Edward Hospital won't buy homes

Edward Hospital officials are pulling the plug on a plan to purchase eight homes adjacent to its Naperville campus.

Lou Mastro, the hospital's vice president of facilities and construction, sent a letter to the city council Wednesday declaring "Edward's negotiations to purchase the adjacent properties should be terminated" because the "negotiations have had mixed and varied responses."

Many of the residents said the characterizations of the negotiations in the letter to the city leaders are false.

The letter read that one family indicated they would be willing to sell their property for nearly $1 million and did not respond to calls from the hospital's appraiser.

"Wrong and wrong," said attorney Mike Webster, who represents Al and Anissa Olley. "They asked what would make my clients happy and I spoke directly with their appraiser."

Hospital officials could not be reached for further comment Wednesday evening.

Beside the negotiating hurdles, hospital officials also cited overlying covenant regulations regarding land use in the neighborhood that could potentially open the hospital up to lawsuits from other residents in the area.

Hospital officials want the land in an effort to create a 200-foot setback from the neighborhood for a proposed future expansion. If built now, the expansion would be 30 feet from some of the adjacent properties.

Because no construction would occur on the residential land they purchased, Webster doesn't believe the covenant issue would be a problem.

"In my opinion that is not a valid reason for not purchasing the homes," he said.

Phil Kapela, another resident negotiating with Edward officials, said he was told all eight homeowners didn't have to agree to sell for the negotiations to move forward. He wasn't aware the hospital was ceasing negotiations.

"Our housing value is going down throughout all of this," he said. "This is a complete about-face, a complete reversal of what they told us."

The city is trying to reign in growth at the campus and proposed new zoning regulations earlier this year to prevent unwieldy expansions. The new zoning creates the need for the 200-foot setback.

Mastro's letter indicates that the city and hospital architects are working on design plans that would lessen the impact of the expansion on the neighborhood.

"Our architects have developed design standards that would reduce the appearance of bulk and mass," the letter stated. "We agreed to a height restriction of 60 feet at the 30-foot setback. Although this results in a reduction of beds, the visual impact will be improved."

Councilman Bob Fieseler said he has not seen any of the new architectural renderings but was still concerned about proximity to residential housing.

"The good-neighbor policy would say a monolithic structure 30 feet away from a residence is something we'd want to avoid," he said.

Hospital officials have stated they need the expansion to provide bed space for future residential growth in Naperville and surrounding communities.

They initially told the council they would need the expansion only if a proposal for a Plainfield hospital was denied by the state, but later Mastro said they always planned on building the expansion. This upset some councilmen who believe they were misled.

"I'm disappointed in the hospital from the standpoint that they have changed their position between expansion of Naperville and building in Plainfield," Councilman James Boyajian said. "But they are free to make their own cases. It doesn't taint my view of what has gone on between them and the homeowners."

The rezoning issue is expected to be back in front of the council at its Oct. 16 meeting.