Edward Hospital closer to expansion
Saying the benefit to the many outweighs the detriment to a few, Naperville's city council paved the way for Edward Hospital to build a massive expansion 50 feet from a residential property line.
Several council members who voted in favor of an exemption to the rezoning initiative for the hospital campus Tuesday apologized to the adjacent homeowners but explained their decision was based on the needs of the entire community.
"If I were king of Naperville, I would want to compensate the homeowners for the diminished value of the properties, but I don't know how to do that," Councilman Bob Fieseler said.
Eight houses are in the affected area.
If built, the expansion along the southern border of the campus would rise 120 feet in height -- the first 60 feet only 30 feet from the property line and the final 60 feet set back 50 feet from the residences. Similar construction of that height elsewhere on the campus would require a setback from residential property of 250 feet.
Hospital officials said they would need the expansion within five to 10 years, but they have not submitted any plans to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which has ultimate authority over the expansion.
"There is a moral obligation to protect these residents from (financial) loss," Councilman John Rosanova said. "But there's also a moral obligation to protect the health of the 150,000 people who live here."
The council's vote Tuesday gave preliminary approval to the rezoning; it is expected to make a final vote at its Dec. 18 meeting, but that is considered merely a formality.
Impacted residents penned poems and built scale models of the proposed expansion in an effort to sway the council to their side. They complained the value of their property has dropped since the hospital's plans were publicized.
"I beg of you to approve the rezoning without the exemption because it would require the hospital, instead of the hardworking taxpayers, to deal with the hospital's poor long-term planning," resident Ilene Lane said.
But hospital officials argued the expansion, which would create room for 175 to 200 new beds, has always been in the hospital's plans. One of the hospital's attorneys, Bill Brestal, showed newspaper clippings from 1970 that touted the hospital's plans at that time to one day have a campus that features a 500-bed high-rise hospital.
Councilmen who favor the exemption also note the rezoning would create more restrictions on what will be built than what currently exists. The hospital even agreed to build the future expansion to the specifications presented in drawings that have been submitted to the city.
"You can interpret and scrutinize what we've said, but when you wipe away the rhetoric, you cannot question our motives," said Sandy Benson, a hospital spokeswoman. "The one consistent element in all of this is Edward Hospital's commitment to quality health care for the entire community. We are not only accountable to the 30 residents of one neighborhood but to 150,000 residents of Naperville and tens of thousands more in surrounding communities."