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HomeMy WebLinkAbout3/21/2022 Item 4b, Lucas From:Elizabeth Lucas <elizabethrlucas@gmail.com> Sent:Monday, March To:Advisory Bodies Subject:1911 & 1873 Johnson Ave. This message is from an External Source. Use caution when deciding to open attachments, click links, or respond. Hello Advisory Body Committee Members, I am unable to attend the meeting tonight due a to a conflict, but I am hoping to voice my concerns and ask some questions regarding the expansion of the Hospital property for your consideration during the meeting. I apologize in advance for the length of my email, but I wanted to be thorough so you could understand context of the questions! :) For the most part, I take no issue with the project - I think access to a more advanced hospital and emergency flight response is a boon to our isolated community. For note I live at 1327 Breck Street, which is the home in the corner of one of the parcels on the north side of the property (pink circle). I have lived here for nine years and have seen many of the projects that the hospital has already completed. I feel that I have a fair bit of authority to speak to what the experience has been to the neighborhood and residents surrounding the hospital during their recent work. I wanted to write to you all so that you had first-hand experience reporting of what it is like living in a residence next to the hospital during construction. Just generally, the construction noise is a huge prevention to the enjoyment of our home. Typically machines are turned on before 7am to get them into place (mostly 1 loud warning beeps for reversing), with actual work starting at 7am. The loud BEEP BEEP BEEP is constant throughout the day. The actual work of the machines is fairly tolerable since its a low rumble, but the backing warning beeps and jackhammers are particularly onerous. While construction is going on you cannot be outside, and even with the windows closed - you hear beeping/noise all day long inside the house. We both work from home and often cannot be in meetings if it’s a room facing the construction. I think the noise study vastly understates how much the noise has been a constant annoyance in our life for months and months without end. We do not get any updates or notifications from the hospital on timelines, what’s going on, when things will end or changes to schedules. I understand a lot of that can’t be avoided, construction is just noisy - but I’d ask you as the committee to take serious consideration into the impact to the surrounding neighborhoods. Could you perhaps restrict the construction hours (For example maybe no Saturdays? Maybe start later on Saturdays? No vehicles turned on at all until 7am?) and outline more specifically what notifications are required to be done. I’d love if there were posted physical signs on how they’re doing on certain phases and when they’re expected to end (since no construction project ever goes to plan and often is extended or changed). The current plan does not have an updated schedule (it says it’s supposed to start 2/2021 on the parking garage - which obviously is changed). If this project is going on for 27 months, I think the residents in the area deserve an easy location that they can see what activities are going to occur in real time and any delays. Another thing that I did not see mentioned in the plans were visual impacts to privacy of nearby residents. Landscaping, new building heights, etc will put nearby residents in potential view of strangers inside their homes. I think the visual impact study needs to consider not just where the new building heights will be visible from, but how the building immediately surrounding the hospital might be affected by the plans. For an example of what I mean, in a previous project, a parking lot was created to connect the hospital to Breck Street. The project originally did not include any privacy blockers to our house and the parking spaces looked straight into our living room and kitchen windows. After a request, a green fence was added. I think that it was simply an oversight in the plan to consider the impact of those immediately surrounding the parking lot. But for us that oversight was HUGELY impactful. That being said, nothing in *this* plan personally will affect our property - but I did notice that the visual study did not include anything noting changes in privacy/blocking to the nearby homes on the South side of the property. There are several apartment buildings and high-value homes in the area and I would suggest that the hospital take that into account. The small addition of the green fence for our property did a lot of goodwill in my sentiments towards the hospital, so they may want to take similar proactive steps to neighbors who potentially are affected on the South side. I would also like to see the modifications to the bike path more clearly laid out. This path has become a crucial connection for the Breck and Ella St neighborhoods and is used all day by many people walking their dogs, riding bikes, going to school. It’s a big benefit to the community! I think the easy thing would be just to close the bike path for construction, but I’d like to advocate that there is a detour outlined, and whenever possible, an alternate route is made available through the project area. At a minimum, there should be signage of what the timeline would be for closures and reroutes to the path. Lastly, some “pie-in-the-sky” wishlist items that I figured is a good time as any to mention: - There is a flat grassy space on the North side of the bike lane - would be a great spot for a little local dog park for the residents? Adding some fencing, a water fountain, and a few benches would add a huge community benefit with not too much work. - The view from the parking lot is top notch and is similar to the view from Terrace Hill. I’d highly recommend the hospital consider adding some viewing benches on the top of the parking garage. Hospital patients and local residents would love the opportunity to see the mountains from this new perch! 2 Thank you for listening to all this feedback and thoughts. If anyone from the construction company or Committee would like to speak with a local resident to understand more about how construction and the expansion could partner with the community to be less of an impact - I’d be very happy to meet with anyone! Liz Lucas 1327 Breck Street. 805-801-5050 3