Neighbors United
Scrappy Group of Citizen Neighbors Taking on the Billion Dollar Sutter Juggernaut
Problems with the planned Sutter hospital center for 53rd Street in Emeryville has citizens in Emeryville and North Oakland concerned enough they are coalescing into a new activist group called Neighbors United. The 30+ member group, open to all, has several members of the former activist group RULE (Residents United for a Livable Emeryville) among its founders. The group invites all who are concerned about the Sutter project to the meetings (the next one will be tomorrow).
Sutter Health proposes a new 200 bed facility, about the same size as Kaiser Oakland, in a 330 foot tall tower with a heliport on the roof with 20,000 project generated car trips. The hospital plus administration buildings will total approximately 1.3 million square feet in a footprint half the size of Kaiser Oakland.
The 200 bed, 330 foot tall hospital with accompanying administration and parking structures totaling 1.3 million square feet and will present “traffic gridlock” as Neighbors United presented it, generating thousands of daily car trips as well as heliport noise and risks from all the low altitude helicopter flights to and from the proposed rooftop helipad. Several Neighbors United members state the project should move elsewhere because it is too large for the site and too constrained by it (being right up against the rail road tracks west of Horton Street) and so it will have an unnecessarily deleterious effect on the whole neighborhood.
A Neighbors United organizer and former RULE founder, Tracy Schroth pointed out the irony of Sutter Emeryville being a “trauma center creating trauma for the neighborhood”.
Sunday’s meeting, the group’s second, will be at 11:00 AM at Stanford Park at the corner of Stanford and Hollis streets..
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| Neighbors United flyer making the rounds in the neighborhood. |
Juggernaut is the right word. There's no way this group will be able to stop or even redirect this beast. We are talking a billion dollars. Sutter is coming and nobody can do anything about it.
ReplyDeleteAs in Emeryville senior citizen who has had to go by ambulance to both Alta Bates and to Sutter Hospital in Oakland, I am thrilled that we might have a World class hospital nearby. Why reflexively oppose everything new? Why not workp collaboratively with Sutter to improve the project around the edges without removing the opportunity to have first class healthcare for Emeryville’s citizens?
ReplyDeleteWell for one thing, Sutter has been completely opaque and unwilling to listen to the community. At their first (required) public meeting Sutter hosted a few weeks back, they promised the crowd they will be totally transparent and desirous of working as good neighbors in the community. They promised they would be available to answer questions and they provided a contact person with a telephone number and an email address. Immediately following the conclusion of the meeting, Sutter went into silence mode. The Tattler made many phone calls and emails with questions my readers want the answers to but they completely and utterly failed to call back or respond by email. We cannot get this project to improve around the edges because Sutter is irresponsible. They are trying to fast track this thing in, all without public support. Anyone interested in accountability in public policy and public land use issues should be against this type of corporate arrogance Sutter is doing.
DeleteAs an Emeryville senior citizen who goes to Kaiser Oakland I absolutely oppose this dangerous fantasy project. This small lot is not zoned for this for a reason. We are single lanes, bicycles, and school children in this neighborhood. Helicopters and ambulances and 30,000 car trips each day will not fit here. Sutter wants you to believe the only way they can expand services is from a tiny lot in a quiet neighborhood not zoned for 24 hour anything. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
DeleteTrippin ¿
ReplyDeleteit’s shocking how sutter sycophants quickly attacked judith’s tattler letter and refuse to see clear as day a hospital is ill suited to be in emeryville. good job neighbors united, brian, judith, tracy, emeryville tattler uniting to speak up for citizens no to corporate arrogance.
ReplyDeleteRULE with a different name. This FAR LEFT NIMBY group will fail like RULE did. Emeryville residents want a hospital and all the high paying JOBS it will bring.
ReplyDeleteWhat's far left about citizens coming together to hash out a large development in their neighborhood?
Delete"RULE with a different name"? From your lips to god's ear. RULE was the most effective citizen activist group in Emeryville history. RULE was not left or right: RULE was center. Every single politician RULE endorsed (over more than ten years), every candidate won. That is mainstream Emeryville. RULE was influential and effective and mainstream. Emeryville would be blessed if Neighbors United can be as effective as RULE was. Organized citizen activism is a wonderful thing for any community to have.
DeleteYou should be happy RULE founding members are back to protect Emeryville. Why do you want to be bulldozed by a hospital juggernaut?
DeleteSutter already said they're bringing all their Berkeley employees with them. They're really being dishonest about jobs. Have you even LOOKED at where they think this HUGE Sutterville will go? They need the lot rezoned. They need the height restrictions lifted. They need to eliminate all the bicycle infrastructure. They need to cut down all the trees. There will be 20,000 new car trips in and out of the area each day. And ambulances and helicopters with their concussive, dangerous noise. Almost 15,000 people each day coming to the neighborhood and using a 1991 space parking structure. Where will they park? Bus stops in the neighborhood are set up where the bus blocks the single lane when they stop to pick up. Will ambulances just wait? The neighborhood will suffer dramatically. Extending out into surrounding neighborhoods the traffic will impact already congested streets and cause back ups. This is an existential crisis for who Emeryville thinks they are. This isn't nimby nonsense; this is absolutely the wrong place for this massive project, and everyone involved is trying to rush it through. Do some research, seriously.
DeleteKalimah was the only one who showed up for the people at the meetings. Re-elect Kalimah! He’ll listen to the people’s concerns about this
ReplyDelete