VA Presents Recommended Master Plan for Replacement Hospital in Louisville.

Executive Summary.
Last night, the Veterans Administration held the latest of a series of public meetings related to the construction of a replacement VA Hospital on the lot it purchased at 4906 Brownsboro Road. The purpose of the meeting was to present the preferred Facility Master Plan that will be used by subsequent design and construction phases. The public had been invited to submit questions orally or in writing; before, during, or after the meeting. However, as in earlier meetings, the audience of individuals living in adjacent residential developments had a different agenda and wanted to speak only about placing the hospital elsewhere, and in particular, downtown. The same arguments used in the past were rehashed with an additional creative one or two offered. Sadly, an increasingly desperate minority, applauded generously by the audience, cast a degree of ugliness on the proceeding. The process degenerated into threats of lawsuits and a personal attack on the integrity of a respected VA official. A summary of the meeting is presented below.

Site Details.
The meeting ran over its two hours and was led by the same planning team as the last meeting. I counted about 79 people in attendance. After an initial slide outlining the kinds of questions that had been proposed from the community, the presenters went right to a slide illustrating the proposed layout of the hospital complex on the available land. An effort was made to emphasize how the input of the community has helped shape the results. The attractive sides of the hospital and its parking building face the community. Green space, landscape buffering, and set back from the lot line were maximized. The Energy Center, tank farms and other support facilities were placed in a back corner along the Expressway. The ambulance entry and delivery loading dock were similarly placed away from view. The location of a second emergency access site to the complex from Crossgate Manor was identified. New to the discussion was the addition of a separate office building for the Veterans Benefit Administration with a designated parking area for that function.

 Click to enlarge.

Comments ranged from thoughtful and respectful, through incoherent and insulting. Some additional concerns were expressed by audience members. I think they were surprised and disappointed that the hospital itself will stand some nine stories (about 160 feet) above ground level with a lower (100 ft) parking facility. There is still uncertainty and concern about the nature of the fence required to meet the VA’s security policy and the neighbors desire for privacy. There was much discussion about whether the gate-controlled emergency access had to be locked or not to meet federal standards. Concerns about traffic remain and the ability for the Kentucky Transportation Department to deal with it. There is still much fear expressed that their homes will be taken by eminent domain in the future. It was made clear that the hospital complex will be under federal rather than local jurisdiction. The VA reiterated its desire to work with groups of residents to participate in planning. Many comments emphasized differences between the replacement hospital and other veterans hospitals in the nation as a reason not to build there, but the major message I heard was that no two hospitals are really alike and that the present replacement site is adequate for the hospital including a 25% reserve for potential future expansion.

GrowSmart Louisville and lawsuits.
Representatives of the formal wing of the opposition group, GrowSmart Louisville, were present and continued to speak as much for a downtown location as against a Brownsboro Road hospital. Mr. Eric Gunderson claimed to represent 200 members of the group opposed. (The organization’s website lists 85 “supporters,” 24 of whom live in the ZIP Code of the Crossgate communities, and 28 who live in the adjacent ZIP Code, 40207.) Mr. Gunderson urged the audience not accept the concept that this is a “done deal,” nor to be discouraged or quit. It seems clear to me that the VA team takes the position that the government has purchased the land using proper procedures and is building its hospital.

It also seems clear that plans are being made to use Environmental Impact Studies (EIS) as a tool to delay or block development on the site. GrowSmart Louisville’s Facebook pages tell us that their legal counsel has already become involved over the matter. It is claimed that less than a complete EIS was prepared. VA officials counter that they have done all the required programatic EIS, and that the full EIS requires knowledge of the final building plans which were obviously not available at that early stage. I have no expertise or opinion of the intricacies of EIS, but we all know that such dueling is a common strategy used to delay of block development for any variety of motivations. Threats of 68 lawsuits were raised in an even more direct way by one speaker who asked if the VA would do house inspections with photographic documentation to allow compensation for structural damage from any blasting that might have to be done during construction.

Councilman Ken Fleming of the Louisville Metro Council and Representative Bob DeWeese of the Kentucky House were in the audience. Mr. Fleming encouraged the VA team to allow him to assist with communication but voiced no opinion on the suitability of the location itself. I am told that the VA is feeling no undue pressure from elected officials about the location of the new hospital.

On the other hand.
As before, not all in the audience were against building the new hospital at the Brownsboro site. It was suggested that a hospital is better than a crowded apartment complex or shopping center. It should be recognized that the Crossgate neighborhood is already surrounded by extensive commercial development. One veteran suggested pointedly that those opposing the building of the hospital on behalf of veterans like him are really more interested in keeping the hospital out of their back yards. Of course, it is possible to have both motives, but the conflict of interest is unavoidable. A few others urged the rest to accept the location and focus their energy on influencing things that were changeable. The opposition is not united in their primary goal. Some want the new hospital anywhere other than at the Brownsboro site. Some want it moved downtown to augment economic development and the commercial research enterprise of the University.

A bad finish.
The VA team including Mr. Wayne Pfeffer, Director of the Robley Rex VA Hospital, conducted the meeting in a respectful manner and with considerable restraint. Unfortunately, the meeting ended in a remarkably unpleasant manner by an individual from the audience who addressed Mr. Pfeffer personally stating that his participation in building the new hospital will be a “farce to his legacy.” Those of us who have heard the unstinted praise of Mr. Pfeffer from VA patients will make their own determinations about quality of character. In an even more distasteful argument, one individual asserted that the reason current veterans were so much against a downtown location for the new hospital was that they were from the “suburban white-flight” generation and that his younger generation did not have such anti-urban sentiments. I cannot interpret his comments as other than an accusation that veterans opposing a downtown location were doing so from a racist position. Both these commenters received applause from the audience. Unkind if not disparaging remarks were made about the Blue Family as well. I respectfully suggest to this increasingly organized opposition group that they reign in the rhetoric of some of their members who are not engendering any sympathy toward their cause. This is not an easy process in the best of circumstances. To reiterate my own bias, I support the VA’s decision not to build downtown for a variety of reasons. I do not have an opinion on what other site is most preferable but it seems to me that the planning done by local, regional, and national VA officials was done carefully and honestly.

Announcement for meeting.
Copies of Slides Shown. (xx MB)
Info-graphic handout describing Robley Rex Hospital.
Audio transcript of meeting available on request.

Peter Hasselbacher, MD
President, KHPI
15 Nov 2012