Seattle Children's hospital's expansion must move forward

THE hearing examiner who turned down Seattle Children's hospital's expansion plans has made the wrong decision.

Children's is a lifesaving institution, the principal hospital for children in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. The continued service of this institution is more important than the city's rules about urban villages.

Fidelity to these rules is what mattered to hearing examiner Sue Tanner. Part of Children's plan is the eventual construction of a 160-foot high hospital building, which Tanner declares "inconsistent with the City's urban village strategy."

Grant that it is. There are other values here. This is a regional treasure that saves the lives of sick and injured children. It also has close ties to the University of Washington, which is just down the road. It has been on the site since 1953.

It needs to be accommodated.

Nobody, of course, disparages its good works. All parties, including the Laurelhurst Community Club, say they're in favor of saving the lives of kids. The club just doesn't like the size of Children's proposed buildings, the number of its ambulance visits that implies, etc.

That is not a charitable position, nor a reasonable one. Nor is it reasonable for the city to turn down the hospital's plans because it isn't in an urban village — a designation city planners invented for commercial districts.

This is not a commercial district. It is a hospital. It's in a residential neighborhood, but it's also on a four-lane arterial and designated state highway, Sandpoint Way, and is served by a bus line and the city's most-used bicycle path, the Burke-Gilman Trail.

The hospital has listened to the neighborhood and bent over backward to reduce its impacts, moving its research enterprises to downtown, opening satellite clinics. It also has created an innovative commute-trip-reduction program to reduce nonpatient traffic.

The city has laid all sorts of requirements on Children's, relating to setbacks, trees, transit use, bicycle connections, housing replacement, etc. Such things are necessary. So is having a hospital for kids, and letting it grow as the region grows.

The City Council should reverse the hearing examiner's narrow-minded decision.