OPINION: City needs to press for real solutions to hospital growth

I live on Sunnyview Lane, one house back from the corner of Sunnyview and Glacier View Drive. The hospital’s growth has had direct negative impact on me and I expect the glass front of the new hospital addition to shed light on my neighbors and my homes 24/7. The hospital has not been a good neighbor to those of us who live by it.

I was angered by the article, “Growth puts pressure on parking, roads,” on Aug. 6. I believe that statements made by Tom Jentz and Jim Oliverson are untrue.

 The current parking crisis at the hospital has been created by the City Council, the city planer and the hospital. It is the result of poor planning and poor oversight and of a nonprofit corporation taking the cheap way out instead of building adequate infrastructure to support its growth. It is not the result of unexpected rapid growth.

The hospital’s last growth plan some years back included two parking garages. Proposed green spaces behind the homes on Glacier View Drive are now paved as part of the parking sprawl that was built instead of parking garages. In a meeting a year ago, the residents of Grandview and Sunnyview asked the City Council not to approve the zone change for the hospital land on Grandview Drive. That zone change allowed the current inadequate parking-lot expansion.

At this meeting the City Council and Mr. Jentz did not hear residents’ concerns about this zone change. Had the city not approved the zone change, the hospital may have had to consider a parking garage and a real solution to the parking sprawl and the need for additional parking.

The assertion by Mr. Jentz that he and his team did not see the parking needs coming because of rapid growth is a weak excuse for poor planning and oversight.

The city had many opportunities to pressure KRMC for the construction of parking garages.

Mr. Oliverson’s statement that the hospital does not know how patient visits have grown with expansion is laughable. Medicine today is run by bean counters. They know how many people are seen in every department of the hospital and what that department bills out. The 44-parking-space gain is clearly inadequate to serve the new proposed building. It is not a trade-off between medical equipment and parking. Parking lots do not earn profit the way medical equipment does.

The new addition described as a Women and Children’s Center is essentially a second major entrance to the hospital, connected to the existing building by a enclosed tunnel. The northeast-facing entrance encourages access from Grandview and Sunnyview.

With the completion of the Four Mile Drive connection to Grandview, there will be increased use of Grandview by hospital employees and users. Tom Hirsch ensured residents at a May 26 meeting that the hospital would not access its parking lot on Grandview from Grandview. The new parking expansion includes a connector road from Grandview Drive to Heritage Way. The gravel and fabric are already in place. A small curb cut and pavement are all that are needed to complete this connection, so much for the assurances.

In a phone conversation with me on May 25, T. Marcello Pierrottet said to me that the hospital has the legal right to access its property from Grandview Drive. This is true.

Then Marcello suggested that improvements on Grandview could be paid for by an SID (sewer improvement district).

Why should tax-paying residents be expected to shoulder the burden of infrastructure costs to support a nonprofit corporation mining our community for money? The only increased pressure on Grandview past the college is from hospital growth. We already support KRMC by paying taxes that it does not, to support our community services.

It’s time for the city to press for real solutions to parking and transportation for the hospital. Any new hospital building should be accompanied by construction of parking garages. It is the only real solution to the parking problem at the hospital complex. How refreshing it would be to have a city planner and council that took into consideration the impact the hospital’s growth had on residents.

Martinez is a resident of Kalispell.